Jonathan “EliGE” Jablonowski and his Team Liquid teammates are in Kiev, Ukraine to play in the StarSeries & i-League Season 5 Finals. Liquid has, so far, had a very good 2018 with a tournament win at the CS_Summit and a North American ESL Pro League Season 7 regular season championship. However, they would replace Lucas “steel” Lopes with Epitácio “TACO” de Melo, a two-time Major champion. They stumbled at DreamHack Masters Marseille 2018 finishing 9th/12th, but now with more time with TACO, Liquid looks to regain form.

EliGE walks us through some of his thoughts from Kiev.

Due to the Champion League matches, it was very complicated to arrive in Kiev this weekend. When did you arrive? Tell us about your preparation for StarSeries S5.

“We have just arrived here this morning and before we doing a five-day bootcamp in Netherlands because we already in Europe, so we just went into the office and just have a good training session leading up to this tournament.”

This season of StarSeries, many top teams decided to skip the event. Astralis, C9, FaZe were replaced by teams from qualifiers. Is that tournament like a warm up event for you, or full-scale competition?

“We don’t see any of tournaments like a warm up tournament. Every event is equal and important to win. I mean if there was one with super big prize pool so of course we want to win that one more, but there is no tournament that we just used to practice. Every single one we want to go to win.”

Let’s speak about your last reshuffle as when TACO joined Liquid. What are the differences between TACO and Steel?

“I think like in-game he is a bit more active than Steel was. He wants to take a little more initiative on CT side and T side. As for me, I think he is a little more proactive with a way he comes, where he always looking to do something. Maybe he’s a bit more aggressive too, especially on T-side… and CT-side actually (laughs). He just more aggressive all across the board, always trying get map control. I mean Steel would always do that soft too, so I guess they both kind of knowing that way.”

“But I think that big difference is the amount of calm that TACO brings and how much leadership responsibilities that he takes on.”

Ok, but don’t you guys have something like language barrier? Cause communication is SK was set up on Portuguese.

“In the beginning it was actually a lot harder. There was something. He was a little bit more confused, because we are speaking really fast, using words he doesn’t know and staff like that. But he’s being in a team for a month and a half and I think that he really improved. There haven’t been many mishaps in communication, like really major ones. Of course, there are still some language inaccuracies that messed up, but that’s natural and only help him to get better, because he realizes his mistakes and solve them. But I don’t think that we have any major language barrier problems at all.”

When he just joined you, did you guys do something inspiring to him? Some teambuilding staff?

“No, no, no, honestly. But we have been doing all that team stuff, just like hanging out together after practice or like playing retakes or whatever. We do all these things that help strengthen our team chemistry.”

In recent months, your results leave much to be desired, with the exception of the tournament in Dallas. Now you feel that you are coming back to top? Or you still have some issues on your way that you need to overcome?

“Well, when we just got TACO, we had to prepare for DreamHack Masters in Marseille and I think that was like unrealistic for us to even think that we are gonna be doing really good there, especially with a quality of teams over there, so we weren’t really looking at that tournament as something that we going to win. We just tried to get more experience. I think that over time we will only get better.”

“There is no perfect team, we are always gonna have mistakes and we always going to keep working on it. You will never going to play perfect, no team is ever play perfect in Counter-Strike, everyone loses rounds and makes a mistakes.”

Let’s go back to StarSeries. It will not be a first time you playing Swiss format with bo3 matches in group stage. What do you think about it? Are you ready for this hellish race?

“I think it’s still a good format. I can like it still and I don’t have any problems with that. I like both formats. I mean that normal GSL system and this Swiss format. We will just play what we have to and show our best.”

Imagine that you and Na’Vi both go to playoffs and meet there. Last time you faced each other on EPL, on ‘your territory’ and crowd cheered for you. Now you would play in front of thousands Na’Vi fans. Would you feel any pressure from fans?

“No, for sure. I’ve being playing for a while and it wouldn’t be my first time to play against the crowd favorite. Of course it’s kind of sucks with situation when nobody wants to watch you to win, but as I said — it wouldn’t be my first time so I am prepared for it.”

What about your non-esports life? What do you like? How do you spend time?

“I don’t know even what I have to say… Most of my time I playing CS: GO, like 7 hours per day, suddenly! (laughs) After that I just hanging out with my friends and play video games too, watching streams — that’s basically what is my life is right now.”

Who are the three CS:GO players in the world that have had the most influence on you?

“Well, I definitely place FalleN as one of the players. I think he’s just real influence man, who did many things for the scene and everybody knows about him. He is just like a pretty big figure.”

“Honestly, here a whole list comes to mind immediately. It’s hard to choose. Who do you think?”

Maybe Zeus? Coldzera? S1mple? Btw I am journalist here and asking sneaky questions! So it’s your part to answer me.

“I think pashabiceps for sure. Pasha has always been a really huge player with huge fan base. Everybody loves Pasha, it’s hard not to love him! So definitely Pasha for sure. And the third one…”

Maybe you?

“Me? No. But maybe n0thing? He is very well lets player with huge fan base. He is making tons of content, helping people for many years, so I think Jordan has to be in that list.”

EliGE and Team Liquid kick off the StarSeries & i-League Season 5 Finals against NRG at 3am EST on Monday, May 28.