One of the biggest stories to come out of the beginning of 2018 was the rise of Keith “NAF” Markovic in Team Liquid. Since joining Liquid, the team has skyrocketed to become a clear top 5 team in the world with strong chances of making the finals at any tournament they attend. One of the big reasons this was possible was because of the acquisition of NAF. For NAF this was a long journey back as he had been on the original Liquid roster three years ago. Since being kicked he has risen, fallen, and risen again. This is the climb of NAF to the top of CS:GO.

The beginning starts with the original Liquid lineup which included: Damian “daps” Steele, Eric “adreN” Hoag, Jacob “FugLy” Medina, and Nicholas “nitr0” Cannella. His time on the roster was brief, only two months. He was then replaced by Jonathan “EliGE” Jablownowski. The team should have been the starting camp for NAF’s climb. Instead, it had proven that he hadn’t grown enough as a player. So NAF slipped down the path. He played for Luminosity Gaming for a bit. He then left to team up with daps who had also been removed by Liquid by that point.

The two of them along with Will “RUSH” Wierzba, Shahzeeb ‘ShahZaM” Khan, and Peter “stanislaw” Jarguz formed the Conquest team. TThe team then got picked up by OpTic at the beginning of 2016. OpTic had internal issues with ShahZaM and eventually replaced him with Oscar “mixwell” Canellas. The team started to finally gel as a team. Mixwell was a hybrid player who became the primary AWPer of the team. NAF was the second best player on the team as he was very skilled, but couldn’t find consistency to his game. Overall the team was a decent NA roster, but had hit their ceiling.

Because of this OpTic acquired Tarik “tarik” Celik to replace stanislaw. He was one of the best players from CLG and was about to take a hiatus to be a streamer because he had lost motivation to play under CLG. This with a breath of fresh life for tarik and he decided to take control of his career from that moment. The first move he made was to kick out daps and bring back stanislaw to in-game lead. The move hit some turmoil early on as stanislaw had never in-game led before and this was a new lineup.

As the team figured out how to play each other, results started to come in the last quarter of 2016. At ESL New York 2016, the team placed 5-6th beating G2 and Astralis. At ESL Pro League Season 4 Finals, they were able to make it out of groups beating Liquid and Immortals. They then won Northern Arena Montreal over G2. These were all middle pack international teams and showed the progress that OpTic had made as a roster as they used to struggle in NA regionally. The team then hit a huge spike in form at the very end of 2016.

At ELeague Season 2, OpTic win the entire thing over Astralis in the finals. OpTic had created a free flowing swarm like style that overwhelmed their opponents. RUSH set the tempo of the team as one of the best entry-fraggers in the world at the time and every player could follow up on his speed to quickly trade out and destroy the enemy. As for NAF, he had an ascendant performance on Overpass against Astralis to secure them the victory. At that moment it looked like NAF had reached the apex of the mountain. OpTic were one of the best teams in the world, and soon after the team got second place at ECS Season 2 losing to Astralis in the finals.

Sadly the team didn’t last long. After losing in the group stages of ELeague Major Atlanta 2017, the team started to break apart. Stanislaw was the first to leave as he thought the team had hit their ceiling and roster moves weren’t imminent. This left OpTic in a lurch as they became incredibly underwhelming for the next seven months. Just as quickly as NAF’s form has ascended, it had descended. NAF was still a strong player, but never the awe-inspiring player he was in that finals against Astralis. When OpTic was at their height, he was an inconsistent support player who had a knack for clutching. As things went on in OpTic, things got worse for him as an individual player and as a team.

The team slid down the mountainside into mediocrity. It got to the point that the team finally broke apart as Tarik and RUSH left OpTic to join Cloud 9. OpTic then decided to try to build an EU team around mixwell and NAF was left in the cold. This looked to be the end of NAF’s chances to play at the highest levels of competitive CS:GO. His stock had hit rock bottom and the top NA teams in Cloud 9 and Liquid didn’t want anything to do with him.

On Sept. 1st, 2017 Renegades acquired NAF from OpTic. This was to be the turning point for NAF. The grounds from which he would become a better player, one that could challenge the best in the world. Renegades was a team that had stagnated for a long time. They were made up of the best players from Australia and showed some promise. They had a good team structure and good players, but they seemed to be mental problems that made them underwhelming. In terms of firepower they were always incredibly inconsistent. This was a team that got upset multiples times in the Asia Minors in the Major system despite being the best team in the region.

Things were at least on the up when NAF joined as Renegades had found a player to fill the whole for in-game leader in Noah “Nifty” Francis. The team then setup NAF to be a star player. In this team, NAF was the closer. He’d play off of the space his teammates created, traded them, and clutched out rounds. He was consistent the entire time he was under Renegades and his skill stabilized the entire team. It didn’t hurt as badly for the team to have inconsistent performances from other players because they could always depend on NAF to show up. This led to the team winning the Starladder i-League Invitational #2 over Virtus.Pro. It was a shocking upset as Virtus.Pro had just gotten to the finals of EPICENTER.

For NAF, playing for Renegades was a critical five months of development. He found his role as a star player and became a far better player for it. By the time 2018 rolled around, the opinion about NAF had completely turned around. NAF was no longer the last leftover of OpTic, he was another brilliant player that had come from the OpTic goldmine. Stanislaw helped Liquid become a better team. Tarik and RUSH helped Cloud 9 become Major Champions. NAF helped Renegades get to the next level of competition.

He was so good in fact that Liquid could no longer ignore him. Nearly three years later, Liquid signed NAF to the roster and changed their system to accommodate his skills. The team removed their main AWPer, Joshua “jdm64” Marzano. They decided to run a five rifle setup with nitr0 being a hybrid player who could pick up the AWP when they needed it. The plan was to be more flexible in their economy and strategies. An AWPer is a specialist, a player who needs money and needs to be setup to be effective. In NAF’s case he didn’t have that problem and he naturally fit into what Liquid needed on the T-side as the lurker.

When you break down Liquid’s composition pre-NAF, you have two strong entry players in Nitr0 and Russel “Twistzz” Van Dulken. EliGE was placed to follow up behind them as the third. Jdm64 was set up for the post plant with steel being the support. The NAF being the primary lurker, but with the flexibility to do whatever was needed on him, Liquid gained both strength and flexibility. He is a player who can consistently close out the rounds for Liquid. In terms of roles he can help clear map control with the pack or be left alone to hold map presence that has the potential to become a lurk like palace on Mirage. On the Ct-side Liquid now depend on their riflers taking the early duels. This has made Liquid much less predictable on their CT-side as when jdm64 had the AWP they always tried to get him into the action early. In their current configuration, nitr0 could have the AWP, but that doesn’t mean he will be setup to go for an early pick.

In some ways, NAF reminds me of Ricardo “boltz” Prass. Boltz was one of the original members of the Brazilian squad that came over to play in NA. He was cut from the Luminosity squad and this forced him to reevaluate himself as a player and a teammate. Since then he rebuilt his mentality and play style to become one of the best players on Immortals and was eventually picked up by SK years after he was kicked.

In the same sense, NAF had to be kicked to grow. After he was kicked from Liquid, he played in the tier 2 of NA CS to grow his game. On OpTic, he was left behind as his other teammates went on to do bigger and better things. He was left behind and then rebuilt himself on Renegades as a star player. Now it has come full circle as he has rejoined Liquid nearly three years after his initial kick. Since joining the roster, Liquid have won the CS Summit 2, got 3rd at Starladder Kiev, and top 4 at IEM WC. This is a team that has what it takes to beat any team in the world, they are at the mountain top. They are the best NA team and also a team that should win internationally, and right now NAF is among the best players in CS:GO. He has climbed all the way back to the heights of CS:GO competition and unlike last time he looks like he is here to stay.

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