We are in the Liquid Era. They have won the IEM Grand Slam and have followed with victories at BLAST Los Angelos and IEM Chicago. To establish this era, Liquid have created a new paradigm. A style of play specific to their individualistic traits that could enable them to beat their competition. Liquid have nearly perfected the art of roleless Counter-Strike.





The Origins of Roleless CS





Roleless Counter-Strike isn’t a new idea, but it was one that looked theoretically impossible. To understand why, we need to understand why the role terminology came about. Roles aren’t just a denotation for broadcasters explaining the game, but are also a short hand of the general direction and resources each player takes in a team. The natural evolution of the game defined player roles. In the beginning, people tried to create teams with five skilled players, but they never lasted long as players clashed over resources and positions.





The best example of this is SK 2017. Fernando “fer” Alvarenga and Joao “felps’ Vasconcellos. Both players wanted to be the aggressive opening fragger, but fer won out as he was in better form. Felps became a role player in the team and that eventually broke the team apart.





Roles are the general direction of a player’s talent and/or predilection of how they want to play Counter-Strike. While it was theoretically possible to get five players to play all of the different roles, in reality no one had gotten it to work until Liquid.





Liquid themselves didn’t theorize this style of play, but came upon it through the natural evolution of their lineups. In 2018, Liquid made a radical change where they became one of the first top teams to forego a main AWPer. They removed Joshua “JDM64” Marzano for Keith “NAF” Markovic. In the announcement video, Wilton “zews” Prado talked about how they were removing from the old school dedicated one AWPer and wanted to have multiple hybrid-AWPers on the team.





This was the first step in Liquid’s journey to reaching the roleless style of CS they play today. It was shocking at the time as everyone believed that you needed a AWPer specialist to become the best team in the world. Liquid have not only challegened that principle, that have overturned it.





Liquid’s 2019 roster versatility





Liquid have gathered the right five players at the right time to create their roleless style. Their lineup is: Nicholas “nitr0” Cannella, Jonathan “EliGE” Jablownowski, Russel “Twistzz” Van Dulken, NAF, and Jake “Stewie2K” Yip.





All five players have high levels of talent. Nitr0 was the NA hope in 2015 and someone people believed could be a star at an international level. Jacob “Pimp” Winneche has called EliGE the most talented teammate he has ever had. EliGE’s consistency and game sense have made him a top 5 player in the world in 2019. Twistzz has the highest mechanical ceiling of any NA player we’ve seen and he was a top 5 player in the latter half of 2018. NAF was a top 5 player in early 2018 and his raw impact could swing entire series. Stewie2K is one of the best entry-fraggers in the world on Cloud9 and has proven he is still at that level in Team Liquid.





While the talent was there, all five players needed the experience to be versatile enough to create this roleless style. All five players have learned how to play the various roles in Counter-Strike: entry, 2nd/3rd in the pack, lurking, or the passive wing. Nitr0, NAF, Stewie2K, and TwistZz can all pickup the AWP. EliGE is the only one who hasn’t, but his overall rifle play covers the entire gamut from lurking, attacking, or clutching. It also helps that he is the best krieg player in CS:GO.





Attacking, Lurking and AWPing





“I think there are only three roles: attacker, lurker, and sniper. Everyone can support.” - Januxz “Snax” Pogorzelski





That quote comes from an interview with HLTV where Snax explains his conceptions of roles. He’d later get a wakeup call in Mouz after taking up Martin “STYKO” Styk’s positions, but for the purpose of this article, it’s a useful denomination when breaking down Liquid’s versatility.





All of Liquid’s players can attack and lurk. Three of them can AWP. First we’ll start with the variations of lurkers as it can change depending on map or circumstance.





On Nuke for instance, there are three potential lurking scenarios. When Liquid take outside control with four players, NAF will be their primary lurker. When they want to fake yard control and do an explosion on the A-site, either nitr0, EliGE, or Stewie2K could play the outside lurk. Finally, they can do a spawn-based entry lurk by rushing someone down vents. I’ve seen them use Stewie2K, NAF or EliGE.





In a typical Overpass default, Liquid have NAF lurking towards the B-side. If they are leaning more towards B, they can have Stewie2K lurk up middle to create space for the B-hit. When they get into small man scenarios, any of their players can lurk up long, A short, or towards B.





On Mirage, Stewie2K is usually the one lurking mid when they plan to do an explosive hit on either A or B. Sometimes they use EliGE. Alternatively, if they lose a player in the default, NAF can potentially lurk out of palace or A-ramp to look for a pick that way.





Dust2 is variable and dependent on how the round plays out. It can be any of the five players depending on the health, their positions, and what they’ve read. If they’ve taken long with the AWP, they could leave Stewie2K there to create presence and lurk. If they hit the A-site, they can leave either nitr0 or TwistZz to hold the middle and lurk later in the round. If they fake A and do a B-split, either NAF or EliGE could lurk around cat before joining the main hit.





All five Liquid players can do the lurking role and this creates minute variations of how you play against them. For instance on Dust2, Liquid have two variations of a 1-3-1 B split. They can have TwistZz or Stewie2K come from B halls and one of NAF or nitr0 play around cat. TwistZz is more passive than Stewie2K is and they play differently around smokes. NAF is usually more passive than nitr0 is, while nitr0 likes to create more space for his team. While it’s essentially the same 1-3-1 split, the optimal counter for both hits changes depending on where the Liquid players are playing from.





The three attacking cores





Broadly speaking, Liquid use three entry duos to take map control: Stewie2K/EliGE, TwistZz/EliGE, and EliGE/nitr0. Their primary combination is Stewie2K and EliGE. You see this most commonly on Nuke, Dust2, and Inferno. On nuke they take yard control, on Dust2 they take control of mid from B tunnels, and they play banana on Inferno.





What makes this combination so potent is a fusion of the two best entry packs NA CS:GO produced: Stewie2k and Timothy “autimatic” Ta and nitr0/EliGE. Liquid have combined Stewie2K’s dynamic entry fragging with EliGE’s consistent fragging and game sense.





Liquid use the TwistZz/EliGE combination for Dust2 and Overpass. On Dust2, they take control of short. On Overpass they use TwistZz’s headshot aim and EliGE’s krieg to clear out long and middle. You can see this dynamic from the semifinals of DreamHack Dallas in their match against FURIA.













In the eighth round of the match, TwistZz and EliGE have taken toilets and are pushing out long. FURIA take out TwistZz, but EliGE uses his mobility to catch them in retreat and trade TwistZz for two frags.





The final combination is EliGE/nitr0. Liquid can use this when they are playing in a pack, taking control of mid, or taking long on Overpass. While this is the classic Liquid duo, it has changed over time as nitr0 often picks up the AWP on the T-side. In the finals of EPL 9, Liquid played against G2.













It’s worth noting that while Stewie2K and TwistZz usually go in first, it’s not always the case. Liquid have consistently used flashes to make their entry kills. You’ve seen this in the clip above, but here is another one featuring Stewie2K and EliGE.





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This round comes from the EPL 9 Finals against G2. Stewie2K and EliGE often switch roles of which one of them goes into banana first. In the 22nd round, EliGE goes in first and Stewie2K throws the flash for him which results in a double kill for EliGE.





Three AWPers





Liquid utilize three AWPers: NAF, nitr0 and Stewie2K. They are stylistically very different AWPers and this becomes a headache to deal with for the opposing T-sides. NAF is the more passive AWPer, but has a knack for knowing the exact moments of when he should go aggressive in the mid-late rounds or when he should go for the super-aggressive opening pick in a map. Nitr0 is the most standard AWPer who likes to hold angles and territory for the team, but is skilled enough to get defensive multikills. This is why he’s their primary AWPer on Overpass. Stewie2K is their combat AWPer who likes to make plays or take aggressive map control for Liquid.





The Liquid vs MIBR semifinal match at IEM Sydney displays this dynamic well.













In the fifth round, Liquid run a double AWP setup with Stewie2K looking for picks in window and nitr0 holding the B halls.













In the seventh round, Stewie2K and NAF have the AWPs. Stewie2K continues to play the aggressive playmaker as he pushes up mid. This is why Liquid have NAF on the second AWP in this round. Stewie2K is taking a larger risk and he is more likely to die. So by putting NAF on the AWP, Liquid get a rotational AWPer who can cover for Stewie2K’s spot and have a playmaker in the mid-late round if they need to make a pick happen.













You see this exact dynamic play out in the ninth round of the match. EliGE goes down early in connector and this forces Stewie2K to play the A-site more passively. In this scenario, we see Liquid’s plan B comes into effect as NAF pushes into B-halls looking for the play and info.





Liquid confidence





This style of play requires that elusive intangible we call confidence. After all, most other teams have stricter roles as they have more confidence in certain players either attacking, lurking, or AWPing. Liquid have to believe that every other player can make the play or that they can recover from it if things go awry.





Part of that confidence comes from the mix of personalities. TwistZz notes the positive change from Stewie2K entering the team. In an interview with ESPN he says, “I feel like a lot of things have changed in the past two or three months: our ability to reset, be happier, positive, always fun, laughing.”





The other part comes from the fact that all of their players have the skill of winning any situation they are put into. Nitr0 won that 1v3 against Na`Vi where Oleksandr “s1mple” Kostyliev tried to knife him:









NAF destroyed Astralis with a 4K on the AWP:













Stewie2K beat FaZe in a 1v2 with an AWP:













ElIGE had a ridiculous clutch on the final map at ESL One Cologne:













TwistZz broke the back of Vitality with this 4k:













No matter who is left alive, Liquid know that they always have a chance to win back the round.





A New Paradigm





Attacking, Lurking, and AWPing, their players can do it all. The versatility of the Liquid players is on another level. Liquid have found their style of play and through it have created a new paradigm. Paradigm setters are rare as only the greatest lineups can set the meta. NiP did it in early CS:GO. Fnatic did it from 2014-2015. LG/SK did it from 2016-2017. Astralis did it in 2018. Now it is Liquid’s turn and the sky's the limit. They’ve set a new paradigm, they’ve won the grand slam, they’ve started their era, they are the favorites to win the Major and from there, and they have the potential to be one of the greatest we’ve ever seen.