Liquid repeated their feat at ESG Tour Mykonos and once again came out victorious from the semi-final against SK, defeating the Brazilians after a hard-fought battle that went down to the wire.

zews walked us through their second consecutive win over SK

We got a hold of Wilton "⁠zews⁠" Prado, who walked us through their second consecutive win over SK and told us about Liquid's new psychologist's impact on dealing with pressure situations and decision making:

Starting with Inferno, such a hard-fought battle, can you walk me through it and tell me what the deciding point was?

I think on Inferno, we started off pretty well, we play SK a lot in practice, so it's never going to be a typical match. We know some of their tells, they know some of ours, so we do try to play around that a little bit, especially in a match like this. We had a really good first half, where jdm was going off specifically, getting first kills for us. After that, we lost the pistol in a way that maybe we could have won, there was a communication error, but the arena is very loud.

After that, we couldn't get everything going the way we wanted, we still had some rounds, but we just didn't commit as much to the game plan that we had, so we weren't able to close it out in standard time. coldzera got a 1v2 clutch in a very critical moment of the match, that should have affected us more, but I'm so proud about the way we've been handling ourselves lately, because we faced a lot of adverse situations and it's been working out well, we've been able to maintain our composure. We went through the first overtime, had the chance to close it out again, but on the second one, we just had a perfect first side, from there we were like 'this is not going to get away from us,' we just kept going and we were able to close it out in a very convincing form in my opinion.

Like you said, it felt quite straight-forward, were there any adjustments in the second overtime?

The adjustments that we did were basically, we changed up from what we were doing in the middle of the match, we started going more in their face towards B and we tried to work our advantage in the sense of that we're going to catch them by surprise and start walking into sites. jdm was going more for picks, the same we've been doing in other areas, he was normally going for A site, so he started going for B site picks as well. The adjustments were minor, it was more about us just taking the initiative and not hesitating anymore, we just decided that if we were going to have a plan, we're going to commit to it.

Overpass was such a one-sided map for SK, did you feel like you weren't prepared enough on the map going into it?

Overpass was their map pick, we went into it already thinking that they had the clear advantage on it, we were going to play with zero expectations and zero frustrations on it. We really didn't get any momentum, we won the first gunround, but then because of a timing on our long push, John was killed and that led them to break our economy, and it just went downhill from there.

Everything we were trying, we were going to try to take B and the timing again, they exploded out monster on us and got us with our pants down. After we lost the second pistol, we already knew the match was over, so we just got through it as fast as we could. We still kept trying towards the end, but we didn't overthink it, we just brushed it off after.

This was the second time you beat SK on Cobblestone, their best map before Mykonos, was there anything specific that you prepared for the match, did you figure them out or does Cobble just fit you well?

On Cobblestone, like I said, our preparation for SK is a little bit different since we play them so much, but Cobblestone, if people look at the stats, that's our most played map last season. It's a map we're very comfortable on, we know every kind of variation that we can run strategy-wise and we know every setup, it just comes down to picking the right ones at the right time and having the right decisions under pressure.

I guess, SK, I always feel that to beat them, you just have to not show them respect. The moment you try to respect them and try to play too composed, they are probably the strongest fundamental team in the world right now, so they're just a little bit better than everyone else at that kind of play. So we just, again, chose the gameplan, we eco'd a few times but we were able to eco them back, keep our composure, our gameplan for this one was to basically go for some explode strats and mix it up with good executions, try to aim battle them, and it seems to work out pretty well.

In the last round, stanislaw rushed drop zone, do you know what led him to it, what the plan was?

Our plan going into the last round, on the pause, we just decided that we were going to do a B execute, and he was already supposed to go drop, but they mollied drop, which kind of forced him to take action. He either had to fall back or get in their face, and with the crowd going so loud and everything like that, he just decided to go for it, we had the advantage, we were up on 15, so we were allowed to take more ballsy plays in that sense. He just came out and I don't think the SK players heard him, he got both from the side and just made our lives that much easier.

I've already talked to a couple of your players about your new psychologist, but I wanted to get your take on this as well. As someone who's behind the team, who listens to the communication a lot and sees how the players react to pressure situations, is there a noticable difference in that sense?

Oh yes, of course, Jared, who is our psychologist, he helped a lot in that. Since I joined the team, the team was in a completely different position, we were able to now change the way that we play, we went for that fundamental style, after working so much with myself and Peter, we were able to get all the strategy part in.

That was never the problem that we were facing, the problem we were facing is just on a simpler level, it's just an emotional problem in how to deal with pressure sometimes and sometimes how to deal with these situations. Something so simple like that can trigger and I think it's been improving, over the last couple of events, we've been able to maintain our composure and our decision making is a lot better. The rationale has always been there, we've all been working on it, now we just constantly make the better decisions, we know how to react.

Lastly, I'd like to touch on the coaching changes DreamHack introduced in Malmö, which you weren't a part of. What do you make of that idea and what's your preference, would you welcome being able to have more input?

I 100% know that if coaches are given more space, the skill ceiling will rise again in Counter-Strike. Especially during the Major qualifier was the first time I really felt frustrated at the coaching rule, because we were at a point where I was really on point in my game as well and the team was needing it at that point. Sometimes I'm not needed as much in that aspect because the team is taking care of it, but the moments where they're not, I can step in, because I have a lot of experience in that.

And I feel that with the rules that we have now, it has castrated coaches at least during the game a lot, in preparation everything is still the same. I like the freezetime rules, because I think it's a nice balance if we're allowed to speak in freezetime, and if we got an extra pause during overtime. During freezetime we would be able to give direction, but we wouldn't be able to be as overpowered as to hear all the communication that's going on, in these arenas, coaches do end up hearing a lot of what goes on with the crowd and everything like that.

So, I think before, it was just really overpowered, but now it's too underpowered for the game, so I think that the way Malmö went, I've gotten feedback from every other coach and every other player, everyone seems to like it and I really wish that every organizer would start leaning towards that trend.