Zai, Micke, and Insania’s Insights: Team Liquid on Choosing PSG.LGD Over Gaimin Gladiators, Learning From The Past And Avoiding Burnout

Team Liquid's resurgence at the Bali Major has been a remarkable display of dominance, signaling their triumphant return to form following a challenging period at Dreamleague Season 20. With a powerful performance, the team convincingly emerged as the leaders of Group A, and convincingly beat PSG.LGD in the opening match of the Bali Major 2023 playoffs. Despite having already secured qualification for The International 12 based on their Dota Pro Circuit (DPC) points, Team Liquid has shown no signs of complacency at the Major.

In a recent press conference shared by RosesaGaming, players from Team Liquid shared their thoughts on various aspects of the tournament, providing insights on choosing PSG.LGD over Gaimin Gladiators as their first opponents, learning from difficult situations in past tournaments as well as at the Major, to avoiding competitive burnout. 

Learning from Adversity

Ludwig "zai" Wåhlberg's response to the question regarding Team Liquid's learning experience from their most challenging moment in the tournament provides valuable insights into the team's resilience and ability to adapt their gameplay.

“I think for us it’s kind of clear after playing as a team for over a year or a year and a half. I think when we put in effort, we can be really good and we get lazy, we don’t play so good. I think leading up to this tournament, we were pretty lazy, intentionaly so, we kind of took a break and that was probably our lowest moment as a roster. But I think now we’re doing good,” Zai said.

“We’ll meet them in the finals” Micke on facing Gaimin Gladiators

During the Major, Team Liquid's decision to choose PSG.LGD over Gaimin Gladiators shed light on their strategic choices. Aydin "iNSaNiA" Sarkohi acknowledged that some players preferred to face the Gladiators, while others took a more strategic approach. He stated, "I can just say some people on our team definitely wanted to play gladiators while others were thinking more strategically... certain people definitely wanted to play gladiators mostly out of, you know, 'we want to beat them.'"

Michael "miCKe" Vu expressed confidence, saying, "we'll meet them in the finals, it's all good."

Avoiding Burnout and Sustaining Competitive Excellence

Team Liquid, known for their exceptional performance in the Dota 2 competitive scene throughout the DPC 2023 season, managed to avoid burnout despite the long and demanding season. Zai discussed this during a press conference, explaining their approach. He mentioned,

“I think it’s like I said, when we’re putting in effort and trying hard, I think we do really well and we started out the season with strong showings, I think we won the first DPC season? <yea>. Then we did pretty well at Lima but then I think every time we got back from a tournament, we were kind of slow in the beginning, because we wanted a break and then we had to have a slow start to the far DPC seasons. But for us I think it can kind of good to start out slow and then go a little bit faster. Because I think we take some time off in the beginning and kind of avoid going from event into DPC and being a 100% all the time. So kind of pacing ourselves,” Zai said.

Thoughts on TI12 Qualification Spots

Valve had recently announced that Western Europe (WEU) and South America (SA) will be receiving 2 regional qualifier slots for The International 12, which is a change from the usually 1 slot for each region. Insania shared his perspective on the allocation of two spots for WEU and SA at TI12, instead of the Last Chance Qualifiers (LCQ).

“I guess we’re very biased because we played in the LCQ last year and we obviously went very far. But it felt like a very cool thing to bring all the best teams from all the regions on LAN and have them play against each other and truly see which teams deserve the extra slots to TI the most. I personally like that format and it’s sad to see it go away but obviously I am very biased myself because there would have been no TI for me if there was no LCQ last year,” Insania said.

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Team Liquid's press conference at the Bali Major offered valuable insights into the team’s journey and strategies when dealing with specific situations. The players provided various insights, such as learning from difficult situations to making strategic choices, and maintaining high levels of competitive performance. With the team winning its first playoff game against PSG.LGD 2-1, they are off to a great start and will look towards facing their next opponent, which will be the winner between Gaimin Gladiators and beastcoast.