Team Liquid’s captain Aydin “iNSaNiA” Sarkohi sought forgiveness from fans following their humiliating group stage exit from DreamLeague S20
Team Liquid, considered a powerhouse on the global stage, experienced a shocking turn of events as they were the first team to be eliminated from DreamLeague Season 20. Despite their mediocre performance in Dota Pro Circuit (DPC) Division II, their lack of resistance and fighting spirit in the tournament caught everyone off guard, with only three wins achieved out of 12 games by the end of the third day of group stage 1.
Our first team to be eliminated from DreamLeague Season 20 is @TeamLiquid.
Despite stellar performances at #ESLOne Berlin and DreamLeague S19, they struggled to find their footing at this tournament.
GG to them and we wish them the best in future competitions! #ESLProTour pic.twitter.com/bELuB50YnH
— ESL Dota2 (@ESLDota2) June 13, 2023
During a post-match interview, Aydin “iNSaNiA” Sarkohi, Team Liquid’s captain, expressed sincere regret for their disappointing performance and assured fans that they would tirelessly work to regain their form before the Bali Major 2023. The 28-year-old also shed light on his team’s strategy to bounce back from such a disappointing campaign.
“I mean honestly, I would like to apologize to all our fans who are watching and have watched all of our games. I think it’s been quite embarrassing to play and I am sure all the people watching at home have felt pretty bad too.”
Although Team Liquid has already secured their place in The International 12, iNSaNia stressed that his team will not overlook their recent poor results and are actively seeking solutions to rectify the issues before the Bali Major.
“So, I think we are going to try our hardest to figure out ourselves, try to find form again, and get back into shape as this was obviously a harsh wakeup call. So, I don’t think there’s going to be much relaxing coming up in the upcoming days. It’s going to be a lot of focus, practice to you know, come to Bali and be the best Team Liquid that we can be.”
Credit: Yahoo Esports SEA
As a part of their comeback strategy, iNSaNiA announced their intention to begin by revisiting the fundamentals, gradually shifting their attention towards addressing the wider range of issues they encounter in terms of drafts and gameplay.
“Because we get everyone on bootcamp tomorrow, so starting tomorrow, we will have everyone here. We are gonna start properly scrimming, playing a lot of Dota, try to figure out what’s good and what’s bad because I think if you look at our drafts, you can tell they are all over the place. We are trying to fix gameplay problems with different picks and it does not really work because our gameplay is just not good enough. I think just try to find out some sort of cohesiveness and some consistency. Narrowing stuff down, figuring out matchups – if they do x, we do y and just have some sort of idea moving forward. This is probably the first step in terms of drafts and gameplay, usually, we try to think from the start of the game – from the laning phase and then you go forward every step of the way, try to figure out every step so start from the beginning.”
Although Liquid has been knocked out of the DreamLeague Season 20, they will wrap up their campaign with a final showdown against TSM on June 14th, 2023.
