Extended HLTV Interview with Twistzz Offers Insight into 2020 Liquid
Quick post with takeaways from Twistzz' HLTV Confirmed podcast interview.
Quick follow-up to my last article on FalleN to Liquid being possibly decided in July. Thanks to an extended interview (2 hours, 40 minutes) with Twistzz on the HLTV Confirmed podcast, here, we have Twistzz perspective on Liquid in 2020, and some insight into the timeline from his perspective.
Twistzz learned during the July player break that he was close to being benched by the team, which may be a strong indication that Liquid had indeed lined up Grim as a replacement for Twistzz rather than Nitr0. “I was at risk of being benched, and it didn’t come to my attention fully until the break was almost over,” he said.
Knowing this, there are basically only two ways that the July shake-up could’ve gone down from the organization’s perspective to fit my previous arguments:
Either, Liquid were planning to bring in Moses and Grim and bench Twistzz, then were caught off-guard by Nitr0’s decision to step down, or—
Knowing about Nitr0’s decision before their moves, they planned to bring in a Nitr0 replacement in addition to Grim, but the deal couldn’t go through fast enough (COVID certainly added to obstructions with visa issues, etc., if they were targeting FalleN all along.)
HLTV’s Striker asked a great, pointed question towards the decisions to bring in Moses and Grim, which I don’t think Twistzz really meant to dodge, but he ultimately left the question up in the air.
Other takeaways
Twistzz argued that AWPers are over-powered in the online meta, with AWPers more easily able to get away with crouch peeks without getting punished, for example “In the online era, it’s so important to have this constant threat and presence of an AWPer—they’re closing off angles and the other team knows it’s not safe to peek,” he said when asked about the FalleN addition.
Due to streams now being delayed 5 minutes, “There’s no information to gain [from stream-sniping],” said Twistzz on the ESIC-Vitality fine.