By Arseny Kuzminsky, CS.MONEY
Jonathan “EliGE” Jablonowski is the kind of person who likes to chat and has a positive outlook on things. He’s smiling throughout the conversation, even when he thinks about serious questions. His resolutions are firm but fair, focused on growth.
These are not the easiest times for Team Liquid: due to the tight schedule of tournaments, players rarely stay at home for long, while handling the intense demands of playing global top-tier Counter-Strike is tough and carrying the hope of the North American CS:GO scene is never easy. But even with all these facts, EliGE won’t be upset: he knows that at the moment, his team is still at the stage of formation and building relationships, they have the potential, so the only thing left is to work. At this rate, the results will come.
In an exclusive interview for CS.MONEY blog, Jonathan “EliGE” Jablonowski spoke about the current state of the North American CS and came up with a plan to save it; remembered how he got into Liquid and figured out where he would be in ten years; talked about the demands of playing tier-one CS:GO; and explained why he only wears vanilla skins.
Saving NA CS
We spoke with EliGE before the Antwerp Major. And one of the first things he noted was:
“We beat Complexity [to qualify for EIM Dallas]. That feels good.”
And then they beat Complexity again, during the Major. Such a blood feud is helpful for the development of the region. Reflecting on his native NA, Jonathan defines the region’s current state and hints at how to better it, what needs to be improved, and which things should be adopted from the European experience.
“It’s not as good as it could be. We all know how NA CS is right now. There’s a lot of improvement that needs to happen, a lot of things that need to be worked on. I’m thinking of my own things that I could do to help the scene.
The biggest thing is that people have to teach. There needs to be more specified teaching towards the players, because if you look at other regions, whenever there are top players and they lose their form a little bit, they end up going to the tier two-tier three teams, and then they rise up the ranks with those guys. And I thought that in NA, it hadn’t been enough of that. Damian ‘daps’ Steele tried to make the team with Orgless and that didn’t end up working out, but I think stuff like that is really beneficial to the scene. If we can find a good way to make something like that happen more often, so the region as a whole can learn, and then we can bring some type of infrastructure back to it and then have people build their brand so people are more interested and more orgs get interested… This is how we can make it.
EU has a pretty nice system with the WePlay Academy League. And I think it would be great to have more things for people to play in. Even at Tier 2-3 level of NA, there aren’t a lot of tournaments right now for players. You have the ESEA league that you’re on and you’re going to have a qualifier here and there, but there’s still so few and far between. So it’s really difficult for a premier or advanced level team: you don’t have that many options. You have cash cups, and people don’t really watch them, there’s not enough casting and hype around them for people to be getting their names out or for sponsors to really care about it. So I think we either need another league or more tournaments. I think that there need to be more higher-tier tournaments, but the tier two-tier three scene needs more tournaments for them to play in.
All the orgs are trying to figure out what they can do, how it can fit in. I know that there are discussions about what they can do, so I think that it could happen. I think that it’s going to come back now to the player’s side and the team’s side of improvement. They feel that investment is justified, or if all the teams agree, they can all just do it together and make it happen. Just do as many good things as possible. And they’re all going to work collectively. If everyone works on their side of things, then it’ll all be really good.”
But infrastructures need investments. Nevertheless, EliGE thinks it’s too complex just to throw money into the scene.
“It’s not the best option, because I think it’s at the bottom tier stage right now, where everything needs to just be in the learning mode. And when things get better, some orgs can come in, but they have to have a reason to come in. Of course, the brands of the players need to be strong enough, so orgs will feel they’re gonna get some return on their investment. We have to show enough screen time to sponsors, and all that, so they are satisfied.”
Inside Team Liquid
When we moved on to questions about the team, EliGE mentioned Cloud9, the ex-Gambit roster, and outlined their advantage over others and why this should be strived for.
“They were a core for an extremely long time and they started winning a lot of stuff in 2021 and they started getting really good. And I think that a core can stay together as long as they really want to, as long as they can keep solving through issues, having problems and then having solutions for those problems and keep going through that continuous cycle until you keep getting better and better. And you know, right now for us, we’re clearly still doing really well with that phase. We’re finding problems. We’re fixing them, we’re finding new solutions to stuff, and we’re having a really good upward trajectory of our improvement. And I’ve been super happy with it so far, and I expect to see it keep going.”
Talking about the team’s strengths and weaknesses, EliGE highlights chemistry and the lack of time to play together.
“Our strengths right now is our cohesion as a team. I think we’ve really gone on the same page altogether with different reactions that we want to do, protocols, and how we want to deal with certain situations. And I think that we’ve been at a good point where we’re in tournaments and we’re able to very quickly add things because it just falls in line with our protocols. And sometimes it’s hard to add things to teams when you’re in the middle of a tournament, or you don’t have much time because there could be a lot of stuff to work on, but when everyone understands what it’s for and what it’s doing, it just feels really natural. And that’s how it feels right now. That’s our strength.
Our weakness would just be the experience together. We keep clearing up the little mishaps here and there because when you play at the highest level, when you’re playing against the very best teams, if you give someone an inch, they’ll take a mile and we have to just keep on working on not giving away those inches—working on as many little things as we can. We haven’t had a lot of practice time so far, so while we might all be on the same page for what we want to do as a reaction or a protocol, it might not always be the smoothest. And unfortunately, those are just going to be those learning hiccups and they’re going to have to happen and they’re going to happen. And then we’re going to have to correct them as they keep happening to us.
Seven Years of Liquid And Future Plans
In early 2015, EliGE couldn’t even imagine that he would end up playing for Team Liquid for almost ten years. Nevertheless, it was a dream come true for a guy who started his esports career in Starcraft 2, and then became a little shining star of a CS:GO team.
“My brother introduced me to Counter-Strike when I was younger. So we played a lot back then. I would wait for my turn on the computer and just play CS as much as I could. I played different games here and there as I was growing up. And then when CS:GO came out, I swapped to it pretty much after a couple of months because I was still playing StarCraft 2.”
Still, Jonathan remembers how TL picked him up.
“I was in Invite, which is Pro League now, playing my second or third month for Elevate. I played in the CEVO professional league. And I was pretty good. And I remember that Nicholas ‘nitr0’ Cannella asked me to come to play. He was asking me questions, and I felt like he was scoping me out. And shortly after, I got a call asking if I wanted to join Liquid and just went from there.
I never really think far into the future because anything could happen even before I joined Liquid. I never would’ve imagined joining Liquid because it was such a top-tier, prestigious org to me. So I can never really assume things, but throughout my whole career in Counter-Strike, I’ve always thought I wanted to be on Liquid the entire time. And even through the bad times, I still always felt Liquid was the best org for me and the best option.
I would stay as long as possible. As long as I’m happy. [chuckles] I would keep staying because I still think it’s the best org to play for. They gave me everything that I could ask for. I think that they’re very fair. And for NA, I think that they’re also the best team, so it’s everything that I want all in one package.”
Surprisingly, EliGE and nitr0 became close friends only a couple of years ago, despite the fact that they are playing together since the very beginning.
“In the last two years, I feel like we’ve gone a lot closer compared to before. We’ve always kept things pretty professional, but I feel like more recently, we’ve gone a lot closer and we’ve been hanging out, playing stuff, talking a lot more than we ever have. And it’s been really nice, having that bond with him and having someone that you can rely on. I think he’s an awesome person and that’s why we’ve been teammates for so long.”
Do you think about where and what you will be doing in 10 years?
“It’s hard to say. In 10 years, I can imagine that I still might even be playing, or I’m in my last years of playing. I really do believe that you can be playing for as long as you really want. There are top athletes out there, playing the hardest sports and still at their top physical conditions, well, not top physical conditions, but still able to win championships. You got Tom Brady out there, Christiano Ronaldo. These guys are older and they’re still playing really well. And if you think that you can’t do that in a video game, that’s just completely crazy to me to, it’s unreasonable to even think of. And I think that as we keep having esports grow older, we’re going to see players and top-tier talents stay in the game. They’re going to keep getting older, and they’re still going to be staying good as well. So I think we’re going to see that I’m expecting to do that. So we’ll see how it goes in 10 years.”
As one of the oldest players on the team, EliGE is responsible for teaching the younger, Joshua “oSee” Ohm, for example. And he does it.
“I’m able to teach in a pretty efficient way. I always help as much as I can, whenever I see something that can be done a little bit differently, I don’t mind saying it or helping with a learning style or process that I think is helpful for people. And I think that oSee is an awesome teammate so far, he’s really attentive to detail, easy to work with, and he takes criticism well.
Schedules and Tourneys
In some recent interviews, EliGE mentioned that the team sometimes doesn’t have time to have a nap because of a schedule. So I asked him about it to know his opinion and if he had any ideas to improve it.
“Well, ever since the Louvre Agreement happened, it is what it is, but I still feel like it’s way too much and they’ve been trying to work on it. And it’s been really difficult with COVID happening and there’s been a lot of restrictions, teams aren’t able to travel as freely. Even the Brazilian teams that play in the NA scene are not all in the United States or Canada, having visa problems to be able to come in.
The Statement
Thank you to all the fans supporting us and seeing our improvement. I know that it’s not always going to be straight to the moon with every new roster. You can expect everyone to come together and to be the power Rangers forming, and the championships are there instantly, but it’s not always like that. We’re doing our best. I think that we’re showing some pretty good improvement and a good rate of improvement as well.
EliGE’s Style
Before closing our conversation, I asked EliGE about his unusual approach to skins. If you take a closer look, Jonathan doesn’t wear shiny or glamorous skins, and he says that this is how he likes it: raw vanilla.
“I’m actually really minimalistic with my skins. So not only do I like that minimalistic style, but it also saves me a lot of money. So I have all vanilla skins pretty much besides the default knives. And I think that is pretty fun, having that style associated to me, people are always curious why I do it. It’s fun and it looks nice and it saves me money.”
EliGE’s Three Favorite Skins:
- Skeleton Knife, vanilla
- Talon knife, vanilla
- Karambit, vanilla
