GBJame^s, Liquid's New Coach, Shares Thoughts

Sure. A lot of people would know me as GBJame^s from Green Berets, which was my team with LuckeyTed, PineKone and mehLer. I think I played about 29 seasons of Invite, about 10 years total. I think I’ve taken about nine teams from Main to Invite, so I have a lot of experience coaching. I think I was one of the more successful instructors in the world for 1.6 and a little bit of CS:S. I’ve coached 400 teams just through team lessons in 24 different countries and about 4000 people. So that was my job; that's how I subsidized my living when I was playing CS.




During the first season when the beta came out, I basically created a team. It was myself, Hiko, DaZeD. I recruited mOE--people know mOE--and again I brought up an old guy, PineKone, a friend of mine and we won the first season. We beat--I forget what their name was, “Flying Rainbows” or something, but it was swag’s team when he was putting it together. So we did that and I had an ESWC sponsorship, but all of the sudden I couldn’t find a sponsorship to go to Seattle. I had to start my MBA for my graduate program and I said, “Semphis, you take the roster,” and he joined. mOE quit. He was done; he needed a break. We replaced mOE with sgares and that team went on to win and went to Paris. I disconnected from CS and learned that it blew up.




Honestly, whatever DaZeD’s coaching thing is I think. He has some coaching website that he does.




Actually, it was Area 51. I don't know; it’s been a little bit of time. But yeah, I led it and DaZeD co-called and we let mOE do whatever he wanted. So I kinda grandfathered the start of the best team in the country for CS:GO and I had a head start which I never had before. So when I came back I didn’t know what route I was gonna take. “Am I gonna lead again?” “Am I gonna start a team?” “Am I gonna come back and play?” “Am I gonna coach?” “Am I gonna create an organization?” I’m figuring that out, and as of right now I was very lucky that Victor (Nazgul, Liquid’s co-owner) talked to me about Team Liquid. I had given dmode (Liquid’s former coach) a lot of support when I was coaching his team, and so he was currently Liquid’s coach but had to leave and he kind of facilitated the relationship and discussion between me and Victor and then boom, here I am.




I put in about a week and two days. I coached a little bit at the CEVO LAN and I put in probably about 3-4 hours a night up until the time that they came here, and also a lot of time when they came here. As much as I possibly could in a week.




Oh no, I was online. We did it through online and then they flew me out the night before (the tournament).




They’re young. I mean if you look at the players, you have a guy who has played all of Source and all of CS:GO Invite in adreN. He’s played a ton of seasons. Now, I don't hold as much weight on CS:S as much as 1.6 in the heyday, but he’s got a lot of experience so he needs to translate that. He’s bearing the weight of being the AWPer which is a full-time brain dump, like, you cannot do that. No team has been truly successful having a (primary) AWP be the primary caller. So he has brilliant aimers and brilliant skilled players on his team with EliGE, nitr0 and FugLy, and he has solid consistent play from flowsicK, but he needs to delegate the leadership responsibilities to the individual players and allow them to grow. So that’s what we’re going to be looking to do. And plus maybe, possibly shift nitr0 to an AWPer. He wants to. So, you know, adreN would switch to the role that sgares went to when he stopped AWPing and gave it to somebody else.

Now, the issue is that Skadoodle has been AWPing since forever. I’ve taught--people know fRoD--with Hare. We put a lot of growth and leadership into Danny. I’ve taught a whole bunch of AWPers how to be top AWPers in the country. So, do I think I can help nitr0 if he wants to do that? Yes. So it’s a little bit of a shift and we have a little bit of a break so we have to figure that out.




So, basically, I think that FugLy has a little bit of growth to learn on an extremity role. When you’re on the ends of the map, it’s the hardest job on the team bar none in my opinion, that and maybe in-game calling. When you’re an extremity you have to basically put a lot of pressure but not too much pressure because you’re gonna get picked. It’s a dance.

He got picked once or twice and then they shut him down. It is difficult when you only have one set of smokes, flashes and nades to truly clear off an AWPer when he has so many layers that he can AWP from at the B site of Cache. Cloud9 did this to them too. I think that with so much that they have to learn, they didn’t have the time to identify a weakness and work on it and improve it. I would say that Cache really came down to almost FugLy versus jdm, but also, they probably rotated four and just left jdm there. And then you can’t actually (trade) against four guys all day.

So that’s part of the shift; that’s really what happened. They didn’t get to play their own game because jdm shut them down with a style of play that they’re not used to seeing.




I think the first thing is to figure out how to free up adreN so that he can be his best him. I think he has a lot of weight on his shoulders and that can come through the team developing more leadership and possibly nitr0 switching to primary or secondary AWP. That’s a really big decision and that's not anything I’m gonna push. They’re going to come up with that on their own.

So the second one is they need to work on pistols and I’m not gonna get into details on that but I have a whole understanding of how they can grow and be better at that. The third thing is they’re going to get better at their retakes and mid-game communication. I mean, these are all standard things for young teams. Mid-game is the next thing that breaks down. You can practice the beginning of the rounds but the mid-game is where true top teams will get out-aimed at the start of the round and the more experienced team wins a 2v5 or a 2v4 all day, and that happened to us at this LAN.

So I’m gonna be looking to fix the AWPer and in-game leader, I’m gonna fix the pistols, and I’m gonna look to fix the mid-game. Just standard stuff.




When you play top level CS/world-class CS, it’s all about every couple seconds you need to refresh the round in your brain and be like, “New round. New round. What are we doing?” because numbers constantly change and if you were to start a game 3v3 or 4v3, how would you play? How would you play for optimal, 100% team win?

So I’ve seen a lot of people peek when they really didn’t have the calming effect to know that they had the teamwork to rely on because they weren’t communicating effectively and then they just peeked down. So, that’s what happens when you’re a top aimer. These kids right here are some of the best aimers that I’ve ever seen. They did not lose gun battles.

You either progress in CS one of two ways: Amazing aim or really smart teamwork and then you “out-teamwork” people. These kids have amazing aim, they’re young adults and they’re ready to add the teamwork. And I came from the other side so I think it’s a great mix and we’ll be able to put it together. I think they’re a little frustrated and I think that that’s gonna fuel them to continue to grow to the next level.




I’d like to thank Team Liquid and Victor for flying me out here and being so supportive. I think they have an incredible fan base. I think that the team showed their maturity, and when somebody’s so awesome at aiming and stuff nobody wants to hear anybody in their ear, but I think that I’ve been able to build a rapport with them pretty quickly and I can tell you that all of them want to grow and get better and that's dedication. I think that it’s a great mix. I think that the organization is great and that they picked great people. I’m going to stress that they keep a solid five for as long as they absolutely possibly can. I think that what they can contribute to the CS scene is consistency of roster and maturity and growth into one of the world's best teams and I’m gonna make that happen.

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Interviewer: Souma
Graphics: Rubies