Does Liquid benching cadiaN actually make sense?

The Counter-Strike world was shocked today as HLTV reported that Team Liquid are considering benching their IGL, Casper “cadiaN” Moller.

The former HEROIC captain has only been with the organisation for six months and although those six months have been more difficult than first anticipated, the fact that they are even considering benching cadiaN is surprising given his track record. 

However, now the cat is out of the bag, we thought it would be a good idea to weigh up the pros and cons of the potential benching and figure out whether it makes sense for Liquid to move on from their veteran Dane.

The players aren’t buying into cadiaN’s system

Although cadiaN has been a figure in and around Counter-Strike for over a decade now, it wasn’t until he joined HEROIC that he truly began to make a name for himself.

As a talismanic figure on the HEROIC roster, he transformed the team from a permanent tier-two figure that would occasionally put pressure upon tier-one to one of the best teams in the world. The online era certainly helped that push, but HEROIC stuck around the top once LANs resumed, a large part of that was because of cadiaN.

cadiaN’s system was revolutionary and breathed new life into the idea of an AWP IGL. A structure that could be rigid and fluid to suit whatever the round required, their CT sides were incredibly proactive and capitalised upon communication benefits the team received from only speaking one language.

However, this meant that cadiaN got incredibly used to micromanaging his teammates and that he would often be the one to make the heroic play to give them the push when needed. This was a luxury cadiaN was never going to be afforded on a team with Mareks “YEKINDAR” Galinskis and Russel “Twistzz” Van Dulken, and it’s a leadership method that is very difficult to move away from. 

As highlighted by HLTV writer Nohte in this tweet with an excerpt from a recent interview with Keith “NAF” Markovic, the Canadian notes that the team hasn’t fully gelled yet.

In his answer, NAF says that cadiaN needs to learn to allow his teammates freedom and trust them, as well as elements of what they like to do and don’t like to do as players - given that it’s been six months since the team was formed, this doesn’t bode well.

NAF does then go on to say that Liquid “need to adapt to our caller and our leader”, but that just begs the question as to who it is that really needs to adapt moving forward.

Of course, cadiaN can not expect to micromanage in an international team in the same way he did previously on a Danish team, that isn’t incorrect, but his system with or without micromanaging is one that will need to be bought into fully, and if Liquid refuses to do that it will always be doomed. 

Power struggles

Twitter is always a good place to find purely speculative reactions to any roster move or rumour, and that’s been no different at all with this cadiaN rumour. 

The largest circle of speculation surrounds a suggested power struggle within Liquid, likely brought about by the power struggle that happened this time last year between YEKINDAR and then-captain Nick “nitr0” Cannella. 

This idea of a power struggle leads directly from the previous point. The only thing that can be worse than the players not buying into cadiaN’s system is if there is a voice trying to usurp him and openly find another option. Not getting it is one thing, actively rebelling against it is another.

In the above tweet, Mauisnake places the likelihood of this scenario on the shoulders of YEKINDAR and the team’s coach, Wilton “zews” Prado. As he says in that tweet, if there is a power struggle being caused by either of those men, cadiaN is not the man who should be thrown into the fire as a result.

There’s no question as to how much zews means to Twistzz, the way the Canadian speaks to the legendary Brazilian during this video makes that clear, but on a purely professional and performance basis, this isn’t the same zews who first coached Twistzz on Liquid. 

It’s rare that zews has ever been without a team during their years apart, but considering the sporadic achievements Brazil have had during that time, zews hasn’t been a part of any of them. That is unless you count Fluxo making the BLAST.tv Paris Major while featuring Adriano “WOOD7” Cerato as the team’s primary AWPer, which can’t have been easy in all fairness to him.

That’s not us saying that zews is a bad coach, but there are other coaches out there, it will be a lot more difficult to find another IGL who is the same calibre of leader as cadiaN.

As for YEKINDAR, if he’s the one causing a power struggle then it really is time to cut him loose. It was somewhat justifiable with the roster Liquid had a year ago, but his stint as IGL proved that he shouldn’t be disputing anyone when it comes to leadership, and that isn’t the only issue with YEKINDAR either.

Poor performances

YEKINDAR’s performances haven’t been great for a while. He’s no longer the maverick entry-fragger who burst onto the scene as part of Virtus.pro, and it’s very hard to see him ever return to that level of form. 

The Latvian currently sits at a 5.9 rating at S-tier events in the last six months, and although he may no longer be treated as the true star by Liquid thanks to the arrival of Twistzz, that still isn’t good enough.

The same can be said for skullz, the Brazilian has a 5.8 rating in the same amount of time at S-tier events. He is given the least amount of resources on the team, but his T sides have been particularly torrid, far below the levels of other players within the same roles. 

With that in mind, it’s hard to say cadiaN has had a fair crack at leading this team when it is barely functioning as a team. Of course, at 5.8 he is also underperforming, especially for an AWPer even with the IGL role, but that underperformance becomes more understandable when you factor in the potential power struggle.

Liquid are playing their games as a 2v5, perhaps even without a true system, and that makes their recent playoff runs actually seem like miracles. cadiaN isn’t entirely innocent in this, but imagine what he could do if the players bought in and skullz and YEKINDAR could actually play like a $600k player and a former eighth-best player in the world. 

Lack of replacements

This brings us to our final point - the distinct lack of available replacements for cadiaN as both an AWPer and an IGL.

Sure, you could buy someone out of their contract at a different organisation, but who are you going to sign? Kamil “siuhy” Szkaradek? Fat chance. Damjan “kyxsan” Stoilkovski? We’re not sure how willing he’d be considering he’s only been a part of HEROIC for six months. 

Even if you could sign one of those two players, that still doesn’t remove the issue of needing an AWPer. Liquid could break the bank to sign Oleksandr “s1mple” Kostyliev and truly prove that time is a circle, but the odds of that move feel slim and outside of his availability, the AWPer market looks to be as barren as the IGL market. 

On the flip side, replacing players like skullz and YEKINDAR would prove to be far easier. Potential replacements may not instantly be at the standard Liquid are after, but it’s easy to see how they could reach that level and it’s likely that their current level wouldn’t differ too much from Liquid’s current level with these five players.

In our opinion, this is the main reason why it doesn’t actually make sense to bench cadiaN. The benching of cadiaN would mean that two players need to be benched anyway, and given that this would involve a new system also being implemented, it would put Liquid right back to square one.

It’s not that we don’t see the reasons that they might want to bench him, because we do, but someone in management has to point out that they aren’t all valid. cadiaN was brought in because he is an exceptional leader, cutting him without giving him the chance to actually be a leader is a mental decision that will return to haunt them.