Liquid Redgar Talks EMEA, Rivalries, Admirations, and New Ideas

After kicking off with LOCK//IN, an explosive São Paulo tournament that featured a raucous crowd and every team from around the world, VCT’s region-divided regular season is about to begin. Each region is shaping up to be competitive, but coming off LOCK//IN, EMEA is facing an interesting divide: it’s the region with both the biggest successes — Fnatic reigned supreme at LOCK//IN — and the biggest disappointments.

Team Liquid is among these disappointments; after an uninspiring opening performance, the team was eliminated from LOCK//IN after day one. Going into the regular split, in-game leader (IGL) Igor "Redgar" Vlasov is not so worried. Though LOCK//IN was rough, he sees plenty of upsides in his team and in his region. As the 2023 EMEA season begins, Redgar discusses the IGLs he admires, the teams he wants to face, and how to introduce new ideas into TL.

Team Liquid has had a reputation for moving players around roles in the past. Do you think in this iteration of the team, everyone has settled into their roles?

Our team is pretty flexible, but we do have roles for the coming year. Soulcas usually plays smokers, nAts is playing Sentinel agents, Jamppi is playing our Duelist role, and Sayf and I are playing supports. I mostly like to play supports — all the agents I like to play can support with the best [utility] for their teammates.

Coming into this new roster and already having a reputation as a strong IGL in the scene, what’s it been like to build something almost from scratch?

It was a new experience to play with a European team and speak only English with the roster. Sometimes I speak Russian with nAts, but only out of the game; it’s better when everyone is speaking one language. If we’re talking about IGL things, it’s good that I can see the other points of view on the game. I think I have a similar vision of the game as [head coach Emil “eMIL” Sandgren]. For macro things, we think in the same way, but sometimes we come up with different solutions. It’s really nice when you’re in the same boat but can still discuss different things.

I think it’s really fun to IGL with new people because it’s new personalities and new challenges for yourself. And you need to prove again that you’re not just good with one roster, you can show the same results with more than one team while playing for a long period of time. So I want to bring all the guys’ potential out with my voice and show that they can do better than in all the previous teams.

You mentioned discussing problems with eMIL — how closely do you work with the coaches? Does it feel like all the players can talk with the coaching staff openly?

When we’re talking about common things that can affect all the players, we talk about it freely with everyone. But when it’s something like new strats or ideas of how to play, something we’re just testing, it’s not the best solution to share all the faults because you don’t have all the information. And that might have an effect on them because they start overthinking. But if they have ideas, then yeah, we discuss it freely. Sometimes when players have ideas they are shy, or they think that their ideas are going to be denied, and it’s good to be able to share your opinions every time.

[Team analyst Bacon9] also helps us with this a lot. He’s always the guy who is telling us to be prepared for everything and is asking us how we’re going to react, so we’re prepared for a lot of micro situations. On a broad level, it’s all those puzzle pieces going into the picture of winning. [Team Liquid streamer and ex-coach] Sliggy is also helping us if he has free time. He was a coach when I would play against Team Liquid, and he always brought a lot of unexpected moves.

Who are some of the other players and specifically IGLs that you admire in the scene?

I admire every player on the stage, because if they’re in a team that’s franchised and they’re playing on the tier one level, they all know a lot about the game, right? [...] [Fnatic IGL] Boaster, for example — I’ve spoken to him about the game before, and I know what kind of attitude he has in the team, so I respect him. I love how he calls rounds.

I think that on the way to becoming a good IGL, it’s hard if it’s your first time on a tier one level. It’s hard to show full potential, and we’re still learning a lot of things because there were a lot of shuffles during the off-season. I don’t think a lot of teams can show their full potential right now. For a team to show their full potential, it will take about half a year or one year. After the honeymoon period, after you have some bad games and everyone is angry with each other — when you go through a bad period, you have to show you can still stay together because you can talk to each other and find out the solutions.

Narrowing focus to just the EMEA region, which teams are you looking forward to playing against the most, and which team do you think will be your biggest competition?

The one team I personally want to win against is Fnatic. When I was on Gambit, we didn’t win against them once, so it’s a personal thing. I want to win against them on LAN, with a crowd. We lost to them twice for a tournament slot, and it really hurts when you’re losing against the same team twice. So it’s time to make it right.

Finally, do you have anything to say to your fans and Team Liquid’s fans?

I know we have a lot of support from every region, and we notice that when we look at Twitter, when we see watch parties, when we hear the sounds from the crowd. We see every time you support us, and it really motivates us because we’re so grateful, and we want fans to be satisfied. And I hope you can continue to support us even if we play versus a team from your country.

Liquid will face the high-firepower Turkish team Futbolist on March 30th, 12 PM EDT. Tune in via YouTube or Twitch to see if the team can weather the aggression and come out on top!