After playing with the Liquid for the past four months, the Latvian sensation has finally been signed to the North American organization.
Mareks “YEKINDAR” Gainskis has been added to the Team Liquid CS:GO roster in a permanent capacity. This move was made in anticipation of the team’s participation in the IEM Rio Major, which will take place in November.
The Latvian rifler had been a stand-in for Liquid since IEM Cologne in July. YEKINDAR has been working toward the completion of the buyout of his own contract from Virtus Pro while he was playing with the NA roster.
This procedure was finally finished less than a week ago. While playing with the NA roster, YEKINDAR had been working toward this goal.
Virtus.pro, who has been competing in CS:GO under the name Outsiders since March in the wake of ESL and PGL’s bans on organizations with Russian government ties, moved YEKINDAR to its inactive roster back in May. Outsiders are the name VP has been using since ESL and PGL banned organizations with ties to the Russian government.
After a couple of months had passed, YEKINDAR was added to the Liquid squad just in time for the IEM Cologne 2022 tournament. This occurred shortly after Liquid had parted ways with French veteran Richard “shox” Papillon and replaced former head coach Eric “adreN” Hoag with coach Damian “daps” Steele.
YEKINDAR was an essential cog in Liquid’s recent comeback to success, which saw the team advance to the playoffs in Cologne, the grand finals of ESL Pro League Season 16, and qualify for both the BLAST Fall Finals and the Rio Major.
During that run, all of the members of Liquid gave gratitude to YEKINDAR for helping to improve the team’s overall performance through improved preparation and revised strategies. Liquid continued its prominence at the IEM Road to Rio Americas RMR, where it finished in first place.
After such a successful run, this move makes the greatest sense for Liquid as well, and YEKINDAR will be competing with Liquid for the first time as a full-timer in Rio. After taking first place at the Americas Regional Master’s Race, the team will begin their run at the Major with a Legends berth, which is quite a headstart.
Team Liquid is now :
Jonathan “EliGE” Jablonowski
Keith “NAF” Markovic
Nick “nitr0” Cannella
Josh “oSee” Ohm
Mareks “YEKINDAR” Gaļinskis
Damian “daps” Steele (Head Coach)
