Keith "NAF" Markovic was named HLTV's Top 14 of the year, and his strong endgame ability and excellent stability are the reasons for his list.
The Top 20 accolade is no stranger to NAF, which has been on the list three times in the last four years, but NAF's days were not good before joining Liquid in early 2018. He was selected by Liquid as early as 2015 and was just getting into the CS:GO field, where Liquid was still in the exploratory stage, and NAF was replaced by Jonathan "EliGE" Jablonowski just a few months later.
NaF then moved through several teams, including Luminosity, the first all-Canadian CS:GO team, and the early Mythic was the original team, with Jacob "pyth" Mouruj rvi and Peter "ptr" Gurney, but NAF chose to leave after only two months.
NaF's next stop was eLevato, whose teammates included Damian "daps" Steele and William "RUSH" Wierzba, and soon the team was completely disbanded, with the core members of the group creating Sponsorless in one fell swoop, while Shahzeb "ShahZaM" Khan and Ronnie "ryx" Bylicki arrived to complete the lineup.
The team was later renamed Conquest, and then the big name OpTic, until the summer of 2017, when the North American team OpTic's lineup was officially disbanded after Tarik "tarik" Celik and RUSH joined C9, and in early September of the same year, NAF officially joined Renegades, whose core members at that time included Aaron "AZR" Ward, Justin "jks" Savage, Karlo " USTILO" Pivac and Noah "Nifty" Francis.
This experience allowed NAF to grow rapidly, and he became a strong Carry point in the Australian-led team, such an excellent performance that made him selected by Liquid in early 2018, and NAF successfully joined Josh "jdm64" Marzano. Liquid had a lot of success over the next two years, and NAF was the most integral part of it.
The 2018 Liquid is one of the most stable teams in the world, they have reached the finals many times, but unfortunately they met the peak Astralis, and they can only be second place again and again. In such a long anti-Danish campaign, the Liquid team even had some psychological obstacles in the match against Astralis, but DESPITE THIS, NAF stood out as the star player of the Liquid team, and in this year he was selected as the top 6 in 2018 with a figure of 1.18rating, which was the highest ranking among all north American players on the list at that time.
In search of a breakthrough, Liquid summoned Jake "Stewie2K" Yip from MIBR to send Epitacio "TACO" de Melo and Wilton "zews" Prado back to Brazil. The move proved to be a huge breakthrough for Liquid, with their dominance in the spring and summer of 2019 going down in CS:GO history, with IEM Sydney, DH Dallas, EPL S9 and ESL One Cologne, all five back-to-back championships in their pockets, while they set intel Grand Slam record.
The interruption of the season was clearly an obstacle to their strong momentum, and after losing to Astralis again on the StarLadder Major, the dna-buried Phobic psychology seemed to resurface. Although Liquid's performance at the end of the year was slightly inferior, NAF, as the second leader of Liquid after Elite, still ranked 7th in the 2019 Top 20 selection.
2020 has been a tough year for the entire North American division, including former overlord Liquid. Due to the epidemic, they were completely confined to the North American division and could not hone themselves in a higher level of environment, which caused the team's performance and status to begin to decline seriously, and in August Liquid ushered in bad news, Nick "nitr0" Cannella boldly transformed VALORANT, and the team had to choose to call michael "Grim" Wince to complete the lineup.
During the year, Liquid did not achieve the same results, although in the face of opponents in the Upper North American Division, NAF still performed well, but still could not speak the same language as the previous day. As the team entered the end of the year, the world ranking fell again and again, all the way down to 15th, and it was clear that they needed to make a change, russel "Twistzz" Van Dulken officially left the team, all of which shows that Liquid is eager to return to the world's first-tier echelon in 2021.
Eventually Brazil's godfather Gabriel "FalleN" Toledo joined Liquid, who desperately needed such a full-time sniper and experienced IGL, and it was clear that the command of Stewie2K made them feel unreliable.
Liquid started the year quite strongly, finishing well in the top four in both the BLAST World Finals and IEM Katowice, with navi, OG, FaZe and Vitality beating navi, OG, FaZe and Vitality in the Bo3 stage. NAF's brilliant performance in the BLAST World Finals (1.26 rating, 87 ADR) earned him his first EVP of the year. He remained in form in IEM Katowice, with a horror stat of 1.31rating in the play-in phase and a rating of 1.12 after entering the main match.
BLAST's spring games and the DH Open in March were awkward times for Liquid's new line-up, and NAF also played its worst performance of the year in one of the competitions, but none of this was so hard for Liquid to accept.
"Taking FalleN is very correct, and it's great that our sniper and IGL issues have finally been solved, and I just want to ask who is better qualified for these roles? Our team did well in the early days of BLAST and Katowice, but as the game went on, our pace of the game went wrong again, everyone played too much and what we really needed was mutual trust and good team chemistry. ”
The next stop was the EPL S13, where Liquid scored a considerable victory, but their overall performance was disappointing, only achieving a 9-12th result, and although they managed to reach the knockout stage, they were eliminated in the first round against G2. However, in the subsequent BLAST Spring Games, Liquid ushered in the lowest point of the year, and they were easily defeated by Dignitas in the first round, so they missed the qualification for the main competition.
After this result, they returned to North America for the first RMR event of the PGL Major, and they lost to Extra Salt in the group stage, but in the subsequent competitions they still finished the crushing all the way and took the lead in the RMR table early, which gave them some confidence before the arrival of the offline competition IEM Cologne.
However, the reality was that after successive defeats to NIP and BIG in the group stage, Liquid's hopes were shattered again. NAF was once again the highest player in the team (1.05), but this data was not enough to impress.
'Yeah, after losing to Dignitas, I feel like the whole team has hit rock bottom and there's a lot of room we need to strengthen if we want to succeed with this lineup.
"After coming to Cologne, I really feel that we are not ready to participate in this game in terms of mentality, we played very hard against NIP, they completely defeated us on the last two pictures of Bo3, the next game was not easy to play MOUZ, but we finally did it, it was a very memorable Bo3, which gave us hope to move forward. In the big game, I think we underestimated this team because we hadn't lost to them before, I just remember that I made some really bad mistakes, and for our whole team, I think everyone was doing very badly. ”
"I don't care so much about the frequent changes in command in the team, but I know very well that as a back-line player in the team, if our frontal firefighters are difficult to play, we will definitely be beaten very badly, and it is difficult for me to have room to play, and it is almost impossible to make too much impact on the situation."
The offseason gave Liquid time to resolve the issue of command ownership within the team, and they had to reinvigorate and focus on the second half of the year. In his first campaign after the offseason (EPL S14), NAF performed well, which was his second-best event of the year. Liquid fought heroic after beating NIP, Entropiq, FURIA and fnatic in succession, the two sides fought three charts, the decisive chart was even more fierce to extra time, but unfortunately they failed to win the game, but NAF performance is still very good, Liquid also successfully achieved a good result in the top eight.
"Refrezh's 1v5 was definitely a very heavy blow for us, and if this happened offline, then I think it would definitely be a nightmare for my eternal life, fortunately this is an online race and I will not take this matter to heart for too long. I remember the next day was the day I first met my girlfriend's parents, and she woke up at about 8 o'clock, and I told her that I hadn't slept for a minute, just lying in bed with my eyes open for nine hours, and my mind was full of refrezh 1v5 us. ”
BLAST was once again a tough spot for the new Liquid, who failed to qualify for the spring finals last time, and this time they failed to qualify for the main draw, and they had to participate in the showdown stage to qualify for the main tournament. Even more uncomfortable, this directly led to their having to return to Europe early, thus cutting the preparation time of IEM Cologne.
'I don't remember exactly these times, but I understand that everyone knows that we were in a very bad situation in the first half of this year and if we want to win in this squad for a long time, we need to get a certain result.
'To be honest I really enjoyed my time in the Netherlands, I don't miss home too much, so I don't mind spending a long time in Europe, I know exactly what I want, I just want to show my best for my team and my team-mates.'
After returning to North America, Liquid swept all the way through the group stage of the IEM Autumn Tournament and finally won the ticket to the PGL Major. In the BLAST Fall Showdown, NAF was once again the key gentleman in Liquid's victory over Virtus.Pro and MAD Lions, helping the team successfully qualify for the main event.
The PGL Major is an endless journey for Liquid, with the players under tremendous pressure and eager to prove themselves on this stage. As a legend, they did not need to participate in the first round of the competition, but after the official start of the game, it did not go well, after the first defeat to Entropiq, the problems exposed by Liquid could not be solved, and finally eliminated with a 1-3 record, NAF's performance was not optimistic, and he failed to play at a normal level in the confrontation with FURIA and FaZe.
"We all have high expectations of ourselves at the PGL Major because we all know that if we still can't play this time, then the change is not far away. At the beginning of the match against Entropiq, everyone understood that this was the opponent we had to defeat, but we were still invincible, and the 0-1 start made us doubt our true strength. ”
"Playing ENCE in the second game, I think we have a certain advantage over them in terms of experience, so we don't need to use any extreme methods to win. FURIA was our third opponent and I was confident in the game, but as a whole we couldn't find a right direction to control the game, and when we started to get lost on the CT side, the game quickly went into a one-sided situation. In the last game with FaZe, I'm sure we had a chance to play Figure Three with them, but we were always stuck at some key moments, and Broky's sniper rifle caused us a lot of trouble, and we still didn't handle it well. ”
Shortly after major ended, it was reported in the media that Liquid would change sides, and FalleN and Stewie2K would leave the lineup. Regardless of the specific details of the lineup change, it's certain that Liquid's change of lineup is inevitable, at least after the BLAST Fall Finals and other events of the year.
"I understand that everyone knows very well that if we don't hand over a relatively stable result, this team probably won't go on."
'During this time, I didn't know what the new squad would look like, and I was thinking about whether to join a new team with the other players.
Soon there were media reports that NAF and Stewie2K were in contact with Evil Geniuses, but ultimately failed to land, NAF chose to re-sign with Liquid, but he confirmed that he did negotiate with other teams at that time, and he also wanted to leave the long-standing home.
"I wanted to leave at the beginning, I told Liquid that I wanted to look for some other opportunities, my contract is expiring next year, I really want to try to create an old NRG squad with Daps, Brehze and CeRq, I also want to ask Ethan if he wants to get back into the CS field, but we all know that he's actually playing quite happy in VALORANT, but if there's a little bit of hope in this lineup, I definitely wouldn't hesitate to join them. When talking to EG, their ideas were contrary to mine, and I didn't want to go that way, so I backed off. ”
"I firmly believe that my choice (to re-sign With Liquid) is not wrong, because I also believe that they are one of the best teams in esports and that they will make a good consideration for the players that Liquid CS wants in the future."
"I think oSee has unlimited potential, he is likely to be one of the best snipers in NACS, as long as he works hard, he can even become the best sniper in the world."
"When I told Liquid that I wanted to leave, they said shox was really interested in joining Liquid, and I just remember thinking,' crooked day, that's too good,'" Ever since I started my career at CS Origins, he's been the object of my admiration, and I often watch his various highlights to gain motivation. My ultimate goal at CS:GO is to be strong enough and qualified to stand on the same stage as him, and now he's going to be my teammate, so cool, haha! ”
The End-Up Liquids are not under as much pressure as before, and they have performed much better in their three races at the end of the year than they have had for most of the year. Naf is also Liquid's highest rating player in these competitions, which gives him an absolute advantage over his teammates in the competition for the Top 20. NAF contributed 1.44rating to a star-level play against NIP in the BLAST Fall Finals and once again had an outstanding performance against Heroic.
"For me, nothing really changed [after the change was set] and I knew what I was going to do here was to show myself to the fullest, there was no pressure on our whole team, and at the end of the year we knew very well that it was all over for everyone, so we just tried to show the best possible side of the few opportunities we had."
"[2021] My best memories are definitely the BLAST Fall Finals at Royal Arena, and it was so refreshing to be able to play in front of a large audience again, it was something I dreamed about, I had a very good time in that event, and I even couldn't wait to do it again."
Liquid set another milestone at the IEM Winter – beating Astralis 2-0 for the first time ever, even though neither team was the same team as they were that year. In this year's BLAST World Finals, Liquid defeated tournament champion NaVi with a crushing force, and NAF was once again the key to the North American team.
They then battled Gambit fiercely and won again 2-0 again against Astralis, with Liquid reaching the final four. The arrival of the winter offseason also unveiled the mystery of Liquid's new lineup, and NAF hopes that this time they can have a relatively stable environment and work together to win the championship again.
"At the end of the year we gave each other more patience and confidence, so we also thought that maybe we could barely get better in a few games at the end of the year. Next year we will have a new squad and I am looking forward to how the team will perform in the future. ”
Why is NAF the Top 14 in 2021?
After failing to make the list last year, NAF returned to the Top 20 as one of the most stable players and the most efficient endgame master this year.
"It definitely feels good to be back in the Top 20, it's a good incentive, and it's like telling me that this year's CS performance is not bad."
"I remember going into 2020, at the beginning of the year in BLAST and Katowice I didn't do very well and I needed to strengthen my personal ability more, which was something I lacked at the time. Then the COVID-19 pandemic raged around the world, we could only play NA games in North America for most of the year, and at the beginning we felt good, EG was beaten by us, and the team won the NA Pro League trophy. But for at least half of the year, we started to experience negative emotions of procrastination and exhaustion, and we all needed to make a change. I feel like my enthusiasm for CS has declined after a lot of problems in the team started piling up, but I still feel like I still played quite decent CS that year. ”
In addition to losing the BLAST Premier Spring Finals qualifiers, he scored 1.05rating or better in all other competitions he played. Further demonstrating his stability is that NAF rarely performs very badly on maps, with this player maintaining a rating of 0.85 (8th out of all players) and a super high KAST (72.9%, 9th) for 89% of the game.
NAF is 17th out of 1vN total wins (53), but on average per possession he ranks 5th, plus he has excellent output damage stats (80.2, 15th). Although he was the lowest first-attempted player in the Top 20, he still had considerable influence in the game, and most importantly, he was particularly prominent against the top players in major events, with the Canadian gunman ending up with a 1.13rating performance in a major event (12th) and a 1.12rating performance against the Top 20 team (12th).
He also received two very high-profile accolades, namely the 2020 BLAST Premier World Championship and the EVP Award for EPL S14, and is very close to another EVP award in Liquid's most successful event of the year, IEM Katowice (Liquid ranked 3rd-4th). NAF is also Liquid's top two player in all competitions, including the 2021 BLAST Premier Global Finals, IEM Winter and EPL S13.
Although he has been very stable throughout the year, THEAF lacks sufficiently high peak performance data, or even higher baseline data, which is the fundamental reason for the inability to achieve higher rankings.
"I hope we can get a good and healthy team environment in which the championship will naturally fall back into Liquid's hands. I still think it would be a very interesting experience to be on a team with shox, he's a legend in CS and a source of inspiration for all my playing style and inspiration, so I think it would be great to be able to find success with him. ”
Rising Star Prediction
NAF gave its tomorrow's star prediction to Mi osz "mhL" Knasiak of MOUZ NXT, a Polish sniper who had made a name for himself at ago.
"I think MHL has a lot of potential, he was selected by MOUZ NXT and it's a really good opportunity and hopefully he can reach the next level in the future and I wish him the best of luck."