Team Liquid are the ALGS Year 6 Split 2 Playoffs champions after fighting off seven other Match Point teams in Las Vegas.
And Insider Gaming spoke with Team Liquid’s Apex Legends pro Nicholas ‘Sikezz’ Odom directly after the monumental LAN win.
This was Sikezz’s first major ALGS trophy, and he was also named the MVP of the exhilarating final.
Here’s what he had to say about the massive moment in his career directly after lifting the trophy.
Congratulations, what an incredible performance. Talk us through, if you can, your emotions right now
Honestly, it’s like, I’m like on top of the world right now, and it’s just a massive like sense of relief.
Like, I woke up this morning, I was like confident we were gonna win, but there was like a big part of me that I always have this like little doubt in my head that I’m like gonna watch someone else win again.
You know, it’s just like, oh my God, I’m gonna get close and it’s not gonna happen again.Â
But I mean, I’m on top of the world right now. It finally happened, I finally won one.
It’s clearly weighed on you a lot this year. Has that been your driving force, the need to win one?
Yeah, I mean, there’s been throughout the last few years, there’s been multiple times where I almost quit. Because I was just like, it’s never gonna happen.
Like, I don’t really do it for the money. I don’t do it for the money at all. The money is nice. But the only thing I care about is winning. And yeah, I almost quit multiple times.
And I just told myself to stick it out. My mom was a big supporter of me continuing, and here we are.
Was your mom or any of your family here today?Â
My mom and my brother was here. It was great. I mean, the first person I wanted to see was her whenever I won.
Could you see them like in between games?
Yeah, they were right in front of us.
I was trying to ignore it because I didn’t want to get like emotional, like throughout the game, like when things are going bad or things are going good.
So I was like, trying my best to ignore everything other than the game, but it was great. It was great seeing them in there.
Circling back to when you said you considered quitting. Obviously, you’re incredibly competitive, you don’t get to this level without that, but what kept you going and helped you keep believing?
Honestly, it was just the people around me, like Gild, one of my best friends. He’s the player that I think deserves the most to win.
So just seeing him continue to like, you know, keep pushing forward after being so, so close so many times, you know, like he’s had countless opportunities and hasn’t got it done yet.
Seeing him continue to keep going forward, it was honestly a big inspiration to me.
Now talk to us about the performance today, did you realize when you hit Match Point that you had to take Forge Wolves down there and then?Â
In the Rift game? Oh, no. In the Rift game, I had no idea.
People, whenever I won the 1v1 versus Kaydnw, people were coming up to me and they were like, do you know what you just did? Like, you just saved the tournament.
I was like, I don’t know what just happened. I was like, I’m just playing.
I looked at the leaderboard and I think there was four teams alive and only two of them were not on Match Point. It was us and AG and we killed the other two match point teams. It was amazing stuff.
Once you hit Match Point, Team Liquid were constantly in those final threes. Just like, what was going so well and how did you keep finding yourselves in these great positions?Â
Honestly, Rhys [Zer0] is just the best IGL in the game. Like, his ability to navigate the map and put us in great spots is just, he’s better than everyone at it.
And the Barometer game, we were on Rampart, Gibby, Valk. I actually thought we were going to win. So there’s, we’ve been like pretty much the best team at like late Valk ults and the game wins since we became a team.
And I thought we were going to get it done right there. And then it didn’t happen. And I was like, oh, like part of me was like, oh we just lost our chance.
Because on Match Point, you really only ever get like one, maybe if you’re lucky, two chances to win, right? So I thought we lost ours.
You mentioned you were really stressed about getting close and not making it again. So then in those moments, when teams are hitting Match Point or you’re on Match Point yourself, how do you keep composed?Â
Well, the worst thing is being on Match Point and dying early and then having to just like, sit there and just pray and pray. And like you’re just like hoping.
But so there’s really no way to be calm. Like I’m kind of just freaking out the entire time. And as soon as like the game ends and the tourney’s still going on, it’s just like, oh thank God. We get another chance.
And then what was going on in Match 9 when you finally won, what was going through your mind towards the end of that game?Â
It’s funny. As soon as the wrap, the only place we could really lose the game from was like it closed off from gas. I pretty much knew we won the tournament.
And whenever it was a 3v1 versus a Solar Wraith, the only thing I was thinking in my brain the entire time was don’t get 1v3’d, don’t get 1v3’d. Please don’t get 1v3’d. Don’t get put on Twitter.
That was literally the only thing I was thinking the entire time. I was having a big smile on my face the entire time.
And you talked about Zer0 being an amazing IGL, but also, how do you think you played this final in this tournament?
Well, I think I did my job well. I think I did the things that I needed to do for the team to win well in finals today.
I had some unfortunate moments, had some bad plays early on in the tournament, but I think towards the end I walked in and played my characters and used the utility properly.
Now, of course, you want to live in the moment and enjoy this win, but if you can for a second, look forward to Sapporo, what do the next few months look like for Team Liquid?
Right back to the grind. I mean, I want to win Sapporo even more now.
I want to go back-to-back. Now that I know it’s possible for me to win, I have just a ton of confidence and want to get right back to the grind.
There really is a huge weight off you. What do you think was the difference this time? What was it that clicked that secured you that trophy?
I think it was just calmness. We were just very calm.
It seemed like we finally just realized how good we are and how much better we can be than the other teams.
And it feels like everyone just took a deep breath and just played their game properly.
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You peaked at the right time but there were difficult moments. Does that play on your mind early into a tournament, or are you just locked in on just getting to the next stage?Â
Well, in Winners, it was definitely a big like, look, let’s just get to finals. Like, you know, we almost didn’t make it to finals off Winners, but we squeaked in at ninth.
And the rest of the tournament was just really hard, honestly. We’ve had some really bad RNG this event. Some of the hardest Apex games I’ve ever played.
I’m just constantly running across the map. Unfortunate things are happening left and right. I’m dying out of the air off Valk ults.
It’s like there’s a ton of unfortunate things, but we got it done.
You did. Is there any other particular in-game moment that is living in your head that was important or memorable to you?Â
It’s funny, it’s more of a funny moment than anything. It was the Rift game, actually, the game that we stopped Forge from winning the event.
We landed in this building, like bottom middle Rift, and I like died on landing to a team. But I put Rampart walls down first, and I was like screaming, you have to, like, take my Rampart walls down so I can crawl in.
Only Rampart can interact with her walls where she can like tap a button to delete them. Everyone else in the game has to punch them.
So I was like, just screaming, you have to punch them, idiot. And I just like crawled in the building, we reset and then we won the game.
And I was just like, yeah, this is probably going to be the one.
Amazing. And then what happened at the end of Match 8, the second-to-last one where Aurora won at the end. Everyone was piled on top of each other, and it seemed like complete chaos.
Yeah, that was the Valk ult Barometer game that I always think we’re like so good at. We, honestly, I pinged a bad spot, Panic pinged a bad spot, and we kind of just agreed to land on it. We kind of just instantly died because of it.
But that was a stressful game because there’s so many people alive. You know, you’re flying above everyone, you’re seeing pings everywhere. You don’t know who’s alive. You’re just freaking out the entire time.
Your heart must be in your mouth when you’re in the air.
Yeah, because you’re trying not to die to gas because the ring is so small.
You’re trying not to die to gas. You’re having to, you know, manage to not die to gas because you’re flying in and you’re ticking the ring every once in a while.
You’re having to look to see where you’re landing, to think about your abilities. And it’s just, it’s just a lot, just a lot.
We’ll let you go celebrate, but to finish things off, you guys were very deserving winners. Do you have any closing thoughts?Â
I mean, honestly, just if you have a dream and you want to accomplish it, just keep going at it each day, even when it sucks and it gets hard.
Will anyone be able to stop Team Liquid at the ALGS Year 6 Championship? Share your thoughts with us on the Insider Gaming Discord.
Meanwhile, Joshua ‘JFuture’ Lubitz walked through DINOS’ impressive start at ALGS Split 2. And for even more Insider Gaming delivered directly to your inbox, sign up for our newsletter.
An esports journalist for nine years with a focus on LoL Jack has written for national newspapers, interviewed major names, and driven people mad with puns. He's most proud of…
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