Liquid and G2 have announced a swap deal, with Guy ‘NertZ’ Iluz and Mario ‘malbsMd’ Samayo switching jerseys in a move that sees Liquid return to the Americas region once again.
Question marks hang over malbsMD and NertZ as swap is confirmed
The swap sees the two players move after difficult periods in their respective teams, with both players having notable question marks over their individual levels of late.
After initially delivering in unfavourable anchor roles for G2, malbs had struggled to deliver with the increased responsibility of star positions since the departure of Nikola ‘NiKo’ Kovač.
The question then is whether malbs can deliver in star positions for Liquid. The Guatemalan shone in those same positions for M80, but struggled against Tier 1 opposition, making the move somewhat of a risk on Liquid’s part.
For NertZ, he is leaving a team that looked defeated and demotivated for much of its time together. However, arguments could be made that NertZ looked the least interested of the lot, regressing significantly in Liquid colours from his ENCE and Heroic form.
The Israeli rifler reunites with former ENCE and Heroic teammate, Álvaro ‘SunPayus’ García, as well as coach, Eetu ‘sAw’ Saha, recreating partnerships that saw NertZ play his best Counter-Strike, but recapturing that form is not necessarily a given.
Liquid returns to the North American region
So the swap deal has risks, but the move is safer from a different perspective, that being the VRS picture, where the move is set to make Liquid’s path to the IEM Cologne 2026 Major far easier.
The move would allow Liquid, who currently have two North American players, to swap to the Americas region for Major invite purposes once the Guatelaman is registered to the roster in the VRS.
The roster would move from 23rd in HLTV’s live EU VRS model to seventh in the Americas VRS, comfortably sitting within the 10 Americas invite spots for the Cologne Major.
Both Liquid and G2 are registered for local LANs, allowing the five matches needed to register players on the roster before the IEM Cologne 2026 Major invite cutoff.
Liquid are currently competing in the Roman Imperium Cup, with Justinas ‘jL’ Lekavicius standing in for the roster, accelerating the removal of NertZ from their official VRS roster.
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For more CS news, see our report on NAVI’s victory over The MongolZ at ESL Pro League Season 23.
Darragh is an Esports Journalist for Insider Gaming specialising in Counter-Strike. He loves to explore how esports teams work, or why they very often do not.
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