Jensen on Liquid’s loss to 100 Thieves: “We’re all playing poorly”

Team Liquid isn’t playing their best and Nicolaj “Jensen” Jensen knows it. The four-time LCS champions lost to 100 Thieves today, dropping their record to 2-3. With Mads “Broxah” Brock-Pedersen finally in America, Jensen told WIN.gg that Team Liquid’s performance might turn around soon. 

How are you feeling after the loss today? 

Jensen: I don’t know. It feels kind of shitty, honestly. I’m not really used to losing this much. A lot of our mistakes are the same. We’re run over early game and have to give up every objective. We’re such a passive team right now. The games don’t really feel too fun to play. 

It looked like you were waiting for 100 Thieves to make a mistake. Do you think you guys were playing too reactive and not actively enough? 

It’s different issues. At first, we were just playing too scared. Today, I think we were being more proactive in the early game but made stupid mistakes that cost us a lot. We were forced to play more defensive. A lot of the time, instead of going for the fight we chose to trade objectives, or tried to. Other teams look for fights.

Right now, we are for sure struggling. We need to find our identity. 

Going into the split, a lot of people had TL at the top of their power rankings. Do you feel pressure to be the best after last season? 

I feel less pressure than when I first joined TL. I still really, really want to win and I think we should be a winning team. I wouldn’t say I feel pressure, but it feels really bad. At the same time, we don’t have our full roster yet. But I don’t think that’s a fair excuse. Everyone is just playing really poorly and we all need to step it up one way or another. 

How do you like playing with Shernfire?

Playing with him is great. He’s always been high-rated on the ladder. He has good mechanical skills, but the thing he lacks a bit is leadership. It’s important that a jungler can control the pace of the game. It’s hard to come into a team like this and just take over, so it’s hard for him to be in the position he’s in, but he’s done a decent job. 

Broxah will be playing with the main roster next weekend. How long will you have to practice with him before next week’s match? 

He hasn’t gotten his passport back yet. We’re still waiting for that. It could come anywhere from Tuesdasy to Thursday. It’s possible he’ll just come in and we won’t get any practice. If we’re lucky, he’ll arrive Tuesday or Wednesday. Hopefully sooner rather than later. 

So you guys haven’t scrimmed with him? 

No. I went on a bootcamp with him. But that’s about it. 

How are you feeling now that he’s finally in LA? 

I’m super excited to start playing with him again. During the bootcamp, we practiced a lot and talked about about the game together. It was a shame we couldn’t start off the season together. We developed a lot of synergy and it was a big setback, this whole visa thing. It sucks but I’m excited to finally get to play with him. 

How do you think next weekend will go, having Broxah on stage? 

I think it’s really hard to say. We haven’t played with him at all. Jetlag could be a big factor and I don’t know how much practice we’ll have.

But his knowledge should play a big part in our team’s success. I’m expecting us to play a lot better with him. I think Broxah is a very aggressive player. Hopefully we can get rid of this passive identity. That would really help. 

What are your personal goals this split?

My biggest flaw as a player is not connecting with my junglers in the past. It’s really important for me this year to play together with Broxah. Jungle synergy is the most important thing in the game.

That’s going to be my focus for this season. To snowball through mid. We’ve always been a team that plays through the bottom lane. That’s the biggest reason Broxah came on board, to change the identity of the team to be more mid-focused.