nitr0 Steps Down from Liquid’s starting lineup


nitr0 Steps Down from Liquid’s starting lineup

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Liquid have confirmed that Nick “⁠nitr0⁠” Cannella has stepped down from the team’s active lineup after representing the organization for five years.

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The news follows reports from earlier this week, which claimed that 19-year-old Triumph star Michael “⁠Grim⁠” Wince was to join Liquid, taking the spot of the nitr0.

The 24-year-old spent most of his playing career in Liquid, most notably leading the team to multiple event wins in 2019, the #1 spot in the world rankings, and a 63-day Intel Grand Slam Season 2 win.

nitr0 was the only OG member of the Liquid lineup that stuck with the team since 2015.

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His role change from entry fragger to in-game leading to AWPer helping Liquid to regularly place high in tournaments during 2018 and finally become the world’s best team in the first half of 2019.

Lately, nitr0 moved away from both AWPing and in-game leading, but wasn’t able to improve his individual form, averaging a 0.94 rating over the last three months.

That, combined with Liquid‘s uninspiring results — just one tournament win during the “online era” —, preceded nitr0 to demote to the bench.

On Twitter, Liquid‘s manager Steve Perino commented and described him as “one of the most selfless people I have ever met”, adding that he is “going to kill it with whatever comes next”.

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As of now, nitr0 hasn’t commented on what his plans for the future are.

Jonathan “⁠EliGE⁠” Jablonowski, who now takes over as the active player with the longest tenure in Liquid added that:

There was no mention of Grim in the announcement, but Liquid have already confirmed that they would be using the youngster for the upcoming DreamHack Summer North America event.

Liquid are now:

 Jonathan “⁠EliGE⁠” Jablonowski
 Russel “⁠Twistzz⁠” Van Dulken
 Keith “⁠NAF⁠” Markovic
 Jake “⁠Stewie2K⁠” Yip
 Eric “⁠adreN⁠” Hoag (coach)

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