Team Liquid has announced that its star player, Russel “Twistzz” Van Dulken, is set to leave the organisation after FISSURE Playground 2. The team is currently playing in the event in Serbia and already lost its opening game 2-1 to FURIA.
Twistzz will be heading to FaZe Clan, the team he left for Liquid in December 2023. His return will see him don the FaZe jersey for the second time in his career, having previously enjoyed great success with the American organisation between January 2021 and December 2023.
A disastrous second spell
To put it plainly, Twistzz’ second time on the Liquid roster has been nothing short of disastrous. Hopes were high at the time that he would be able to lift the team back to the level they had enjoyed during his first stint, but the move has led to problem after problem for both Liquid and Twistzz.
The team headlined by Twistzz and Danish AWP IGL Casper “cadiaN” Moller failed to gel; the writing was on the wall after just a few months of being together, as it missed out on the PGL Major Copenhagen 2024.
Twistzz himself became the IGL after cadiaN’s departure, but there was little improvement from him doing so. Although his stats didn’t suffer too much, the form of other teammates waned and the arrivals of Roland “ultimate” Tomkowiak and Guy “NertZ” Iluz did little to remedy this.
Image Credit: PGL
The Canadian star eventually gave up the IGL role, handing it over to former MOUZ player Kamil “siuhy” Szkaradek, but Liquid’s form has still barely improved. The arrival of its new coach, Viktor “flashie” Tamas Bea has helped slightly, longstanding Liquid player Keith “NAF” Markovic’s form has improved, but the organisation still looks to be in major doubt of qualifying for the StarLadder Budapest Major later this year.
Twistzz’ replacement on Liquid is currently unknown, although in a follow-up to its announcement, Liquid said, “We will have more information about our updated roster coming soon.”
Even though Twistzz is one of the most successful players in the history of Team Liquid, although his second stint with the team hasn’t brought success, he will still be fondly remembered within the organisation for the run that saw Liquid claim the second season of the Intel Grand Slam back in 2019.
Liquid is currently playing in FISSURE Playground 2. It lost its opening game to FURIA 2-1 despite winning map one, Dust2, 13-9. Team Liquid will now face GamerLegion in its 0-1 game after the European team was handily beaten by TYLOO in its own opening match.
Trying again
Twistzz’ return to FaZe sees him re-join the team less than two years after departing them. An ill-fated move, the Canadian will be hoping to get his career back on track as he links back up with Finn “karrigan” Andersen, Helvjis “broky” Saukants, and Havard “rain” Nygaard.
That said, it is likely that the move means that either rain or karrigan will soon be departing the team, given David “frozen” Cernansky’s standing as the team’s star, broky’s position as the AWPer, and the recent arrival of Jakub “jcobbb” Pietruzewski.
The move, which is set to be completed in time for ESL Pro League Season 22, had been heavily rumoured in recent times, although it was believed to be dead following the arrival of jcobbb on FaZe.