Update: Team Liquid announced the signing of EliGE on September 25, confirming a report by SPUNJ earlier this week. The American rifler said he has a lot of confidence in the squad and is excited to show their stuff. You can read the original article below.
Jonathan “EliGE” Jablonowski is returning to Team Liquid’s Counter-Strike team after spending the last two years in Complexity and FaZe Clan, according to Australian caster Chad “SPUNJ” Burchill.
SPUNJ said during the last episode of the HLTV Confirmed show that EliGE will replace Russel “Twistzz” Van Dunkel, who’s heading to FaZe. On the same HLTV Confirmed episode, HLTV’s Editor-in-Chief Milan “Striker” Švejda revealed that FaZe initially planned for Twistzz to replace Håvard “rain” Nygaard, but the team has yet to decide who will make way for the Canadian star.
EliGE, on the other hand, has been on FaZe’s bench since August, when the organization benched him to make way for Jakub “jcobbb” Pietruszewski’s arrival. SPUNJ explained why FaZe and Liquid are trading players:
It’s a straight swap of players because both of these organizations don’t have a lot of money to spend.
Before joining Complexity in 2023, EliGE played eight years for Liquid and was part of the organization’s most memorable moments in CS:GO.
Together with Twistzz, Jake “Stewie2K” Yip, Keith “NAF” Markovic, and Nicholas “nitr0” Cannella, EliGE went on to win four big events in a row in 2019 — IEM Sydney, DreamHack Masters Dallas, ESL Pro League Season 9, and ESL One Cologne — which netted Liquid the $1 million Intel Grand Slam Season 2 title.
The American was the definition of a franchise player till Liquid took the international route and sold him to Complexity.
Even though EliGE was replaced by the unproven jcobbb in FaZe, it has nothing to do with his individual performance. He’s averaging a respectable 1.11 rating in 2025 and was FaZe’s best player after David “frozen” Čerňanský.
EliGE is Liquid’s most decorated Counter-Strike player ever. Credit: Stephanie Lieske | © ESL
By bringing on EliGE for Twistzz, Liquid will have a player with similar firepower. But, the difference is that EliGE is capable of providing far more opening kills for the team, as he’s your typical aggressive playmaker, whereas Twistzz is more capable at clutching.
In theory, Kamil “siuhy” Szkaradek and EliGE will be the players going out first in most of the rounds on T-side, and Guy “NertZ” Iluz will be the one trading frags.
Even though Twistzz had been playing very well, EliGE is likely a better fit considering the rest of Liquid’s lineup, as they’ll finally have a true bombsite entry.
While it remains unclear when FaZe and Liquid will announce this swap, the organizations ought to hurry as FaZe will play at ESL Pro League Season 22 next month, and there’s also the roster lock for the StarLadder Budapest Major 2025.
Feature image credit: Adela Sznajder | © BLAST
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