Shox and AdreN Benched From Team Liquid

Team Liquid announced big roster changes for its Counter-Strike: Global Offensive roster on Sunday, June 19. The North American esports organization revealed that the team would continue without Richard “shox” Papillon and head coach Eric “adreN” Hoag.

Team Liquid announced its coach and French player are moving away from the active lineup and are free to explore new options. The news follows Liquid’s poor performances over the year, with the team failing to achieve anything noteworthy in bigger events.

So even though Liquid decided to make some drastic changes to its lineup, the departures are hardly surprising. Still, many wondered why Liquid opted to part ways with coach adreN, which the team later explained by stating that Liquid decided to go in a different direction in the coaching department.

Shox’s departure, on the other side, was expected. The French rifler joined Liquid in December 2021 as a part of a major roster shuffle. He arrived at the North American squad from Team Vitality, who was building an international roster with Danish and French players at the time.

But despite his renown as one of the world’s best players, shox has struggled to achieve much in his new team. This led to internal turmoil and rumors that suggested shox was going to leave the team by the end of the year.

On an individual level, shox did not deliver up to expectations and couldn’t show his best form. During his six-month tenure with Liquid, the French CS:GO player has posted a 0.94 average rating; however, he has delivered against lesser teams in the NA RMR.

While shox’s departure was expected, no one anticipated Liquid to replace its coach as well. Still, it seems like Liquid are looking to make changes on both fronts, which led to AdreN’s departure from the organization.

This marks the end of AdreN’s second stint as Liquid’s coach, having already held the role in 2019-2020 before he returned to the organization in May 2021. During his first stint, AdreN has achieved plenty with Team Liquid, most notably leading the team to Intel Grand Slam Season 2 title in July 2019.

However, he wasn’t able to reach the same heights this time out and now leaves the team without any new trophies to his name. It is currently unclear whether AdreN will continue his career as a CS:GO coach or where he might end up next.

Despite the major roster overhaul ahead of the 2022 season, Team Liquids failed to achieve anything over the six months. Historically, one of North America’s best CS:GO teams, Liquid, not only failed to win any big events but did not claim a single silverware over the seven events they’ve attended this year.

Liquid kicked off the year poorly, as they couldn’t find any traction at BLAST Premier: Spring Groups 2022 (10th-12th) and Intel Extreme Masters XVI – Katowice (13th-16th). The team showed some improvement in RMR Open Qualifier, but even there, they placed second behind Complexity.

Over the next months, Liquid continued with underwhelming showings, placing fifth at ESL Pro League Season 15 and PGL Major Antwerp 2022: American RMR, before bouncing back with a gold medal from the IEM Dallas NA qualifiers.

Over the last two months, Liquid have attended three events, including BLAST Premier Spring American Showdown, PGL Major Antwerp, and IEM Dallas, but could not finish better than the top-eight.

Most notably, Liquid barely made it through the Major Challengers stage (3-2) but then crashed out of the Legends Stage. They completed the final stage of the Major without a single win, losing against Heroic, FURIA, and Team Vitality.

Now, with the departure of shox and AdreN, Liquid can start fresh, albeit it remains to be seen who will they add to fill in the gaps. Still, we don’t have to wait for long to get the answer, as Liquid have just days to announce a new coach and player for the IEM Cologne.