Number 4 Player of Year 4: Paluh

Team Liquid's year was full of successes but also full of disappointments. Paluh was instrumental in all of it, being Liquid's most impactful player throughout the course of the year. Liquid's success was limited to minors, where the team showed incremental progress. They took a third, second, and finally first-place finish at each of the year's minors that Liquid participated it. 

In the top level of competition, Liquid was always in the mix in LATAM but each time they were tested fell just short of their goal. In Season 9, they were a single point away from qualifying for Pro League Finals. In Season 10, just three points. When they finally did get a shot at the biggest prize, they were paired against LATAM Rivals NiP and MIBR, and fell short. 

Despite these team shortcomings, Paluh was always a fantastic performer for Liquid. He earned MVO honors in both of Liquid's two titles of the year, the OGA PIT Minor and the BR6. Additionally, he was among the world's very best when he had the opportunity to play on LAN. This was most exemplified by his staggering performance at OGA, earning a 1.35 rating over Liquid's ten maps played. 

Throughout the rest of the year, he was consistently solid, posting above a 1.00 rating and with a positive K-D at every single event he participated in. 

Here are each of Paluh's performances this year:

Tournament	Rating	K-D (+/-)	Misc.
PL S9 LATAM	1.01	105-104 (+1)	22-16 OK-OD
Allied Minor	1.17	75-56 (+19)	3 1vX Clutches
Raleigh Quals	1.13	62-48 (+14)	0.94 KPR
BR6 2019	1.24	345-230 (+115)	68% KOST
DH Montreal	1.18	117-93 (+24)	21-10 OK-OD
PL S10 LATAM	1.07	123-104 (+19)	IQ/Jager Main
OGA PIT	1.35	119-66 (+53)	73% KOST
PL S11a LATAM	1.11	60-49 (+11)	10-6 OK-OD
SI 2020	1.02	61-56 (+5)	0.82 KPR

 

We also had a chance to speak with Paluh about his performance this year:

Liquid has had tremendous success at Minors, with a third, second, and finally first-place finish this year, but have really struggled with top-tier events, missing most of them and exiting in the group stage of the Invitational. Why do you think this is, and how can you fix it?

I think the bigger reason was the changes we had to our lineup and the Pro League being Bo1s. Just recently we could fit the team really well, which resulted in great results like the OGA. We were with great expectations about the invitational, but we weren't prepared as we thought. We decided to not go for bootcamping and it was a really bad idea as the Tier 1 teams are playing at the event or at vacation waiting for the second split of Pro League.

What do you think Brazilian teams can do to finally become competitive at the very top level again?

I think we are on the right track, our run at the OGA and NiP’s at the Invitational shows it.

How are you feeling about the future of Siege as an esport?

 I'm really excited about it. Ubisoft is really investing in it, always bringing big news for us.

What are you going to work on to improve your success next year?

 We know what we did wrong and so what we need to do to it doesn't happen again, besides always keeping doing our best and finding new ways to improve.

Is there anything you would like to say to your fans and the wider Siege community?

Thanks to everyone that cheers and supports us, you guys are really important. And even if you don't, let's keep growing these communities more and more, we can reach much more.

You can also watch Paluh's best plays of the year in the fragmovie below:

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Stay tuned for more of the top ten players, you can check out the full list in the awards hub and make sure to let us know what you think about each one on social media!