“I have to smoke Falcons”: Zer0 discusses ALGS Championship goals and joining Team Liquid

Team Liquid’s Rhys ‘Zer0’ Perry is one of the players to watch at the ALGS Year 5 Championship. 

He won the title in 2022 with DarkZero and got in the top 10 of almost every LAN event in the history of the ALGS. Zer0 signing with Team Falcons in 2024 was supposed to bring to life a star-studded roster alongside the ‘CEO of Apex’ Phillip ‘ImperialHal’ Dosen, but things started to falter. 

Despite recording 2nd place at the 2024 Esports World Cup, 3rd place at last year’s Championship and a 1st place at the 2025 ALGS Open, tensions quickly rose within the team. This culminated in a disappointing ALGS: 2025 Midseason Playoffs run, finishing sixth. 

In August 2025, Zer0 was benched, and 10 days later, he moved to Team Liquid to be the team’s new in-game leader (IGL).

“I feel pretty fortunate, I’ve been with some great orgs in my career,” Zer0 told Esports Insider Italy during an interview in Sapporo.

“When I was getting into esports, I always wanted to become part of an org I grew up watching. Team Liquid, TSM, G2, C9 (Cloud9), teams I watched almost 24/7 during LCS. It was good with Team Falcons for the most part until the buyout side of things. With Team Liquid, everything has been great from the moment I met the staff in LA: everyone’s pretty nice and welcoming.”

Zer0’s teammates — Nicholas ‘Sikezz’ Odom and Nicholas ‘Fuhhnq’ Wall — are two very different players. But the team has already found success, qualifying for the 2026 ALGS Championship thanks to the seventh-place finish of then-orgless team ZZ in the global rankings. This included finishing second in the ALGS Split 2 Americas Pro League, ahead of third-place Team Falcons. 

 “I’ve played with Sikezz before, and he’s one of my better friends in Apex. I’ve known him for a long time,” said the player.

“Fuhhnq has personally stopped me from winning two LANs, so he owes me one. I’m excited to play with him because he’s really reaching his full potential, especially through boot camp.”

On the day before the start of the competition, Zer0’s confidence in his squad, now under the Team Liquid banner, was absolute. 

“Team-wise, our strongest points are definitely synergy and character fit: both of my teammates are great for their roles, and they are playing exceptionally well,” he stated.

“In teamfighting, we’re in the top three of the game, and we are also very good confidence-wise. Newer players get really nervous in LAN, so we just run them down and win because they play scared.”

During the tournament, Zer0 noted that some personal scores may also get settled.

“I definitely have to smoke Falcons. Also Crazy Thieves… and Alliance,” noted Zer0. “Despite their drop at the Esports World Cup, they are still the most consistent team around, finishing second or first at almost every LAN.”

When asked about the state of the game, both in esports and on the casual side, Team Liquid’s IGL highlighted what he believes every other pro player in Sapporo will mention.

“The answer every single pro will give you is that we need better ROI (return on investment), like a skin programme, team skins or crowdfunding for LAN,” he said.

“EA did crowdfunding for Online Champs four years ago and doubled the prize pool, saying it would have continued to do it. They never did, and organisations are struggling to make money off their teams unless they are very successful or popular. It’s pretty rough maintaining a team on the org side. The amount players get paid in this game compared to other titles is rough just because of the lack of org support from EA.”

However, he did mention that the game is in a healthy position.

Zer0 stated: “The last few seasons have spiked the playerbase massively, and if the game was going to die, it would have been on season 6 or 7, when it only peaked at 30.000 viewers on Twitch. 

“Everyone always thinks it’s going to die, but it’s not going to die anytime soon. The playerbase is fine, although the rank system is pretty bad now for both pro players and casuals; it could use some tuning.”

The ALGS Global Championship 2026 will see the world’s 40 best teams compete in four days of battle royale matches.

Taking place at the Daiwa House Premist Dome in Sapporo, the event will start with a group phase where each group (made of 10 teams) will face off to establish a winners and a losers bracket.

After three days of matches, 20 teams will be eliminated, and the final 20 will battle it out for the trophy in a match point final.

The proprietary format will give the world title to the team that first reaches 50 points through their placement in a series of games and then gets the victory royale afterwards. Fans can catch all the action on Twitch and YouTube, where the new anthem by Japanese rapper OZworld just debuted.