dazzLe: "We're trying to break the curse"
Michael "Duck" Moriarty caught up with eUnited's Will "dazzLe" Loafman ahead of his teams match with Swole Patrol in Leicester to get his thoughts on the events, and the progression of the team since the last time they were in a similar position.
How confident are you guys in defeating Swole Patrol and securing a spot in the next season of ESL Pro League?
Yeah, we're pretty confident versus them. We've played them in about four BO3's in the past month, after MDL ended. Kind of unlucky that we've had to play them that much, the same thing happened at the last MDL, we had played SoaR a bunch online and we were owning them, and then we came to LAN and choked. We're trying to break that curse.
So going back to last season, is there anything extra you have done to ensure something similar doesn't happen again?
We have a way more even-keeled roster now. Our attitudes don't go as far up and down anymore. Two weeks ago we went to Los Angeles with eUnited for a bootcamp, we got to play together on LAN, and we did really well in ECS while we were there. We kept our ECS spot and now we are battling to go to that LAN.
We've definitely taken steps to make sure we come out with the spot this time and not mess up.
Speaking of ECS, you're the only non-ESL Pro League team in ECS. How much focus have you been able to put towards the league and making the LAN Finals, which you are in a fairly key position to do?
We played three of our ECS matches from our bootcamp, against Liquid, SK, and OpTic. We got to focus really hard and play together, which I think was super good for us. We didn't have anything else we needed to play. We were able to take a map off of SK and 2-0 Liquid and OpTic.
We were kind of more worried about keeping our spot in the league, so we needed a couple wins. We threw our matches against Renegades early in the season which put us in a bad spot, but we're glad to be putting up a fight in our first Pro season.
Your final ECS match will be against Rogue, do you feel like you can secure your LAN spot?
The problem with that is we are forced to play that match from here, so we are actually going to a local venue, and we'll have really high ping. I'm assuming we'll get 2-0'ed because it is really hard to play versus the good teams with high ping. If we steal a map from Rogue, I'm pretty sure that means we qualify for LAN. If we don't, we may get fifth instead of fourth. We're really just happy about keeping the spot.
With the MDL Finals coming up, if you find yourselves in the same position as last season, are you confident in going through the Relegation?
We're definitely confident against the teams in Relegation right now. I think Torqued is the biggest contender, because compLexity's roster is messed up playing with Slemmy and Professor_Chaos. The ex-Splyce roster is all types of messed up.
Just like last Relegation, we knew we should have won and gotten a spot, and we didn't make it happen. We're not going to count our chickens before they hatch, but we are pretty confident against anyone here.
Aside from the Pro League-related events here, you are of course also in the Global Challenge. How much of an impact are you looking to make?
We're looking to do well, but the main focus is definitely on today and tomorrow (if we have to play tomorrow.) We definitely want to make some waves, and I think we can match up against the European teams here.
Outside of the major leagues, you have been performing fairly well in qualifiers, albeit narrowly missing out on top spots. You are in the Closed Qualifier for ESL One Cologne, do you think you can make it to Germany?
I'm sure the really good North American teams will get invited to that, so we'll have to play the Cloud9s and NRGs of the world. Its a big double-elimination BO3 bracket, so I think we'll definitely have a shot, and it will just be more experience for us as well.
The Global Challenge will see the first North American action commencing shortly, with eUnited taking on Swole Patrol for a spot in ESL Pro League Season 8, and compLexity facing Torqued in EPL Relegation.
