daps: "[Immi] definitely had some thoughts of going back to playing"
Following NRG's loss to mousesports in the group stage of the ESL Pro League Season 7 Finals, we sat down to talk with Damian "daps" Steele to talk about his team's recent results and how they will work for the future.
I wanted to start with the Heroic game - what went on there? And then what do you think about Heroic's performance in general here?
Specifically talking about the Heroic game, from our side we started off slow and quiet. One problem our team has is if we get off to a slow start, even just at an event or even online sometimes, people don't communicate very well. I think that's one of our biggest weaknesses we have to work on is being consistent where we don't start off out of it like that.
So I think we just played really bad and our teamwork wasn't there at all. Heroic obviously, playing with a standin I feel like they don't have any pressure at all to perform here. They're not bad players by any means, so when you put a bunch of good players with no pressure together, and we're not communicating well at all, they obviously have a chance to win any game in a BO1.
In the mousesports game, you guys played really close in the first map, but it slipped away there in the end. What do you think happened in that match?
That match should've been ours. We got the bomb down a lot on T side, and lost almost every post-plant. A lot of them were 2 v 2's. I think our nade usage wasn't very good, it's something we have to work on as well.
I rewatched the match, there's many times where people could have flashed for somebody that could have won us the round. Or there was times where we weren't peeking when we should have, because they have nades to retake, and they're peeking at the right times. I think overall our game plan was fine, and it shows that we can compete with them, but we're still making lot's of small mistakes that lost us the matches, and we lost a lot of the clutches too.
You guys have been accused of being onliners a lot, do you think it's true in any way, or if there is something else that is impacting your performances on LAN?
I wouldn't say being online is bad. You should be online before you become a LAN team, even the first team I was ever on, Denial - we were called the most online team ever. Then we played Titan close, and beat Cloud9, and that was sort of a breakout for all the players on that team. I think definitely there is nervousness, we have a really really young team. On HLTV, we were like the 6th youngest team out of the top 50 teams or something like that.
There definitely is nerves, and we're working past that, but I think it's just a lack of experience. I think once this team goes to a lot more events, we get a European bootcamp, which is something I think this team desperately needs, so more players on this team are comfortable playing against teams like mousesports and Astralis and stuff. Once we find that comfort playing against them like we do online against NA teams, that's when we'll start to have consistent results that are better.
The Minor season is coming up and Cloud9 and Team Liquid, they're already at further stages of the Major system, do you think you're the favorites?
I think we'll be one of the favorites. I think NTC will probably make it through the Brazilian qualifier, they're a good team - they have a lot of firepower and they'll be a team that will be hard to beat. compLexity is looking a lot better with the pickups they've recently had.
I think compLexity and NTC would be the hardest, Luminosity just got steel so they have some time to get used to playing with him. I think Luminosity has always had a lot of potential and I think yeL is a really good AWPer. I'm sure yeL has gotten better offers. I think yeL is really good, steel is good - a lot of experience, SHOOWTiME. I think the Minor won't be as easy as maybe my team thinks it will be, but it'll be a good test for us.
Immi hasn't been able to come to this event, so what's it been like trying to play without him and also playing with his imminent departure from the team?
The whole Immi situation has been unfortunate I'd say. We didn't expect him to get denied a visa to the US considering he is from the UK. Apparently that's been happening recently with people from the UK. As for his status as our coach, it's still up in the air I'd say, but he definitely had some thoughts of going back to playing.
And that's normal, even when I took some time off to coach for two or three weeks, I felt it very fast, like I miss playing. I think to truly coach, you have to be done with playing completely, or you have to get someone that's not a player because even for myself when I was coaching, it was really hard to stay motivated and focus on coaching a lot. Immi's done a great job - whatever ends up happening it's for the best.
It seems like a lot of other teams have probably had their eyes on CeRq as someone to pickup, so what's it been like playing with so many teams interested in him?
It hasn't really affected us at all, it's not like the past where a player could leave. There's real contracts, real buyouts, and also I know CeRq, so he wouldn't just leave anyway, even if he got an offer from a team that's better. You kind of want to see a lineup out before you change it again. We went to two big events, and while they're disappointing results, at least we're being knocked out by top ten teams rather than losing to a team in the top thirty. We know we're on the brink, but we need to iron out a lot of mistakes. I don't think there's any pressure.
NRG will next make an appearance at StarSeries i-League Season 5 in Kiev where they will face off against fellow NA rivals Renegades, Liquid, and SK.
