steel: "It's a lot easier to play in a North American team"
After their defeat against Fragsters in the Group A elimination match, we spoke to Lucas "steel" Lopes about Luminosity's performance here in Austin, his time in Liquid, and LG's future.
These are your first LAN matches with the team, how did you feel in the first games?
I think we need to get more experience because they have been playing for a long time already in NA, in the big competitions, in the big online matches. But I think we need more matches offline events to get better.
In the Fragsters game, what do you think happened on the second and third maps where you were down by a lot?
On the second map - Mirage is a good map for us, we have been playing a lot, but they were playing super fast in the sites, they were not using mid and we were trying to fight mid all the time, so A and B were kind of weak from our part. They were hitting all the time, every time we were trying to break their mid control they were going on the side and because of that - they were playing fast - we couldn't do much. On Dust II, we were trying to anti-strat them, but it doesn't happen like that. I think if you try to anti-strat too much against the opponent you do not play your own game and you do not feel comfortable.
You're one of the few Brazilians who's played in an NA team, how was it playing in Liquid vs playing in a Brazilian team?
Talking about in game, I feel like it's a lot easier to play in a North American team, because - talking in a simple way - everyone knows how to do every single smoke, everyone knows how to do every single flashbang, everyone knows how to do like every role, so it's so easy if you have to adapt into a fast execution or something like that - everyone is going to know what to do. Here in Luminosity we put names on what everyone is going to do - yeL is going to smoke something, SHOOWTiME is going to flash somewhere.
You were only with Liquid for a short time, how was it there, and how was it eventually being replaced?
The organization is amazing, the players were so good too. I've learned a lot from the North American scene - of course I've been playing in the North American scene for a while, but to play on a North American team is so different - in how they see Counter-Strike. It was like an awesome experience for me.
What were your expectations for this tournament in particular?
We were expecting to go to at least the semifinals, because we were playing good in practices. We won against SK in and ECS matchup - we were feeling confident, but sadly it didn't work that well for us.
Who is the current in-game leader, because I saw you sitting in the middle at this event?
I am the in-game leader, yeL is the AWP, the rest doesn't have a role.
You guys will also be at the ECS Finals and DreamHack Valencia, what do you hope to achieve at those events?
We're going to ECS straight from here from Austin if I'm not mistaken. Of course we're going to try and do our best, but it's basically the most competitive tournament because it's only four teams from each region so it's so competitive. For the next tournament DreamHack Valencia, we're going to do a bootcamp before that so I think we're going to be more prepared.
Luminosity will next make an appearance at the ECS Season 5 Finals, qualifying alongside NRG, Cloud9, and Liquid from the North American division.
