EMUHLEET: "[GooseBreeder leaving] was a shock to us all"
Before Emmalee "EMUHLEET" Garrido and Dignitas begin playing at GIRLGAMER Esports Festival 2018, HLTV's Luis "MIRAA" Mira caught up with her to talk about roster changes, the state of female CS, and the team's future.
At Copenhagen Games, against many people's expectations, you placed top 8 after winning the event in Katowice, were you surprised with this showing from you team?
We were a little bit surprised because we just won IEM Katowice, but because WESG was a week or two before Copenhagen Games, we didn't get to practice for two weeks because half of my team was in China playing with other people. We didn't get two weeks of practice. While the other teams like CLG Red got to practice continually because they didn't get to go to China. This shows that you can't ever slack off, and hopefully next year WESG doesn't mess up our practice again.
What made you bring CAth back into the team?
I think it was ideal to play with her. Rain played with her for the Canadian team in China and she played really well. We were very happy to bring her back to the team. Things are going really well with CAth and we are happy she is back and everything is good.
Was it a team decision or GooseBreeder's decision to leave the team?
She decided she wanted to leave.
Now she is playing for CLG Red, did you expect her and want her to continue playing for the team?
I'm not sure what I can say on why she wanted to leave. It was a shock to us all.
Talking a little bit about the interview that CAth did with Dignitas' website where she said that she has made a lot of sacrifices in her career. Do you feel like you've made sacrifices in your life because you haven't been able to spend time with your friends and things along those lines? From the outside, I think people think you guys have it pretty easy.
It definitely hasn't been easy. We did not get everything handed to us. We had to play continuously for 3 or 4 years and paid our own way to events. I don't know another team that would spend $1,000 per ticket to go to Paris to play an event. We sacrificed our own money. I was working a full time nursing job and I would get up at 4 a.m and would leave work at 2 p.m and practice would be from 3 p.m to 10 p.m and I would still have extra work to do.
I was getting four hours of sleep a night. I was sacrificing my sleep, I was pretty much working two jobs, I would barely get to see my family and my social life is nonexistent. I don't have time, all I can think about is wanting to win. There is a lot that people don't know that we sacrifice every day just like all of the other professional players.
What are your expectations for GIRLGAMER Esports Festival 2018? Besiktas is here and there is a rivalry of sorts between you guys.
I wouldn't say there is so much a rivalry between us, I think everyone on that team is really nice and we get along. They are our biggest competition I would say. For my team we have been practicing for nearly two months with CAth and we are going in feeling pretty confident. Of course we want to win, but we are taking things one game at a time.
Looking at the bigger picture, what do you think is the current state of the female competitive scene?
I think events like the GIRLGAMER Esports Festival are great for people to gain interest and show that there is a whole female scene. However, I'm not sure how I feel about all female tournaments yet. The end goal is for there to be no female tournaments and to have female teams play against male teams.
A lot of people don't know this, but my team only plays in three female tournaments a year. The rest of the year we play against guys. We go to local events like Fragadelphia and we play in ESEA Main. We are constantly playing against guys. We always encourage other female teams to not limit themselves to only playing in female leagues, play against guys as well. That's our end goal.
Is there a cultural difference between European and North American teams? For example, European teams are more limited to all female tournaments. Your team competes in DreamHack Open qualifiers, ESEA Main, and get to compete more and more against male teams in tournaments.
First of all, there are a lot more European girl teams than in America. Maybe the girl teams are afraid to play in these qualifiers. You kind of have to start somewhere, with me and my team we are just like we are going to do the best we can do. We got kind of far in some of these qualifiers and won some matches.
In Europe, there was never another female team that was inspiration to other teams so they could look at them and go, "That female team is playing in the qualifier? We can do that too!" Where in America, we aren't the only ones, there are other female teams playing in these qualifiers. I'm starting to see some of the female teams beginning to play in ESEA here. We are starting to see them slowly come in. Some of them told me that it was hard for them to get scrims because they are girls. Which is weird to us, because it is easy for us to find scrims here in America.
What level of scrims are you able to find?
We are actually pretty lucky, we play against Main and Advanced teams all the time. We have friends on MDL teams and we play against them. Our CS:GO Dignitas male team has played against us sometimes too, so we get pretty good practice.
Is there any reason you aren't playing in ESEA Advanced, for example CLG Red got an invite —
You're trying to talk about all these touchy topics!
I did my research [laughs], I'm just curious, because I thought you were in Advanced.
We weren't invited to Advanced like a few other teams were, which is okay. We would rather earn our way there than be invited.
With the way things are going in ESEA Main, when do you expect to move up the ladder?
We just barely missed playoffs this season, but the beginning of our season was rough. We started playing with a brand new player two days before the season started. Once we got our roll going we started to win more matches. We just barely missed playoffs. I expect us to make playoffs next season and I'm very confident we will be able to prove ourselves in the long run.
EMUHLEET and Dignitas will be competing at GIRLGAMER Esports Festival 2018 from July 21st to the 22nd with first place taking home $4,687. The teams competing at the tournament are: Besiktas, Unknown fe, and eParadise Angels. Their first matchup will be against eParadise Angels.
