dapr: "When you have full faith in all of your teammates, it's way easier to be chill"
A mix of eUnited and Dignitas players, ownage have been a favorite at Fragadelphia, with the team being the only to feature a core of players that are currently in Pro League. After easily going 3-0 in the group stage and taking down Interstellar, the team took an unexpected blow from Swole Patrol, losing 16-5 in the third round of the playoffs.
With ownage set to make their way through the lower bracket, our very own Joe "tolkienfanatic" Cardali sat down with Michael "dapr" Gulino, who discussed his feelings about ownage, eUnited, and himself as a whole.
You're obviously here with a mix team, so how's the event gone so far and how do you like your chances of going deep with the event?
Our lineup is moose, Skyler, me, mitch, and Infinite, so it's like a mix between eUnited and Dig. We 3-0'd the group stage, we made first seed out of our group, then in playoffs we won one Bo1 and we lost to Swole in the next game, so now we're fighting through the lower bracket.
I think our chances through the lower bracket are pretty decent, I think we're probably better in Bo3's than Bo1's with a mix. I just think we have experience and it'll be probably be easier than the Swole match going forward.
How did it come to be that you and Skyler linked up with the Rise Nation core, and how have things been since then?
Yeah, if you go way back, after I think it was Season 26 MDL, after we failed in relegation with GX, they cut me, then I actually went back to school, I went to college. I didn't finish the semester but I did go to college, I enrolled.
I was going to play in MDL with Ghost Academy and then dazzLe on Rise hit me up and we were good friends and they were trying out people because I think they cut Jonji and then they were still playing with vSa at the time so I was playing with vSa on the tryout period.
So I tried out with them and I don't think I made it at first. It was a long tryout session, it was two weeks, and then they were going to pick up mitch I think and then some shit went down with vSa and they cut him, and then they picked me up. I think that's how it went down.
And then after that, they still didn't want to be with Rise, so eUnited contacted us because I was talking to Dan, who is the eUnited manager, for going to school there cause he wanted to get scholarship people for Maryville.
So I was already in contact with him and then obviously Clerkie owned Enemy with Skyler, so me and him both had history with Clerkie and he was like fuck it, eUnited want to get back into the scene and they were really interested in us.
So we were talking to them while in the middle of qualifying for ECS so right before we signed pen to paper and the announcement was going to go down, we qualified for ECS, so that was a big W.
If I recall, you actually signed right before you qualified, but it hadn't been announced yet?
I think it was a day or two before the last qualifying match and then when we qualified, they announced, or rather we announced that we were getting picked up.
Since then, you've obviously qualified to ESL Pro League as well while maintaining that ECS spot so you guys have pretty quickly ascended the ladder and become like a full Pro team. So, what has changed for you since joining?
I think personally I've grown a lot, like attitude-wise. I think my level of play has obviously ascended, like you have to go play to the level of your peers, right? I think attitude-wise, it's like, when you have full faith in all of your teammates, it's way easier to be chill and like, okay, say I'm having a bad game. Before in my past MDL teams, I might be like rage-y or like "aw shit I have to do it all by myself," or some kind of like superstar attitude. And then on eUnited, it's like, more relaxed.
Like, if I'm getting AWPed and just not having a good game, I think I'm way more chill and it's like, "okay, well my teammates can probably pick up the slack." I'll play a more supportive role, I'll throw flashes, I'll throw smokes, I won't take first gun battles, I do a lot more supportive things and that also helped me grow as a person out of game. I dunno, it helps.
Can you talk about how your coach osorandom helps you?
Jared is a coach and a manager, so he helps with literally everything out of the game. It's like he's a father figure of the team. He does all the hotel stuff, talks to all the event organizers, handles payouts and all that stuff.
So that's out of the game and he does the manager job well. And then in-game, he helps point out flaws in games personally and "okay, we have to do this strat, like we're playing too slow or we're playing too fast, we need to space better, we need to communicate better." He knows all the flaws and it just helps knowing. The flaw identification is the most important part in my opinion and I think he helps a lot with that.
And then as a team, we work together and after the flaws are identified, say we're not comming as efficiently as possible, us as a team are really good at like, "okay guys, let's talk more. okay guys, let's do this to mitigate our losses," like shit like that, we're really good at that. I think that's why our progress has really steadily improved.
You've mentioned school a couple of times. What is your plan regarding school now, is that all on hold?
I'm definitely putting it on hold until after my pro period is over. Like, I think it'd be dumb to pass up this opportunity in order to go to college. I have plans to go to college after, but I feel like there's no time limit. It's definitely still on the cards, I'm still thinking about it. College will always be there.
What do you think the next step for eUnited is? Obviously, you're in both pro leagues, you've qualified to a couple of smaller LANs like DreamHack and stuff like that. What is it going to take for you guys to break through to the next level?
I think it's just more about being consistent. It's having a better practice regimen. Now that we're in both pro leagues, you really have to grind. Our first season, we almost made it to playoffs. Our goals right now are to make both league playoffs, qualify for every LAN that we can, and do well at all those LANs and place as high as we can.
But I think right now, our main focus is the online leagues. We've been practicing and prepping this whole time and those are our next goals. ECS and EPL. And then obviously we're gonna play in qualifiers still as practice and hopefully make some of the small LANs. Like, DreamHack Austin was cool. We didn't even qualify for that, we got invited. So, we wanna qualify.
In your team right now, you have one Canadian. Do you guys have any plans to play in WESG with the four of you?
We've been talking about it. We'd need to find a fifth, like a pro fifth, so it's in the cards, but we don't know yet. It's not confirmed yet.
ownage are currently in the lower bracket of the Fragadelphia 12 playoffs taking on BlackOut. To make their way to the grand finals, ownage would have to win all five best-of-three matches in the lower bracket.
