dephh: "We're not going to stop until we've proved ourselves"
With compLexity through to the New Legends stage of the FACEIT Major, our regional avian Brit Michael "Duck" Moriarty caught up with his fellow Englishman Rory "dephh" Jackson to discuss his team, their performance at the Major so far, and their expectations going forward in London.
You've reached top 16 at the Major, which some people call the Major proper. First thoughts?
I'm pretty speechless. The hard work we put in though, we deserve it. We've battled - especially as a team, as rosters, as an org we've struggled. I'm just super proud right now.
It's safe to say your team were underdogs when you came in. You're not the most well known team in terms of quality or skillset or top level positioning. To get through the Major 3-1, including the run you had, like Astralis, BIG, Space Soldiers, Vega - some fairly good teams, albeit with Space Soldiers's issues. That's got to be quite a feat.
We knew every team that we were going to play. We've actually been scrimming in Europe so it's helped us immensely with different playstyles. We'd practiced against Vega actually which kind of gave us a lead on what they were going to play like. We were total underdogs and I feel like that's a good thing sometimes when people underestimate you. Maybe they don't think you're going to perform on the day, don't think you're going to bring strats — like really good strats.
I think being an underdog isn't a bad thing. I think we proved ourselves - we played some good teams and we played some good CS.
Your own personal performance here hasn't been too bad either, overall it's 0.97 but that's heavily weighted down because of the Astralis game which is best not to mention again. Are you happy with your performance here?
I'm definitely far from the star in the team, so me being at the bottom of the board isn't always a bad thing as long as the team's winning. I feel like I've played well this event, especially after the Astralis game where we pretty much got rinsed. I feel like I've performed pretty good.
Let's talk about the game you just played for a moment. The first half was a slow start, but you came into it eventually and your team had some quite strong performances throughout. What were you thinking as the momentum was going and you were getting a further and further lead?
A lot of teams avoid me and Peter at B and it took us a while to get nades. Eventually when we did get the nades, our B was strong. They kept hitting it, kept hitting it, kept hitting it and we were sure in that you can't come B on us, it's not going to happen. They went back to their wrap strats, what was it an 11-4 half? Our CT Inferno has been good all tournament apart from Astralis, and we didn't even get to play much of it.
I feel like Inferno was a great map for us this event. Teams went B on it against us even though we were pulling off results. I feel like it was also a fault of Vega to think our Inferno was going to be way weaker than it was.
Inferno is the only map you played this entire stage so far - it's one of your top two best maps. You mention it like you're surprised they left it in. Do you think that's down to where your team is that they don't know of you?
They thought we were going to play Mirage because we've been playing Mirage a lot online — we've done really well. We even left Mirage on our screens as we were practicing and warming up and stuff. They left Mirage in there and we just vetoed it out so the two maps we were thinking about was Cache and Inferno and that's exactly what it went to.
Our vetoes have been perfect all tournament. We could narrow it down to two or three maps every time. I think BO1's especially favored us in this kind of tournament setting.
We've got to talk about the second pistol round. What went wrong?
It was bad. I actually called yay back to spindle to hold my banana because I was jiggling spawn. Just a miscommunication — some lame peeks. I shouldn't have died. I don't think Shahz should have died either. It was just pretty badly played and I feel like if we had that pistol the game wouldn't have been as close it actually was.
From there, Vega got into the game and although you hit match point they then did take it to overtime. What were you thinking when it hit 15-15, was it sort of "this game is gone" or "knuckle down and let's get it?"
Peter straight away said "don't worry now we got nades." We were struggling with the buys and getting a certain amount of nades to do what we wanted to do. Peter came up with an amazing strat where we were faking B control and then we would just walk out lane and halls and it worked perfectly. We killed a guy lane, killed a guy pit, and we took the site for free because they had been playing three B a lot of the game.
It was just a really cool call by Peter and I think as soon as that round happened there was a swing in momentum.
With you getting to the top 16. Is this the expectation for the team or do you think you can go further?
We want to go further. We haven't stopped yet — we're not going to stop until we've proved ourselves. There's going to be some amazing teams there and there's going to be teams that we're going to have to learn and watch and study. I'm excited. I think we've got a good chance. There are some teams in there that aren't so good and we pracced online and we know we can beat.
These are effectively the teams you're going to be playing against cause they're the returning legends. Who would you most like to face?
Out of them, we'd like to play Winstrike obviously. We'd like to play G2 and also Cloud9. Cloud9, I don't think are as sharp as they once were. G2, we had a lot of practice against them in Europe, so they're another matchup that we would prefer to go against. Winstrike is obviously one of the weaker teams in the pool so that's an obvious choice.
And the team you'd least like to face?
I think FaZe. I think FaZe or Na`Vi. If I had to choose one it would be FaZe Clan probably.
Finally, you're the first UK player to reach this point. How are you feeling?
It's amazing. It was always a rivalry between me and smooya and I'm proud of him how's playing too. He looks like he's doing really well. I hope he wins tomorrow so there's two. It's growth in the UK and that's always what I've been after.
So you'll still be here in the player area watching the screens rooting him on tomorrow?
Yep, exactly.
dephh and co. will resume playing in the FACEIT Major during the New Legends Stage on September 12th. They, alongside Liquid, NiP, Astralis, HellRaisers, TyLoo, BIG and Vega Squadron will take on the top eight teams from the ELEAGUE Major 2018.
