dazzLe: "If everyone's on point, then we can play against every team in the world"
With IEM Chicago coming to a close, our homeboy Joe "tolkienfanatic" Cardali caught up with Will "dazzLe" Loafman of eUnited to discuss his experience at his first large event, his team's performance in both online leagues, and his thoughts on MDL and the upcoming Americas Minor closed qualifier.
Walk me through the matches eUnited have played here. Obviously, there's been a few ups and downs here in the three matches that you played in Chicago.
Yeah, we started against Na`Vi; we came out super hot. We kind of turned the momentum of that match and beat them. I think they're notorious for losing their first games at LAN or whatever, so we were really happy that we won the map but they messed up in the vetoes, it's the first map Na`Vi, so we kinda took it with a grain of salt.
And then we got to play fnatic next and we were honestly pretty confident going into that out of all the teams we could've played. We really thought we could win a map, and the map pools were really similar with both of our teams, so we knew we'd get maps we could play. And, honestly I think we had them. I think that's the most disappointing loss for us at the tournament overall because we had them first map on Overpass and we just threw it away. And on Inferno too, we could've won, our CT-side was just trash, but I really think we should've beaten them.
And then we played Luminosity the next day and it was rough. We kinda just didn't show up. Outside of moose, no one was hitting shots. On top of that, they were playing amazingly, I feel like for LG. So, that was rough.
You mentioned the loss to fnatic and seeing how they really took it to Astralis yesterday. What do you take away from that both as an individual and as a team?
I mean, I guess it shows our potential. If everyone's on point, then we can play against every team in the world, I think. Outside of maybe Astralis or Liquid. I mean, there's good takeaways, even though it's super sad.
I imagine that this event has special significance for you, being the hometown boy. What has that experience been like for you specifically?
It's awesome, 'cause I have a bunch of friends that watched me come up from playing Open and shit like that. So now they're at the event with me and they're chilling at the hotel, they've seen all the pros. They're like starstruck themselves, seeing all this and that it's my first time playing at an event like this. So, it's honestly insane. The combination of it being my first big tournament and being in my stadium. My whole team getting to experience my city. It's like a dream come true.
So, you guys have attended like a bunch of MDL's before, a bunch of DreamHack's, but this is like the next level. So, what steps is the team going to take to ensure that you'll keep on attending these sort of events?
The hard thing is that you don't get invites to these events unless you're like a top 15 team, like you're not going to get a direct invite to any of these events. So, I think that's pretty much the goal for every team right now that's near the top 30. It's try to and crack into that top 15 so that you get to come to these events.
Qualifying for the IEM and ESL events are such a gauntlet. Even if the better teams had to do it, it's really not easy at all. So, whatever we can do to get our ranking to the point where we're actually just getting invited to these events, like getting straight invites to the big DreamHack Masters and stuff non-stop, then that's kind of our goal right now, I guess.
You guys had the privilege to go on to the Chicago Bulls' home court and I imagine, meet some players, get some jerseys. How did that kinda come about?
Yeah, one of the ESL guys kinda just messaged us and said they had a cool plan and I was like "what's going on," and they told us "we're going to take you to a Bulls game, you get to go onto the court and we'll give you guys custom jerseys, and all that stuff." So, it was pretty cool honestly. I got to go and see everyone.
I imagine you grew up as a Bulls fan?
Yeah. Well, any Chicago sports team, I'm a fan of.
Yeah, so the Bears had a good day today, which is good. You're not so far removed from MDL, so I imagine you pay some attention to what's happening down there. What do you kinda think as we're about to hit the playoffs here?
I'm a little surprised that Team oNe are almost not even in playoffs. Going into the season, I thought they were going to be the team to beat almost outside of maybe Swole Patrol. But now that they're super out of form, I think it's pretty much Swole's pro spot to lose. And outside of that, I don't really know. The Spacestation roster looks really awkward and they haven't been doing well. ...And I really don't know. I could see a bunch of random stuff happening with the other six or seven teams that are in playoffs that aren't Swole Patrol, but... yeah I don't know.
When you say that Spacestation's roster looks awkward, what do you mean by that?
The roles are just really weird. I think that everyone that's not DAVEY is like a little kid. I don't know. It's just... I don't know. Their roster is weird. I don't know how to explain it.
So, this is the first season that you guys were participating in both of the Pro Leagues. And equally as good as playing in both of the Pro Leagues is just not getting relegated out, which you guys managed to do. Is there anything you guys have taken from your first true double-Pro League season?
I mean, it's a grind. Before, when we played ECS the first time, we kind of had nothing going on and we got to fully focus only on the ECS matches we were playing, which I think gave us an upper hand on a lot of teams we were playing. And we did really well in our first ECS season. But now, it's like the two seasons were condensed, which made it even harder, and we're in both of them at the same time.
There were so many games, it's like it's hard to prepare. It's just a gauntlet. You're playing non-stop matches versus different teams. So, it's a little harder and getting used to that is like a thing in its own. But, I think we could do a lot better. The roster changes and stuff within the team sort of didn't help. So, I think once we have a solidified roster, time to practice, and then we play both of the seasons together, then we might be a little better. We can definitely make one of the LANs.
Coming up, you guys are going to have the closed qualifier for IEM Katowice. So, have you been paying attention to any of those qualifiers at all?
Honestly, for North America, not really. We saw the teams that were invited already and we know about the rest of the teams that are in our scene, so we think we have a pretty good shot at it, honestly. There're six spots for the Minor, so... yeah we should definitely qualify.
While eUnited were unable to qualify for the ECS Season 6 finals, the team are currently 7th in ESL Pro League Season 8, where they remain in contention for a playoffs spot with only one match remaining against Luminosity. eUnited will return to LAN at DreamHack Open Alanta, which runs from November 16th through the 18th. The IEM Katowice NA Closed Qualifier is also set to kick off next month, which eUnited was invited to.
