Jonji: "I didn't agree with daps and his tweets too much"

After their second match ending the day with a 1-1 record, Party Astronauts are ready to combat their opponents as the Americas RMR progresses. Dafydd Gwynn spoke with Jonathan "Jonji" Carey about the team and their performance as well as the broader NA CS community at large.

Alright, so obviously you just played a game. Would you say that that went the way you expected it to?

Yeah, it was a great game. I think I expected the first game to go that way as well to be honest. We had an amazing CT start and we just lost an eco, which we seem to always do, and that spiraled out of control to cause us to have a rough game. But this game, everybody was making sure to ask for flashes when they were peeking and everything was exactly how it's supposed to be. We played an amazing game this game so I was really happy with that.

Just quickly going back to that first game, I don't want to talk about it too much, but obviously DeStiNy one of their players has been on a hot streak recently. Even though they did win, he didn't have the best individual performance. Was there a way that you tried to shut him down?

We don't really plan to shut any specific player down. I didn't even know he was on the hot streak as you say, but I think we just make sure, like everybody says, to play our game and make sure we do it to the best of our ability. If we play our game properly we should win.

Obviously, you had an incredible game. You had viz right at the beginning just absolutely blow up and that really just sent you on your way. How important is it for you guys to get one guy just fired up?

It's not really that important. The fact that it did happen was amazing. I have to give a shout-out to ben1337 because he had an amazing game. We were watching the Complexity game just prior and JT, their IGL owned, and I just looked at ben1337. I was like, "I need you to do JT this game" and after, he looked over at me and he was like "I did JT" and I was like "You did it better bro". It was really exciting.

In terms of matchups, you've played a couple of SA teams. How were those two matches? How are they making you feel about SA teams in general and those kinds of matchups?

We've been playing those teams in NA for a long time as well, there's a plethora of them in North America at all times, so we know they play pretty fast. That's besides GODSENT and paiN who play a kind of European style of CS unlike the rest of them. They group up and run around and shoot people so we're kind of… well we weren't expecting them to play that fast. That kind of caught us off guard. They played a very fast game of Inferno which we've… I don't think we've ever run into something like that, but it worked well so, it was easy.

Speaking of NA matchups, you know there might be the possibility that you guys run into Bad News Bears. Is that something that you personally are looking forward to and what can you expect from that matchup?

I think we all know that we're the better team. I know Shakezullah does do good preparation for games though, so as as one of my past teammates, I have respect for him as an IGL. I think they can definitely pull out some stops, so I’m wishing to make sure we play a very good version of ourselves and don't get a little over-cocky per see.

Given the current state of NA CS, you may have read daps’ statement recently. How important is it for teams like you and like Bad News Bears to have a good performance?

I think it's really good. I also didn't agree with daps’ and his tweets too much. As in, they [Orgless] didn't really play in any of the Cash Cups or anything that they they're trying to give us to be able to either stay in CS money-wise and they didn't really play anything besides the RMR. I think if you don't have any match experience going into a tournament like that it's hard to win. I also think that COVID’s easing up a little bit now, so that'll probably mean more events in North America. That's when everything was good and running when we had all these tournaments, our ESL New York, Dreamhack Montreal, all these things that make the good European teams come. It doesn't need to be good European teams. Even the tier 2, tier 3 teams, they're all still better than what we have to practice. Before we came here we were practicing against Advanced teams and that's such a big jump to playing paiN or playing Liquid or any of these other good teams.

You’ve been around NA CS for a few years now, you know the way it works, but you said you don't really agree with what daps said in his Twitter. Does NA CS get back to its prime, whatever that is, and how does that happen?

I know it sucks for Liquid and Evil Geniuses to scrim teams like ours, but it gives us a little glimpse at how we're supposed to be playing, such as what we can steal to be better. It's just them playing FPL, there's no real incentive for them to play other than they need to. They need to just want to help us get better, which is like, "why would you want the competition to get better"? But at the same time, if we get better then we become better practice for them and they don't need to go to Europe all the time. We need our region to like each other to uplift each other. There's no reason for us to not want each other to get better. It makes no sense to me.

You weren't able to play with viz at Pro League. Since then, you only had about two weeks to catch him up, how how has it been introducing him back into the lineup?

It was really rough when we went back and we had ESEA playoffs. We were great, but then we lost. I don't want to give excuses but, it was a mixture of being really jet-lagged and his internet for some reason that day was just being horrible, so we just instantly went down 0-1. We played a good series but ended up losing. Playing with a different player for two weeks, especially when we're in Europe and all of us are learning an insane amount of stuff, it's almost impossible to say “This is all the stuff we learned in Europe, do this now.” So the fact that he's here and had that insane performance, now he has that confidence. He is an insane player. His comms are really good. He keeps the energy up and that was like a big part of what we were missing when we were at Pro League so it just feels so good to be playing with him again.

What region right now in this very moment is more advanced, North America or South America?

I would say South America. I think I think paiN plays better CS than a majority of teams in North America. I think GODSENT plays really good CS. I was sad that they couldn't be here sadly. I'm happy I didn't have to play against them because they actually play one of the best CS in North America. It was sad they didn't make it, but if they were here I'm sure they would do amazing. I think they just care more. They have a level of camaraderie in their team that is just unmatched. When you have something like that in North America, you shine. That's the reason why we're here. To make it here, we were down 13-6 and we ended up pulling out the game. At the end, everybody was so excited for each other and we were just happy to win it for each other.

You talk about camaraderie, this roster, as it is right now, how far can it go?

I think it can go really far as long as we just keep being able to talk to each other and not get upset. Some things are upsetting. Being told you made mistakes is upsetting. At the end of the day, everybody just has to realize that we're all here to make each other better and as fast as possible because you need to do it in the now. In tournaments, that's what you need. You need to fix these mistakes instantly or you’re just going to continue losing. We need to make sure we keep being able to talk to each other.