peacemaker: "I try to learn from my mistakes in the past"

Continuing Dust2.us' series of interviews at the Americas RMR, Dust2.us' Dafydd Gywnn met up with Imperial coach Luis "peacemaker" Tadeu. The two talked about Ricardo "boltz" Prass and Vinicius "VINI" Figueiredo, the importance of veteran experience, and playing against unpredictable teams like Party Astronauts.

You've just made the Major. I'm not going to mince my words here; how does it feel?

It feels amazing. I was telling the boys right after we won, it's a lot of pressure on us. A lot of people were doubting our potential, our roster, and everything else, so obviously we tried to keep that on the side but that definitely affects the players. They know how much pressure there is, and it's our first LAN tournament together. You know those guys are experienced but they haven't competed together for a long time. So being the first tournament together on LAN, it's the Major, and a lot of stuff on the line, there was a lot of pressure getting into us. In the end, I think the experience, with FalleN and the experienced guys keeping calm, helped a lot. Surprisingly, the youngsters stepped up huge on the last map, that helped a lot as well; they didn't choke and were really calm as well.

I was gonna ask about boltz, he had multiple clutch plays, 1v2s, and 1v3s. How does it feel to be able to rely on every single player you have in those clutch situations?

I think for boltz specifically, even though he is very young he has been in the scene and competing for a long time, so I could feel for example right after the first map that he was a little bit nervous, but we had a very good talk right after about being ourselves in the game and communicating better, because we were pretty slow on the first map, especially because of it being Nuke. All the time, we just kind of reminded ourselves of what happened yesterday against MIBR, and how slow we were in terms of communication and stuff, and I think that helped a lot. Players like VINI and boltz, especially boltz he has been putting a lot of hours into the game, he knows how much it means to him to have another shot with these guys, so he's been putting in a lot of work. VINI has a very different style compared to the rest of the team, and he's very confident, which actually helps a lot, the squad he came from, with FURIA and those guys. I think that was key for us, on Inferno for example he was huge, getting a lot of entries and stuff, and that guy doesn't stop. Once he starts feeling in the zone and getting comfortable, as he did, he can pop off and win us very important rounds, and that's what he did. It's very funny to see, very nice to see, the youngsters stepping up when it matters the most with the legends. It's really nice, and it helps the team a lot.

All the other guys have Majors under their belts. boltz made it all the way to a final, and VINI hasn't really had that big shot yet, only reaching the legends stage once. Is there that extra "I want a Major" thing for those two young guns?

Well yeah, 100%. I think for boltz, he has this feeling that he should be competing in the Majors with this roster, with FalleN, fer, and fnx. He really wanted this to happen, because of what happened in the past with them. He got cut, two or three times from the team because of different reasons, and I think he always had this feeling that he wanted to prove himself, not only to everybody but to those guys that he has what it takes to be in this team. On top of that, I think he did the time, and everything that's happened in his career helped him a lot to grow as a person; he developed a lot of skills he didn't have in the past, being a lot more calm and collected, and in terms of dedication especially. He was a completely different person than I met five or six years ago when I coached him, so it was a very good surprise for all of us.

How do you as a coach deal with going down one map? How do you talk to the players afterward and make sure you get back on track?

It all depends. Today for example, we all had the feeling, and I had the feeling, that it was much more about ourselves. Right after the first map, we were talking about how the communication was really bad on the first map. You know, it could be tough for the players to hear that right after a loss, but they do need a wake-up call, it's the Major on the line. Even though it's tough, basically we're just talking about how we can communicate better, and how we can help each other better. It was much more about ourselves other than what the other team did. We had everything prepared for Inferno and Dust2, but in the end, it was very short preparation and much more about what we wanted to do as a team, like what our strengths are as a team, and in the end, it paid off. Sometimes it is like this, as a coach you spend time preparing and thinking about a lot of stuff, but it's just not the right moment, and that wasn't the right moment to go deep into details about what they do, and that paid off a lot. So it's a mix, sometimes it's a lot about the strategies, missing smokes and stuff, and sometimes it's a lot more about the team itself, the communication and stuff.

You just played Party Astronauts, an NA team that recently formed and had a lot of question marks. How did you feel they performed against you guys?

Well, I think they performed pretty well. They have this surprising factor in their favor because they don't have that much structure or strategies, they play a very puggy style, and they have skilled players. When you compete against teams like this sometimes it's tough because when you compete against a team that's structured that have a lot of intel, and you know a lot of what they do, you know what should come. But, with those guys, we even watched the last two Inferno games they did, and one of the games they played completely different from the other one. When you prepare for that, you cannot tell your players "hey they play like this but they could also play like that", so you kind of have to stick to your feeling and feel the game and read the game in the moment. I think they competed pretty well, they have been proving themselves in NA, the few matches they played they played pretty well. I wouldn't be surprised if they end up getting the Major spot as well.

Just going away from Imperial for just a second, I just want to talk about you and your journey. Obviously, you've had a lot of doubters, and a lot of hate online in your past. How does it feel to come onto this team, make the Major, and shut people out?

I mean, for me a lot of the doubt and the stuff that happened in the past has reasoning. I understand a lot of the criticism and stuff like that, and I try to learn from my mistakes in the past. There's a lot of good opinions and stuff that I heard that I try to adapt to my coaching role nowadays. Coming into this team, it has been a dream for me to work with these guys. I grew up coaching boltz in Tempo Storm, watching those guys play, and being a Brazilian coach you always want to be in the best Brazilian team, and those guys were the best back in the days. So for me, it's been a dream come true, so when I had the opportunity to coach this team, I thought to myself that I want to be the best version of myself on this, I want to be able to work with the players on an individual level and help them with whatever they need other than just the game. Those guys are very experienced; I cannot come in and try and teach them CS, so it's a little bit different than the teams I coached previously where they had a lot of inexperienced players that I had to teach a lot. In this team it's much more about maybe helping FalleN with a couple things, preparing for the games, and making sure they can keep their minds in the game and that they have a good atmosphere and that kind of stuff.

What would you say it means to you to make a Major?

It means a lot to me. I started my career coaching a Brazilian team, and we didn't qualify for the Major back then, and pretty much ever since I coached international teams. Being able to help a Brazilian team, especially to be able to help those guys, it means the world to me. It's only the start, we just started the project like two months ago, we pretty much launched the project and just started practicing. There's a lot of stuff to be fixed; it's a long road until we get to the point of competing against the top-tier teams and all that. With time, I think we need this experience, and this Major is going to help a lot, in terms of developing the team. We'll see how it goes, but our biggest goal for sure, if there is a major in Brazil at the end of the year, that's for sure when we want to hit our peak of performance. That's our main goal.

Going back to the team, you have fnx, undefeated in Majors. Is that streak going to continue?

I mean, could be right? The thing with fnx is that he's been out of the game for such a long time, so he still has a lot of things that he's learning. The thing with fnx as well is you cannot just get the guy and sit down with him and try to teach him how to play Counter-Strike because he's very intuitive as a player, and he needs to have his freedom to do his things. fnx is a player that you kind of have to allow to commit mistakes in order for him to learn. We tried the approach of sitting down and learning this or that, but with fnx he has to learn by himself. He's doing a very good job, he's been putting in a lot of hours as well, and it's gonna take some time. When you watch him play you can see he commits a few mistakes here and there, but it's part of the process, and as long as he keeps his mind in check and doesn't do any mistakes out of the game especially, and he keeps focused on the game, he's very talented. He already proved this in the past a lot, and as long as he stays focused on the game he has a lot of potential for sure.

You are, if not the oldest, one of the oldest teams here, in terms of your players. Everyone talks about experience, but what does that actually mean other than just being a word that people throw around? In a tough round or a tough game like that one where you went down, how does that experience show?

I think especially when situations happen in the game, like 2v2 situations and 4v4 situations, the players know how they should be playing those rounds. They know what the weaknesses are depending on the setup they decide to do, they know what the reactions should be, and they have so much experience facing those things that they kind of know how to react to a lot of these situations, and that's the big difference between the youngest players. They have a lot of time, they have a lot of raw skill, but sometimes they lack the experience of closing out the game, closing out a round, how we should play in a 4v4 situation, and that kind of stuff. Then also there's mind games in games like this, for example, FalleN has a lot of experience as an IGL, and that helps a lot when the game is going down he's very good at keeping the team in a good atmosphere, keeping the guys positive, and he reads the game really well. The experience, in the end, is an important factor, obviously, you need the skill and all of that, but it does make a big difference, especially in high-pressure situations like this one or when you play against a real top team for example. I would dare to say it's harder for us to compete against teams like this, but in practices for example prior to this tournament, we're competing against the best teams in the world in practice, and we're playing really well against them, partly because they play closer to the game we are playing right now as a team. FalleN is so used to playing against teams like this, same goes with fer, same goes with boltz. It should be a lot easier in terms of reading the game and knowing what's happening, other than playing Party Astronauts who have this random factor.

Who are you looking forward to playing in the Major?

Well I think, it's pretty safe to say we want to play against the best teams. That's how you learn as a team. We cannot just think "we just want to qualify so we want an easy route", that's the simple answer, but for us as a team that just started and we want to grow as a team, it is important for us to face those tier one teams, the Gambits of the world, NAVI and those guys, so we're able to learn with them. The competition is so high right now, we see FaZe doing one roster change and becoming one of the best teams in the world right now, so we need this experience of competing against them to see what our level is. I would say I want to play the best teams for sure.

Do you have anything you want to say to the Brazilian fans who have helped you get all the way here?

I just want to say thank you to all of them, Gaules, and all the people on the Brazilian stream shouting for us. I would imagine how much pain it was to watch us play, and it's painful, I know they suffer a lot watching us, but in the end, the Brazilian community is very supportive. They can be very harsh as well when you commit mistakes and stuff like that, but you know it's part of the process, and we understand them, and part of this project is not only about the competitive side you know. We want to make sure we are very close to the fans, we want to do a lot of content, we want to make sure the fans stay integrated with us, and they feel like part of us. Sometimes we aren't going to be able to practice as much as we want because we're doing stuff for the fans, and that's the way it is. We have a very good understanding of what we want to accomplish with this, and we want to leave a legacy for the young people, to make sure they believe that they can be like us one day. Serve as an example for everyone in Brazil and everyone in the world, that's our main goal.

With Imperial's victory over Party Astronauts, the squad find themselves reaching the PGL Antwerp Major in the challenger's stage. The squad will be eagerly awaiting the results of the Americas RMR to see who will be joining them at the Major.