floppy: "I'd say our expectations ... were to just qualify for the main stage"

After Complexity's opening defeat in the IEM Cologne Play-in at the hands of Spirit, Dust2.us' Liam "Slevo" Slevin was able to catch up with Ricky "floppy" Kemery. The pair spoke about floppy's thoughts coming off of the game, Complexity's expectations ahead of the event, and what floppy thinks about Liquid's new additions.

Alright I'm here with floppy after their first game of the tournament against Spirit where they, unfortunately, lost in a best-of-one. How are you feeling right after it?

Right now I'm on like three and a half hours of sleep, didn't sleep good so I took 100mg of caffeine, 200mg of L-Theanine so I don't get jitters. And I mean, CT-side I kind of whiffed whenever they walked out B ramp and that was kind of rough, like magixx doubled me and JT at one point, which shouldn't happen - I just micro-whiffed on the guy walking up. It just sucks, we could have definitely made it at least overtime I think.

So it's no secret that you guys have been struggling prior to this event, but in terms of coming into it, what were the expectations for you as a team?

I'd say our expectations for this event were to just qualify for the main stage, get out of the Play-in. It's like a realistic expectation for us.

Spirit have looked pretty strong since the Major, and they've obviously added w0nderful, what was the preparation going into this game?

Well, we expected Ancient and neither of us have played Ancient on the new update, so, we're kind of taking it like the previous update, with a grain of salt and adding it onto there. But, obviously, degster is insane and he was kind of the X-factor on that team and I think w0nderful is a good AWPer too. We scrimmed them before on the same map as well like two weeks ago, so we knew what we were getting ourselves into.

You guys went down 9-2 on the first half and pulled it back to 10-5, what was the mentality like in the team going into the second half with a deficit on the CT-side?

At the start, they were going A site a ton, and we were kind of playing retake, retaking A site a lot. There were definitely two rounds I should have and could have won, the pistol round I lost 1v1 to s1ren, I think, and there was another gun-round retake where we were in a 2v1, chopper killed one, then he instantly flicked to me, so that was definitely another 1v1 where I could have won. So it's kind of up to me, I kind of fucked up, to be honest.

You have the BO3 later today versus either Astralis or 00 Nation. Astralis is quite the known entity for you; you've played them a few times before. 00 Nation though are kind of unknown with their new players, how are you feeling heading into that?

We kind of expect to play 00 Nation because I think, although Astralis are struggling, I still think that they're the better team. 00 Nation are new, so it's kind of like, it could be a honeymoon period but it could also be rough for them too. It's a BO3 that's in about eight hours from now, so, probably gonna go take a nap or something, then see what's going on.

A recent article from HLTV had you as one of the highest-rated Inferno players, what can you tell us about your playstyle on that map and how you feel on it?

It's just, Inferno, it feels like it's my flow state. Everything makes sense on that map and it is by far the best-designed map in my opinion, especially after the re-make. Compared to the old Inferno where there were a load of roofs and you couldn't sky flash or flash out of halls really, I just think Inferno comes really natural to me. Even on older teams, I used to play the aggressive positions like lane on CT which are the most free kills when you get util from your pit guy. Inferno is just really fun for me.

The other North American team that is here is Liquid, who had recent roster changes by getting rid of shox and adreN and bringing in YEKINDAR as a stand-in and daps as a coach, what are your thoughts on those moves?

I think adding YEKINDAR is sick. This guy was a beast when he was on Virtus.pro and he had something like a constant 35% on entry attempts while having something like a 1.20 rating. He is probably by far the best player that they could get. In terms of daps he is back too and he has a lot of experience so he can help that team out personality-wise as well. They obviously just needed to switch up something because sometimes it can get stagnant so that's what they did.

Complexity will soon be tussling with Astralis in a lower-bracket BO3 for their tournament lives, with the elimination match set to start at 01:45PM.