floppy on hallzerk: "This guy's a beast dude"

Complexity shined in their opening match of Group B in the BLAST Premier Fall Groups, trouncing CIS heavyweights NAVI 16-9, setting up a regional rivalry matchup against Liquid, where Complexity ultimately fell 14-16, setting up a rematch for Complexity against NAVI. Ahead of this rematch, Ricky "floppy" Kemery talked with James Banks about how Håkon "hallzerk" Fjærli has fit into the team, Complexity's mentality, and what it's like to play against Oleksandr "s1mple" Kostyliev.

So floppy, I want to start off by looking at the fact that, this I feel like, is a time we can now get excited about Complexity again. Does it feel that way for you, because you seem more pumped up, you guys are having these great games, you had the first one against NAVI, and the close one against Liquid. What is it like being in Complexity now?

I think especially bringing the hype is FaNg. I think you guys can see on the stream a lot this guy is hyped up the whole game, and I think having a new addition to the team is always fun too, kinda that honeymoon period in that sense. It's always a little bit of fun, especially with hallzerk, this guy's a beast dude.

He seems to be fitting right in. In terms of personality, he's a bit more out there, a little bit more confident, not one of your reserved Scandinavian players. How has it been just the first few times with him?

I mean he is the mullet man dude, he's practically American like the rest of us. Well, me and Grim, but yeah.

So he fits right in for sure. Looking at that Liquid game, it felt so close, and I want to touch where NAF got the clutch, and it felt like it broke you guys at that point when you had the game in your hands. Was there a bit of that, because I look at old Complexity and I can see you guys look unhappy, but I'm asking this question this time because I know it hurts when you lose a clutch like that, but you didn't seem as down as past games when I'm looking at you guys.

I think we lost two crucial clutches, a 2v4 and a 1v3, and stuff like that happens but I think we're just too new with hallzerk. It's something that we can actually talk about and discuss what we could've done differently versus having the same problems happen over and over and nothing's working that we can fix it with, we'd talk about it over and over and nothing changes. That's a bigger issue, but yeah.

So you're confident this time that you can come away from this now and you learn something from it. Is that something where you guys have already discussed this and looked back at this game or are you just focused fully on what was happening with the NAVI game?

Literally right after that game we talked about those two clutches and what we could've done differently. It doesn't have to be a big thing either emotionally whenever we have a discussion about the game we just played.

In terms of when I'm looking at the mentality of you guys, even when you guys lost, I know it was very close, you didn't seem as frustrated as in the past. Do you think there has been a change like that?

Yeah, I think that game specifcally, we knew we could've won, versus other games we played in the past. With hallzerk, it could definitely be different, we just need to play more games and we can tell.

You're going up against NAVI now again, you're gonna run it back. We just saw a bit more of an in-force NAVI for sure, but the confidence is still high; you already out-gamed them one time around by changing it up, so are you feeling full confidence now?

Yeah, I think especially because they're not playing with s1mple; you gotta mention that because that's guys a beast. But I think headtr1ck is definitely a really good replacement for him for now, in terms of the AWP role he fits right in. I think we can definitely compete with this NAVI.

That's interesting what you said there, s1mple he's a beast. Do you sometimes go into a server, maybe do players go into a server, and you know he's there so you don't do things that you had just done in another game?

No, I think it's bad to think about it like that. You still gotta do what you normally do, but I think s1mple will just capitalize way better on certain mistakes other teams make. It's just something to look out for, he's like the X-factor.

Well hopefully you guys can get it done again. What do you think this time around in terms of the map pool?

As of right now I don't know the veto, but we know what it could be between three different maps, so we're pretty confident on what it's gonna be.

Do you think it could be Nuke? Obviously they banned it out last time and I was actually thinking that'd be the one that'd get picked.

It could definitely be Nuke, but because it's such a strat heavy map it's hard for any team really to pull out as many strats as they can in such a short time period, especially after the player break when teams are comings back, so it's a bit hard to play Nuke.

Despite the confidence, Complexity struggled to replicate their form against NAVI in the rematch, as NAVI smashed Complexity 16-3, following that up with a 16-4 win over Liquid to top Group B.