Brehze: "Having a team where we are constantly progressing is something I haven't felt in a while"

After falling down 1-2 against 9z in one of the most exciting BO1s of the Rio Major, Vincent "Brehze" Cayonte, one of the longest-standing members of this Evil Geniuses roster, talked with Dust2.us' Ryan Friend about the problems the team is having starting games, the influence of new IGL Sanzhar "neaLaN" Iskhakov, Brehze's time with the organization and much more.

Overtime loss against 9z, but a strong CT-side from you guys for the first time in the Major. Can you walk me through getting that jump-start?

We had a good game plan, just what to look out for and how we wanted to play the game. We stuck to it and it was working for us. It was a good CT-side, we just had to close it out on T.

What specifically on that CT-side was working the best?

Our game plan was just to play heavier upper and more so together. If they ended up going lower then we just retake together. We stuck to our game plan.

neaLaN has got the whole stratbook out in front of him and he talked a little bit with me about how he has gotten more comfortable from Russian to English calling. How have you felt his calling has been?

neaLaN's calling is super good, and his English is super good too. I didn't know much about neaLaN before he came to our team but his English is super good. There are still some instances where he is still calling something and we don't really understand because we are speaking so fast. But for the most part, he is really good, his calls are great and it's very easy, I think he is adapting pretty well.

How helpful is that to have another gun, especially your IGL, pushing you guys forward?

Obviously if your IGL can frag that just helps because you don't see IGLs putting up numbers and neaLaN is a good caller and a good rifler. It's only helping us.

In the game against 9z, during the second half, you seemed to struggle a little bit, especially on the T-side. What were you guys trying to fix after that 5th round and once it was like the 10-10, 11-11?

We knew what we wanted to do but we just had mistakes we can not make, where people are forgetting nades and how the strats were going down and people are missing nades and so it was making it super hard on us to execute any plan because we wouldn't have utility or the nades would be missed and they would know exactly what we are doing. It was super hard.

You guys were able to kind of bring it back and able to rally and you brought it up to 15-13. What was the switch that allowed you guys to even get to that position?

We have really good ways to work Nuke. When we got to the 15th we were ready to close it out but I think small mistakes happened or someone got killed or we missed a nade and completely foiled our whole plan, so if we just fixed that the round would have been completely different but happens, all good.

You had a long career with EG and now you are in a revamp of the team, considering the beginning of the year and how that experiment went. How do you feel about the team and his formation now having the most success that you have had recently being part of this?

It feels good. We had a rough year at the start of the year and a rough year before that so having a team where we are constantly progressing is something I haven't felt in a while. CeRq and I have been with the team for a long time now, and I think this group of guys is the formula, if we stick to it we have a lot of support staff, we are pushing toward our goals and I think it's showing progression but slowly, but we are getting there.

I wanted to ask about the support staff. I have talked with the EG Black and EG White guys at Fragadelphia because they were teamless coming in and now they are able to experience a professional org for the first time. For you, you have been in major orgs almost your entire career. What is the difference with this organization, and what they are doing now?

EG is trying to make a full-blown 30-man squad and we get to practice against those guys, we get to have Daniel [Vorborg] and we have Damien [maLeK] to help us out, valens too, so we have a bunch of resources to use and I think it's only helping us. It's a bit different from what we are used to but I think it's working, no problems yet.

Now you are headed to the elimination matches, pressure is going to come in a little bit here. Who are you looking to face, who do you think you have the best chance against?

I actually don't know. Whoever we play, we'll just play them. I'm not worried about who we play, it's just we got to fix our own mistakes, play our own game and not feel too much pressure, because there shouldn't be that much pressure on us. We are just going to come in and play.

This crowd is nuts and it's probably one of the loudest crowds you ever have had against you in your career. Did that pressure affect you guys at all in terms of communication or anything else?

I think it did. When you have a crowd that's against you, it's super hard to focus. There are a couple of times that I'm sitting in a door smoke and the crowd goes "ohhh" and I'm like "Oh fuck". We both know that we are in the smoke now so it's kind of a mind game, it's super fun. The crowd is crazy, I can't wait to see what's like when it gets to the playoffs.

For your own career, you have been around North America for so long, you have had so many teams, you have had so many things. Where do you see yourself in the next few years, with either EG or another team? Where do you see your own goals and aspirations?

I have been on EG for a while now, just trying to win as many tournaments as I can, still trying to get back to the level I used to be because I know I can be, but the last two years of EG I feel like they were just a waste of time. Now that we have finally a good roster I believe in, making progress, I think it starts right about now.

Evil Geniuses will face Cloud9 in the org's first elimination match of the competition, today at 05:00PM