refrezh: "I'm happy that our A game can take down really good teams"

Following Sprout's shocking upset win over NIP, Ryan Friend had a chance to sit down with the team's IGL Ismail "refrezh" Ali to discuss the win over the Swedish juggernaut, the cultural differences between Heroic and Sprout, Sprout's place in the scene, and refrezh's journey to improving as a new IGL, among other topics. Overall, the Dane expressed his love of playing in front of the Rio crowd and his hopes for his new-look team.

How did it feel to beat NIP and what was your game plan heading into that match?

Super happy to be here. For us it's a privilege to even play the Major. We're trying to enjoy and cherish every moment. Winning this game and giving another day here in Rio is really important for us, and it's something we value a lot. This experience is going to teach us a lot and I would say we have learned a lot since yesterday. A lot of the pressure is inside our own heads. Yeah, It was great.

How does the environment of Sprout compare to Heroic?

It's of course two different environments. One team is a tier one team and one is a tier three upcoming team. There's a lot of differences on a professional level since these guys are young and they haven't been taught a lot. The guys on Heroic are really experienced and really and truly professionals. But I actually thrive on teams where there is not a lot of pressure and being in a new team that needs to build stuff from scratch.

The players who were on the team before I joined of course had something structure but its still a new team with two new players. Building a team from scratch and getting to meet new people. We are building up a strat book and identity as a team day-by-day because we hadn't had a lot of practice before this Major. We have only been playing together for three months so it has been tough but I would say its been really nice and also different because of the nationalities in the team. People are coming from different cultures but we are getting along and I think it shows on the server.

Do you still think of yourselves as a tier three team after picking up your first win here?

We see ourselves as a team that on a good team can be a threat to anyone, but what we lack is consistency. We are trying to figure out how we can become more consistent. We have a good reason why we are not consistent because we are inexperienced and there's a lot of stuff we haven't figured out inside the server and some stuff outside the server like mentality and how we go into games.

It's a long process, it's not going to take three or four months to become consistent but I'm happy that our A-game can take down really good teams.

Are you able to translate some of your Heroic experience to how you lead this team and how to deal with situations they are unfamiliar with?

It's harder for me to teach my experience as I am also learning a lot of new stuff on my own in my new role as the IGL. I feel like on the team right now I have the most to learn in a way, so its hard to give all the experiences that I have had, but I try to do my best day by day. But I still have a long way to go as an IGL and it showed yesterday that I have a big responsibility to make sure we are on point and that I activate people.

On my older teams it wasn't really my role to activate people, I just had to do my part and help the team. I cannot keep thinking the same way, I have way more weight on my shoulders and I need to do my best to take care of the young guys.

When I talked to Liquid they were surprised that your match against them went to Inferno rather than Ancient. Can you explain why the veto went that way?

Against Liquid we banned Dust2, Mirage, and Ancient. Dust2 is of course a weak map for us but we banned Mirage and Ancient because we feel like Inferno is a strong map for us. Inferno is a map where it's balanced on both sides. They made it one-sided because they were way better but the map itself can be CT-sided and T-sided. I would also say that we played a practice against them on Ancient where they just destroyed us so for us it was to try and play on our own strengths.

Overall, it may have been to play Ancient but we were focused on ourselves and playing our own games. They were so much better on stage and we didn't show up inside the server or mentally.

Going back to being an IGL, how do you feel you've been developing in that new role?

So far I think it has been going ok. If I look at the bigger picture, it is looking really good. But I would say personally there's still a lot of stuff missing from my own game as an IGL. It's about finding this consistency because if I'm consistent as an IGL we would never be consistent as a team. I really need to keep building on my new role and making it a part of my identity as a player. Sometimes you do tend to go back to your habits when you are the most pressured and I need to let go of old habits and create some new ones.

My goal is to activate and hype them up because that's what keeps the guys going. Also personally I play the best when I am also hyped and my team is hyped so it's a positive domino effect. If I'm hyped I'm calling better and playing better. It's really hard to call when you're not pumped and feeling it.

How do you feel about your match against Spirit tomorrow?

We met them at the RMR and it was an ok convincing game from us, we won 16-12 I think. It's a team that we feel confident in meeting. Of course they are also a good team so it's going to be interesting and I'm looking forward to it. We are going to go to the hotel now and prepare for the game and we're really looking forward to it because it either means that we lose or have another day here in Rio.