T.c on Grim: "[Liquid] forced a system upon him that wasn't meant for him"

Complexity came into the IEM Katowice Play-In stage with relatively low expectations. The fans had them penned as a long shot to make it through, at best, considering their first match was against BIG and eventually ENCE in their qualification matches.

The team had shown signs of improvement over the winter break at BLAST Spring Groups, where despite getting dispatched 2-0 by both FaZe and Liquid, they beat Evil Geniuses and were incredibly close to beating NAVI to make the Spring Final. However, they failed to close out the game, an issue that has become a bit of a trait for the young NA side.

Despite all of this Complexity overcame the odds as after losing to BIG they took down Permitta and ENCE on their way to qualifying for the IEM Katowice Group Stage, in of itself an achievement considering FURIA, ENCE, and Sprout all failed to make it. In groups, the Americans followed up a close loss to Heroic (ranked second in the world) up with wins over MOUZ (#8), Fnatic (#10) and being heartbreakingly close to knocking out reigning Major Champions Outsiders (#5) in their playoff qualification match.

While Complexity may have missed out on the Spodek Arena by just a few rounds, the team can take heart and confidence from their performance where they outclassed teams ranked much higher than them in the HLTV rankings. After their marathon match against Outsiders, Complexity's coach Tiaan "T.c" Coertzen spoke to Dust2.us' Liam Slevin about the team's run in Poland.

Complexity, what a run. Tell me as disappointing as it is to be out, how proud are you of this team?

I think we can be very proud of what we have accomplished in the short time amount of time we have been in Europe. Especially if we take a look at where the season started to now. Like, almost making it to the Spodek we were literally two or three rounds away from making the Spodek. I think we can be very proud of what we achieved here, we got completely smashed at the start of BLAST and in a short amount of time, we have made a lot of progress.

First time I spoke to you was at Cologne, where you went out of the play in without a win, tell me in the last six months how impressive has it been with the progress the team has made?

I think directly after hallzerk joined the team we made some strides at Pro League, I think it was back then but we realized we had a lot of flaws just in terms of the inexperience we had in the team. We could upset very good teams but we could lose to some tier two teams, especially if we had no time to go and prep on them. So we went back to the drawing board and completely changed our approach for this season going forward. So we can raise everyone's individual level overall and I think so far at least it's working and hopefully, it continues working and we can continue to grow from here.

You played Outsiders in the last game, everyone knows how annoying their style can be to play. For you as a coach setting up for that how was that like?

Unfortunately we had a game before this today, so we had literally maybe an hour to get ready. Fortunately, we have our analyst AntO_oNNN to help us a little bit. It's really tough, it's a tough style to play against so it's hard when the players don't have time to go back and see what's happening in their own spots. So yeah it was a really tough game to prepare for and you never know if we had a day to go back and do proper prep who knows the result could have been different. But I mean all credit to these guys they are Major champions, they were in the same boat as us they also had to play a game earlier today, and all credit to them, and good luck to them.

You mention that Outsiders were in the same boat having to play a B03 earlier on in the day. How frustrating is it that you don't get time to prepare for a team you don't know before you play later that day?

Yeah it's very frustrating, I think one of the other pros raised the issue on Twitter earlier today like 'how are we in 2022 and we are still playing two best of threes in one day'. I mean it's not even about not getting the opportunity to prep, it's just such a long day like people are mentally drained after a B03 you are competing at such a high level. People are just mentally drained and tired man, it's hard to stay focused for this amount of hours. As frustrating as it is to not prepare, I think the issue comes from having to play two best of three's in one day. At the end of the day, it's the same for everyone, equal playing field so yeah.

Back to the system that you and JT have drawn up for this team. Across this tournament, we have seen some serious improvement from the players, FaNg, floppy, and hallzerk have all had 30 bombs. Grim has begun to shine in this system as well, how much credit do you give to the system that you and JT have put together for having all those players be able to shine at different points?

I think we give people a lot of room in the system to do their own thing and to develop and grow in the system. It's not a dictatorship we are not trying to force anyone to play a certain way, we are open to ideas always and we try and give players the space they need to go for their own individual plays in the system. We are always open to changing things and I think that's why we have been successful with a few different lineups and there has always been players that can flourish in our system. As much credit as it is to me and JT it is to the rest of the guys, everyone's bringing their own ideas and we are a team at the end of the day, we are only as good as our weakest link. Everyone's working equally hard and we are all figuring it out together.

Like you said only as good as your weakest link, but there doesn't seem to be any at the moment. One very strong link is Grim, what's it been like seeing his form skyrocket since he has joined Complexity?

I am very happy Mike found his groove in this team, I mean when he just joined from Team Liquid at the start of last year I think he had a lot of not-great performances in our first events. I think Mike has grown so much as a player and individual in this team, and its amazing to see man. Mike is so talented he has the insane mechanical ability, he is really really skilled. so I am very glad he can flourish and we could get him back to his form before he joined Liquid, I think they were trying too much to force a system upon him that wasn't meant for him instead of working around him. So I'm glad we could work with him to find something that actually works for him and suits his playstyle.

One of those tournaments towards the end of last year that you guys showed some improvement in was ESL Pro League, we have the next season of EPL coming up in that space of time between now and EPL is there any major changes that you think you guys are going to need to make to fix what went wrong here?

I don't think we have a lot of time to make any major changes we are pretty much, well most of us, flying back to the US tonight or tomorrow morning like in a few hours. Then we have the IEM Rio qualifiers we will obviously have the closed qualifier for the Major and then five or six days in Europe before our Pro League group starts. So, I think it will pretty much be focusing on fixing the mistakes we made and continuing to develop and grow on what we have learned from our time in Europe over the past few weeks. Pretty much just using our time as efficiently as possible, the season is always super, super packed so you just have to make the most of the time you got.

Continuing to grow is something that Complexity have done in your time here and since adding hallzerk, tell me shortly missing out on the stage is it long before we see Complexity on a big stage?

Man, I hope not. I hope not. (Laughs) Yeah, I'm just going to leave it at that, I'm not going to jinx anything but if we continue playing the way we are I hope not.