Grim: "It feels weird being the most experienced"

Complexity come into the Major off the back of a slight dip in form after a strong start to the year. A top-eight finish at IEM Katowice was a result the team has so far been unable to replicate.

One of the big parts of Complexity's run at Katowice was the star performances of Michael "Grim" Wince, the former Liquid rifler who has come into his own on the youthful squad becoming a key cog in their machine. Dust.us' Arnie Petty spoke to Grim about the team's form heading into the Major, in particular, their disappointing result at ESL Challenger Melbourne and how it feels to be the most experienced player at a tier-one level on the Complexity squad.

Complexity qualified for Paris dropping just one map at the RMR, a stark contrast to their heartbreaking exit from the IEM Rio Major cycle last year. The team got their revenge against Gabriel "FalleN" Toledo's Imperial and secured qualification with a strong win against MIBR. The only map dropped was against paiN, who despite being on a hot streak at the moment, Grim believes they could have beaten.

Well it definitely felt better, we thought we could beat paiN as well. They are a really good team but we think we are capable of beating them. We just talked about what happened and why. We played Imperial the next day and games with them are always a 50/50, so we felt we had to make it a 70/30 at least. We talked about it and we came back super strong, we played pretty well against Imperial and we had a solid win over MIBR as well, who we also have played a ton recently. We know they are a hard opponent, but we went into the veto knowing they would want to play Anubis so we banned it and it worked pretty well. We went in with a ton of confidence and I'm glad we beat them because historically we struggle against them online but on LAN we were able to beat them.

One of the players who has stepped up a level this year is Justin "FaNg" Coakley, with a 1.15 rating at the RMR, the inexperienced rifler is finding his feet at the tier one level.

I think he's definitely getting more used to it and experience, that helps his comfort zone and performance the more experienced you are. Last year like you said was most of our first years in Tier one and it was a big learning curve, now I think we know what it takes to win and we just have to show it at the end of the day and perform the best we can be. He's stepped up a lot and that's helped us a lot because he's in really impactful roles on the team.

It was FaNg's first year playing at the top level in 2022, but he wasn't the only one. A majority of Complexity's roster had not been involved in tier-one competition before 2022. This leaves Grim being the veteran of the team, despite being so young - a dynamic that is still weird to get used to.

It definitely feels weird being the most experienced because on all my teams before I have always been the new guy coming up. Like, on Dignitas, I played with ptr, and Liquid I played with the legends. It feels weird, but I'm not overthinking, I'm just trying to use my experience to help us in the server time and in close games. I think the experience definitely helps.

The team prepared for the Major with a bootcamp, but split up their practice time with a trip down under to ESL Challenger Melbourne. The team were one of the pre-tournament favorites but losses to Grayhound and ECSTATIC sent them home early. Despite that, Grim believes the tournament was a useful experience, especially when it comes to playing on stage.

We came back to Poland, the Kinguin bootcamp place after Australia, and we talked about what happened and had three or four practice days to iron out what was going wrong ahead of the major. For most of us, it was our first time playing on stage. It wasn't mine, but especially in front of a crowd like that, for FaNg, I think jt and floppy have played some local DreamHacks before, it was hallzerks first time as well in front of a crowd, so I think that played a factor. We were all hyped up to play in front of a crowd though, and the crowd was awesome, even though we aren't from Australia or the local team. It was a really good experience for future crowd games for sure, there was a lot to take away from Melbourne and we fixed a lot in practice after.

Despite the team not performing too well, it was a good event for Grim on an individual note. One of Complexity's star riflers, Grim has suffered a dip in form since Katowice, but looks to be regaining some starpower heading into the Major.

I personally love playing on stage, I think it elevates my game because I get more hyped when I hear the crowd screaming after sick plays and you hear them yelling. I think for me after Katowice I got in a mental slump or something, I wasn't performing to my standards, like not even close. BLAST Showdown and ESL Pro League was not the best space for me. I just went to the DM and started DMing a lot and looking at the games and seeing what I could do better. I think at Melbourne I fixed some of my stuff, but at this event, I'm going to have a better showing for sure. I'm feeling really good, I have been playing like how I want to in the practices, like how I played at Katowice and events before that. I'm excited to play I think I have got out of the slump.

Complexity broke into the top ten after their run at IEM Katowice, Grim reckons the key to being able to stay there and keep consistent results will be closing out games.

For us I think it's just us closing out games when we have leads. Like historically for us we have choked leads. 14-8 against NAVI, even Outsiders the map three to go to playoffs we choked a bit because we were up in that game. I think it's just focusing a lot and keeping our foot on the gas until the game is over and not giving them an inch to get back in the game. In this day and age, anyone can beat anyone, especially the top teams and they can get themselves back into games. So we just need to make sure we don't give them the chance to. We have talked about it a lot, we just have to show we can close the games out now and I think we can do pretty good. In most of our games, we actually have a pretty good start.

GamerLegion are set to be Complexity's first opponents of the Major, Grim is quietly confident of his team's chances but is keen not to underestimate the European squad.

I think they are pretty good,I don't think we have played them before so it's always interesting to play a team who you haven't faced before. They will play a style we might not be used to, so we just have to play our own game and play like we would any other team because anyone can beat anyone. We have to play them like we would play a G2, always putting in our best effort and not taking our foot off the gas until the game is over. If we do that and don't underestimate them I think we could take it, and if we have a strong start I think we can take it against them.