Grim: "Next season, we need to stay in Europe as much as we can"

Coming into BLAST Spring Final, Complexity are the hometown heroes. As the only North American team to attend the event, they will have to carry the torch high. However, they weren't even supposed to be here. A (un)lucky visa issue for NAVI opened the doors for the Complexity to come into the Final and potentially end the season on a high note.

Ahead of the event, Dust2.us' Samuel "Draik04" Popkes spoke with the American rifler the day before his team is set to clash with Heroic. Taking the fight to the nation's capital, Grim talked about where the season went wrong for Complexity, playing with Sonic, and plans for the player break.

You had to use a stand-in at Dallas, do you think met your expectations or goals for that event?

We didn't have too many expectations going on for that event because we had a stand-in, we were just trying or best to see what we could do there. I think we did a bit better than expected, I thought we could have 2-0d Cloud9 if Inferno went our way a little bit more, if some individual mistakes and some duels didn't cost us that game. I think we definitely did better than we expected, I think at least.

Pretty much all your other teammates have played with Sonic before. You haven't. What was it like playing with him?

I think it's really nice. His communications are good, I think his mechanics are also really good. He's a player that doesn't need to play their game too much and can just fit in, cause obviously he came in from retirement. Even in the scrims and stuff, first scrim he was 17-2 on CT-side or something, I'm like "what the fuck?" Like did he even retire at this point? It's nice playing with him and I'm excited to play one more event with him. I can see why they played so long with him on Extra Salt before.

It's been a rough past event for you guys. Last place in Melbourne, 1-3 at Paris, and a pretty early exit at Dallas. What would you attribute those early exits to?

I don't wanna make excuses but for us, the travel has been pretty tough lately. We fly to Poland, we fly to Australia, we fly back to Poland, we fly to Paris. That messes with our practice since we can't practice as hard or as many days cause of all the travel. and recovery days from that.

I think as an NA team, it's pretty hard as well. Even when you're home you can't practice as much because there's not as many teams to practice against. Next season, we need to stay in Europe as much as we can and practice as hard as we can. At the beginning of the year, when we had those good runs at Katowice and BLAST, we were practicing a lot more than we are now. I think most of that has come down to the travel. Just staying in one spot and practicing will get us back up to speed again.

Using Sonic again for this event, what are the expectations? Are they maybe higher than at Dallas?

I'd say they're a bit higher, but that's because we had more practice with him. Going into Dallas, we only had one or two days to fill him up with the maps, and even when EG picked Anubis on us, he's never played Anubis and we didn't go over it with him, but we actually eliminated them on that map. Expectations are to make it to the stage, and I think that requires us to win a game, so we want to win a game and see what we can do. Obviously all the teams are really tough, so gotta see what we can do.

You've got Heroic as an opening match, what are the feelings like for that?

We're just gonna play with confidence. I think we played Heroic once before at Katowice. We did pretty well against them, beat them on a map, and almost beat them on Inferno. I think we lost a few clutches on Inferno that cadiaN won against us. Obviously, we're a bit confident now, just because we've had more practice with Sonic compared to Dallas. But they're a really tough team, we just gotta go and give it our all.

Win or lose, you're going to be playing either FaZe or Astralis. Thoughts on either?

Again, some really tough teams. Especially having a stand-in. Obviously, they're really tough, in my opinion, they're the same caliber right now. Anyone can really beat anyone in this day and age. I don't see too many teams as favorites in these series. Obviously, ENCE just won Dallas and most people probably expected the final of Dallas to be Heroic FaZe or something. A lot of the teams are super strong right now, so you've gotta treat them all the same.

I've got some bigger picture questions. First, I wanted to ask about playing with Liquid. When you were on the team, that was a pretty turbulent time for the team as far as results went. Obviously, that was your first step into that tier one space. Has that impacted how you approach things on Complexity? Did you feel that you had to reinvent the way that you play?

I didn't feel like I had to reinvent it, maybe because on Liquid I was on the team for seventeen months I believe and I was playing a different role than what I used to do. Back on Triumph and all my other teams I used to play all the star and impact roles, but on Liquid, I was playing the support role. I'd say I went back to star roles on this team, so it definitely was a bit of a learning curve. I think the experience I gained on Liquid was really nice coming into Complexity, especially the LAN experience. I had a ton of LANs on Liquid, so it definitely helped a lot, and I can bring some stuff to the guys that I learned from there as well.

Looking back on the first half of 2023, how would you gauge your results?

I'd say, it was a great start into a very rough second half. At BLAST, I know NAVI beat us to be here, but now we're taking their spot. I think that game we choked as well, we could have won. I think we were up 14-8 on Overpass and ended up losing it, so it was definitely rough. At Kato, we surpassed everyone's expectations. I think we beat fnatic, ENCE, almost beat Outsiders who were the reigning Major champs, and almost made playoffs there. I definitely think it was good then. After that, we had a pretty bad Pro League, bad Major, and Dallas. In my opinion, we just gotta practice more and get back to those ways.

Do you think the solution to that is what you were saying earlier? Staying in one place for longer and trying to cut down on flying from place to place?

I think so. Personally, as a player, when you're flying like that it's super hard on the mental and your body feels bad too. For me, I need a three or four-day period after flying a seven hour gap every time. If we could stay in one place, especially Europe, just because the practice is way better than in NA, I think we can get those same results again as long as we keep grinding. When we had such a strong start at Kato and BLAST groups, we fell off a bit when we started making more mistakes than we normally would. The basic mistakes, like not peeking together and stuff like that. That's the type of stuff that with practice and playing more, we would iron out and fix by itself so we can focus on the more complex mistakes.

Any goals in mind for the second half of the year?

Since there's no second Major, it's just to make playoffs at the events. I think going into this year, our goal was to make both Majors. Since there isn't a second one, we can't make it, but I'd say, just practice more and try to make playoffs at most of the events we play.

Any plans for the player break?

For me, it's just seeing family I know most of the guys are going to see family as well. I'm gonna hope that CS2 comes out so I can grind it and get that early start. I'm really excited for that. Besides that, just seeing family. I know Johnny is and Justin is as well. I'm just trying to decompress and look back on where we could be better and come and focus for the next season.

Grim and his Complexity teammates will be facing off against Heroic at 04:00PM later today.