Grim: "Staying in Europe is good, but utilizing our time in Europe is the more important thing "

Complexity's signing of Jonathan "EliGE" Jablonowski has been the talk of the town this offseason, but lest we forget the other former Liquid star that was acquired last year by the Dallas organization. Michael "Grim" Wince struggled in his former home, but since joining Complexity the young rifler has shown glimpses of the high ceiling he possesses. Ahead of their season opener tomorrow against Ninjas in Pyjamas, Dust2.us' Gonçalo "GoncOak" Carvalho sat down with Grim to chat about EliGE, the recent player break, and his expectations for the team.

It's only been a couple of weeks but how has it been working with EliGE again? Has there been any difference between EliGE in Liquid and EliGE in Complexity and how did you react when you knew that Complexity was getting EliGE?

Honestly, I was super excited that we were getting EliGE just because I was playing with him before on Liquid and I think that he is definitely a lot better as well. He's bringing a lot of stuff to our team and we have improved a lot over this past week. We have been staying here for about 11 days now, so just practicing hard and I think it's been really good so far and we are all super excited to be playing with him.

What about hallzerk? He has missed two big events so what's the chemistry like after two months?

I'd say it's still fine. We were joking with him because he said "damn it's finally good to be back I've been bored" because he has been pugging and not playing too many matches so we definitely missed him in those events. We all really like Sonic but obviously hallzerk is our teammate, we love playing with him. It's been nice and I think he has been getting back into the swing of things because he's had a two-month break obviously.

Talking about you now, is this the year that you solidify yourself as the top rifler from NA?

I think that I can if we practice hard enough. I feel like with the practice we have had now with EliGE and being more structured it's a lot easier to play and fill my role in the system, so I definitely think if I keep on the grind and keep putting the hours in, then I can definitely be the best and anything is possible as long as you put in the work.

Top 20 HLTV player this year so?

I don't know about this year. Maybe, maybe not, but definitely the goal for me first is to win tournaments and I feel like the Top 20 will come after so right now as long as we are staying on the grind by playing as a team and winning I'm sure the player accolades will come with time as well. Right now I'm just trying to do my best for the system and be a team player the best I can.

The core of Complexity with you, floppy and JT, have attended two Majors together but you've never gone past the Challengers stage. With the addition of EliGE, do you think you are able to reach the Legends stage?

Yeah that's definitely the goal. Honestly, for us, last time even at the BLAST Major, we fell very short of our expectations because our expectations were to make the Legends stage there and we definitely fell through there. I definitely think with EliGE now and the amount of work we are putting in, well CS2 is going to be played on that Major so anything is possible with a new game. Teams that are good can become bad, and teams that are bad can become good so anything is possible we just need to make sure we are putting in the work and I definitely think we can make the Legends stage and even further than that for the CS2 Major.

So basically a year ago you told Dust2.us that "every other team has pressure because they don't want to be the first team to lose to Complexity" after two months of having no wins. Since then, the roster has gone through two changes with one being EliGE very recently and the team has been growing consistently since then. How hard has it been to keep the team motivated throughout the low points?

We do a really good job of reviewing our matches and seeing what goes wrong. I think as long as we do that we will be fine but yeah, the team still jokes with me about that interview, they all think it's a funny one. Honestly, we've come a long way since then, back then we were pretty down bad so I'm just glad we have come a lot further than we were back then, stayed well to the grind and just reviewed a lot of our stuff and I think we will never go back to those depths laughs. So that's the goal and I'm honestly really glad with the team right now, I feel like we are putting in a lot of work so I'm excited to play the matches.

A month ago you also told us that the team needs to stay in Europe as much as possible. What is the plan for the second half of the year?

Yeah that I think that staying in Europe is good, but utilizing our time in Europe is the more important thing because before we had a bit more off-days than I think we should have in Europe. I feel like when we are in Europe, we need to be grinding as hard as possible. When we go home in NA and South Africa and whatnot for our teammates, that's the time to chill with family and stuff. I think that we have all agreed that when we are here, we are going to put in as much work as possible so that we can enjoy our time at home. I think that here right now we are going to try and do a 10-14 day bootcamp before every big event. Before BLAST we had 11 days so far in Europe and just make the time that we have here as efficient as possible basically.

How has that bootcamp been before BLAST?

It's been nice. We were staying at the Astralis Nexus in Copenhagen which is only a 10-minute drive from here so it's actually pretty nice. We have been putting in a lot of work making everything a bit more structured and making sure that everyone is on the same page with every strat, every round, and playing the clutch situations better. I think we have gone over a lot of stuff in the bootcamp and it has been going really well so far.

Has EliGE been meshing well with the rest of the team?

Yeah I would say that he fits in well. We have a really good team environment and I definitely think he likes it and he's bringing some good stuff to the environment as well. As long as he is comfortable, he's going to destroy the opponents. He is super good and we just want to make him as comfortable as possible and I think with the bootcamp we have done a very good job of making him comfortable in his spots and making the team comfortable as well with everything going on so it's been pretty good all-round.

Do you have any new roles because of EliGE?

I would say that we don't have any new roles just because EliGE is a one-for-one, plug-and-play with FaNg's roles. They were doing all the same stuff as well so that is why it was a no-brainer to pick up EliGE during the player break as well because you don't have to spend as much time learning a new role. Right now we are just getting new strats and learning the kinks of the strats and stuff like that so I feel like we have been able to use our time pretty efficiently.

What about Vertigo? Are you still picking Vertigo?

Yeah, we are still playing Vertigo. I feel like our Vertigo roles are still the same. EliGE and FaNg were doing the same roles on Vertigo so we are just keeping things the same there as well.

Do you have anything that you would like to tell the North American fans?

Thanks for supporting us this whole way and even though we haven't been making you proud sometimes, we are going to do our best to make you proud in the second half of the year and hopefully onwards so just keep cheering and thank you very much.

One last question before I let you go. What are your personal expectations for BLAST and the team's expectations?

I think it's definitely just to go to the next stage of the groups and pretty much just win honestly. I feel like now we have got enough experience and gone over enough stuff in the bootcamp so we've just got to try our best really and win as many games as we can. I feel like right now since we haven't really played any matches our expectations are kind of up in the air since we don't know what to expect yet but once we get the matches going and the practice flowing a bit more, I'd say the goal is to win.

Tomorrow we can expect a win against Ninjas?

Hopefully so. We will do our best to get a win there.

Complexity makes their return to the server tomorrow at 12:30PM against Ninjas in Pyjamas.