Walco: "Being in NA has put us at a bit of a disadvantage"

Evil Geniuses have arrived in Malta ahead of their debut in ESL Pro League Season 18 in Group B. Ahead of their match against EU titans ENCE, Dust2.us' Jeffrey "Mnmzzz" Moore spoke to EG's IGL, Colby "Walco" Walsh, about the team's priorities and prep post-BLAST Fall groups, the disadvantages of spending the majority of their time in North America, and the high level of support Walco receives from his parents, among other topics.

It's been about a month since your last LAN event at BLAST Fall Groups. What have been the team's priorities since then to get ready for ESL Pro League?

The team's priorities for getting ready for Pro League have definitely been just building. At BLAST we didn't have as much time and our bootcamp was after BLAST so we weren't as well prepared, we didn't have as much as we wanted. One priority is building upon what we have and getting our strat book together, getting our base. The second part would be knowing when to use that base and when to use what you have so you can be successful.

As part of that process of getting ready for ESL Pro League, Evil Geniuses spent some time in Europe to play CCT but for the most part has had to stay in NA to focus on NA qualifiers. Do you feel that puts your team at a disadvantage?

Yeah, being in NA has put us at a bit of a disadvantage for sure. Obviously the practice and everything is just superior in Europe so not having that time definitely doesn't help. It doesn't necessarily hurt that we were in NA, we can always learn thing no matter the practice it may just not be as efficient. I would say being in NA hurts a bit, but its not the end of the world.

I also wanted to ask you about how Jeorge has developed as a player. In general he's the least experienced so how has he been doing in making that transition to tier one international play?

Jeorge is a player that is learning a lot. Since being in Europe he's kind of reformed himself a bit in how he sees the game. It's going to be a process and he wants to learn everything and make sure everything is systematic for him. He's said it himself that when he was in North America the quality of opponents is not as good so you can get away with not being purposeful with everything you're doing and you can play more instinctual.

In Europe everybody is so much better, everyone is consistent and a lot of players are logic machines so you need to really make sure you're on point and you're knowing exactly why you're doing the things you're doing. That's the process Jeorge is in right now where the roles he's playing in, including a few new roles, he needs to understand how he can be the best at his role and that's the process for him.

Looking at that developmental aspect, EG are the first Louvre team to opt into playing ESL Challenger League while having a locked EPL spot. Was that a team decision?

Yeah it was a team decision. It's not necessarily a decision based on wanting to be in North America doing it, but while we're in North America we want to get the most out of our time. Playing officials even if the opponents aren't the best is what's really good for development. So if we're going to be in North America why not make the most of our time and get some officials in and learn from them and continue to get better.

We've seen Evil Geniuses struggle recently online against NA teams with losses to M80, Nouns, and Forsaken. Do you think there's an overarching explanation for these losses?

I don't think there's a clear answer to why we didn't perform. I think there are a few circumstances but I don't want to make excuses as to why we didn't perform. We should be beating those teams regardless and we've already shown what we are capable of.

It can be a bit random... teams played well against us but I don't think we played that great. A couple of circumstances are that it is online things can be more random and we're struggling to find what's best for our ping situation. autimatic is on the west coast while me and HexT are in the middle of Canada where the ping isn't the best so we're finding what's best for us.

One of those squads you lost to, Forsaken, and I wanted to briefly pick your brain about it due to featuring your former teammate wiz. What do you think about that squad and how quickly they've hit the ground running?

They have decent potential and the reason why they've got off to a hot start is basically just name value. Not to take from their teamplay or anything, they are finding what works for them and they have a system with stanislaw where they feel comfortable most of the time, but they have a lot of talent on that team.

wiz is one of the best AWPers in North America even if the stats don't show it. He has so much impact and everything and I can rant about that on its own... stanislaw is very experienced and he brings a lot to the team as a leader, while Infinite is very skilled, JBa can shoot heads all day, and cxzi is the x-factor. They have a lot of good players and are finding what works for them.

Your opening match is against ENCE tomorrow. How do you prep for one of the most consistent teams in world Counter-Strike to find ways to counter them?

The boring answer is that the prep for a team like ENCE is focusing on ourselves. Especially as underdogs you have to do something to equalize and what you should want to do ideally is go with your strengths. I've never been a really prep-heavy IGL, obviously playing in North America sometimes the prep is negligent, teams are more random, and you can't prep for them as well.

So for me I like to make sure we're ready for game day, we have the things we like to do ready, and this is ideally what we want to do in the game, and when it comes to game time we need to make sure we're doing it properly, that is what's important. That is the best you can and they're a really really good team and good teams are generally a lot harder to read so we have to focus on ourselves.

To close, I wanted to ask you about your mom. Many people have noticed she's a regular in Twitch chats and seemingly watches every single match you play. Parental support isn't something that can be taken for granted in esports, how does it feel to have your mom be such a dedicated supporter?

It feels to great to have the support from my family. It didn't always start that way, especially when the game was a lot newer and there wasn't as much popularity, so it's also a learning process where she's still trying to learn about the game a bit and trying to follow along.

What doesn't get seen is my dad, he watches pretty much every game. It didn't start off that way as well but he follows the game a lot and he looks at HLTV and Dust2.us, he follows the news articles and he tells me stuff that even I don't know about sometimes. It definitely feels great and I hope more families are supporting their children in the career they want to follow.

Do you remember the turning point for your parents for when they came on board to you being involved in esports?

I would say for my mom she was always really supportive so for her there wasn't a key moment, it was just learning for her and being supportive. I have great parents that support me and what I wanted to do.

For my dad, it was when I went to Fragadelphia where I was like, 'I'm leaving the house now and going to another country and I'm on streams and stuff,' where he said he didn't know what esports is but he wants to follow it and see what my son is doing.

He enjoys the game and watches like a hockey game and its another sport to him.

Evil Geniuses will square off against ENCE tomorrow at 01:30PM.