JT on COL's Katowice performance: "Emotionally, the team was just not there"
Complexity entered into Katowice 2024 directly as a qualifier to the main stage thanks to their performances late last year. However, in what's become something of a broken record, the team has fallen short of expectations. An early 2-0 over Apeks gave rise to a complete smashing by Spirit into a close but heart-breaking 1-2 loss to the newly-formed Falcons lineup. It was after that game that Ryan Friend of Dust2.us spoke to captain Johnny "JT" Theodosiou about the team's subpar performance and what Complexity will work on before the PGL Major Copenhagen Americas RMR in early March.
Tough way to end that game. What are your thoughts on the veto?
It was tough to tell the veto before the game, honestly, because they were losing most of the maps they were picking. They're a new team and they've picked like four different maps throughout the few series they've played so we weren't sure what they were going to pick. I think it was a bit weird they went for the Ancient pick, and we played pretty well on that today so I'm pretty happy with that. But the other two maps, obviously we picked Overpass and we kinda expected Anubis, so that was no surprise.
What happened on Overpass? It seemed you forced up a lot early in your T-side, was that a pre-planned strategy?
The first force was planned, but we had them low on money the whole time so we were trying to capitalize off that. We knew they hadn't played much on Overpass so we thought to get them low on money as soon as we can. If we had won any of those rounds, they would have been screwed for at least two rounds. In the end, we didn't win any of those rounds, so it bit us in the ass. We still ended with a good five rounds on T-side Overpass which is pretty good. Obviously we often get more than that, it's one of our favorite maps, so we could have done better.
Was there anything weird you noticed coming out from Falcons in that game that you were surprised by?
No not really. We didn't have any prep against them on the map cause they hadn't played it yet before that game. Everything seemed pretty standard from our perspective. Maybe if I watch it back I'll feel a little different. From my POV, they just played like most teams would play Overpass.
On your CT-side, what difficulties can you identify?
Honestly it just came down to losing the second round after we won the pistol. We were money-fucked for at least three rounds. Like what we were trying to do against them, they did against us. Kudos to them for getting that. After that, we just didn't win the important rounds after that. They were just in the driver's seat because of the force-buy that they won.
For Anubis, falling down 7-1, how does the team try to come back from that, given that we know the team can be emotional at times?
About the tilting, the team's been tilting more recently, and I actually had a chat with the whole team yesterday to try to fix the situation and make sure the next games at Katowice, at least, that we don't go down that rabbit hole that we go down in recent games. It felt like if we started any game badly, we were just going to lose it. Emotionally, the team was just not there. I think it was pretty obvious from the outside as well. I'm happy that at least this game, we stayed in the game the whole time. It helped us on Anubis, we were down 7-1 and we still brought it back. In the end, I felt that we should have won on the T-side, we just messed up some rounds at the end. There were really close clutches, we lost some retakes we shouldn't have lost, and in the end it was a close game. Our emotional state and our tilting is still a work in progress and I'm hoping we can working to make it not a problem in the future.
It seems like that could be one of the steps that's holding you back from consistent success. Do you feel that there's a difference in the makeup of the team now compared to at the Fall Final or Sydney?
It's obviously just different when you're winning games. Fall Final and Sydney we were playing well and we were happy, energy is flowing, stuff like that. Now after Sydney and Fall Final we just have way, way higher standards. Now we just really want to make sure we can get further into playoffs and win a tournament. Obviously it hasn't been going that well, it's been going pretty bad, we've been getting last places. I think the team is just getting really frustrated with ourselves. We at least have some time now to practice and get our ship back together and hopefully the we just play much better at the RMR and Major like we know how to.
What's the plan going forward after this? Is it bootcamp or back to the US?
Honestly, we're just always at bootcamp. As an NA team, especially with all the tournaments we play, we're pretty much always at bootcamp. We're gonna be at bootcamp for, not sure how many days, but almost two weeks. Then we're gonna go to NA to fix our time zones and head to the RMR. After that, it's back to bootcamp, the usual.
How are you feeling about the team heading into the RMR?
In my opinion, the NA teams are gonna do well at the RMR so I'm hoping that I'm right about that. For us, our expectations are just to beat everyone there. We have really high expectations for ourselves right now. Going into the RMR, if we don't make it through, there's big issues honestly. It's pretty much an expectation for us to do well there.
Any final takeaways from your time at Katowice? Anything specific to improve upon?
Like I said before, definitely our mental. We need to work on that, just make sure we're playing as a team, taking every round as it is and forgetting about the small mistakes. Other than that, we just have to up our skill floor. We're just playing to the level of each opponent we play. When we play, it can be really bad, so we need to work on our fundamentals. Make sure we go back to stage one and get everybody on the same page and work from there.
Complexity will next take the server at the PGL CS2 Major Copenhagen 2024 Americas RMR where they will fight North and South American teams for one of five slots at the Major.
