NRG m1cks: "Imperial were just steamrolling us"

NRG weren't even supposed to be here. The organization was eliminated in the online portion of the North American Closed Qualifier for the PGL Copenhagen Major Americas RMR. They didn't even think it was a possibility until Rocket's Damian "EMIYA" Boulware was banned from FACEIT for cheating and the team decided to pull out from the RMR. NRG were the ones eliminated by Rocket in the deciding match and were selected by PGL to head down to Monterrey.

Their first match against Imperial was brutal. It was a demoralizing 13-2 loss that even NRG Analyst Joshua "m1cks" Micks remarked was a "steamrolling" when speaking to Dust2.us' Jeffrey "Mnmzzz" Moore. Other topics included his specific role within NRG, how the squad was preparing for the event in the little time they had, and what the future of NRG looks like.

Please note that the full interview can be found here or below on YouTube, while the transcript has some key snippets from their conversation.

From your perspective, what went wrong on the server there?

I mean, it was kind of rough the second round. We had a 5v3 and just lost - we didn't get a kill after that. Then the next six or seven rounds I felt like they were just steamrolling us and it was kind of hard to get any momentum going after that. It's also a bit tough because this is our first time like being together all in person. That was our first time playing a LAN match together like that. We had a couple scrims yesterday. but that was about it. It was hard to get like any momentum going back into the match after we lost that second round.

How much time did you guys have to prep once you got the news you would be the replacement?

We had qualifiers pretty much the entire time after we learned about it, so pretty much the week we had like 10 days straight worth of playing before we came here. It was pretty much all open qualifiers, some closed qualifiers, so it was a bit rough to get good practice against good teams. It’s not really an excuse so much, but it was definitely hard to prepare like we would have if we had straight qualified for the event. We probably would have gone to Europe, had a nice boot camp and everything, but we didn't have the opportunity. I wouldn't say it was why we lost or anything.

And what is your specific role within this team at the moment? You’ve been behind the team for this match, but you’re technically the analyst. Are you wearing the coach hat at the moment and is that intentional?

Yeah, it’s intentional. I would say I am more of an analyst and then fill in behind the scrims, behind the matches, and things like that. I wouldn't say I'm so much of a coach in the team. I don't know if I'd say it was intentional. It was kind of like, they weren't even sure they're going to have a staff member when the team was opening and they added me to have someone going with that. This is daps’ team and I wouldn't say a coach is a necessity at the moment. Obviously, eventually, it will be, whether it's me or whether that's someone else filling that role. I'm more the analyst and I fill in I'm behind the players for the matches, I kind of do what I can.