Axed on BOSS' RMR performance: "I know David would be very proud of us"

After being eliminated by Liquid, Tommy "Axed" Ryan spoke to Dust2.us' Jeffrey "Mnmzzz" Moore about the team's Americas RMR campaign, which the BOSS coach considers to have been nearly perfect, only lacking the final results, stating that the players gave their all, which is all one can ask.

With a small glance over the Buchholz system, Axed and Mnmzzz talked about the coach's previous experience with Evil Geniuses, if he ever considers coming back to the servers as a player, and more.

How do you rate your performance in this event? How do you feel about the team's performance?

If the scale is out of ten, I'd say we did a 9.9. I think we played as strong as we really could, but we didn't qualify. Looking at the Buchholz score, we had the hardest schedule of any team at this event and I think we exceeded everyone's expectations, ourselves' included. It was nice to see all the work that we did pay off. It may sound a little bit crazy, but I feel like the work we did, mainly only being in North America, with no bootcamp and everything, was a major disadvantage compared to every other team coming from Europe, having an organization, salaries, we were kind of the lone wolves here and a lot of this event was primarily prepped just through Cryptic and myself, for the entire team. I watched hundreds of hours of demos in order to prepare for this.

BOSS has had a pretty fantastic time since getting together to start this year. You made the RMR, made EPL S19, but until recently, you weren't their coach. How did you end up becoming their head coach?

They told me they got David ["cynic" Polster] and he was someone I respected a lot, I always thought very highly of him, he was always incredibly hard to compete against, and once they told me they got David, my options were to sit out this season and just wait for something to happen or to work with him and see if we could help the younger group of inexperienced players flourish.

This is your first team since the RBG/Carpe Diem/EG mold. What's it like starting all over again with a new core of players?

It's incredibly hard and challenging. Now that I know so much more, three years later, it's easier to go through the team-building process and the understanding of macro-level gameplay, as opposed to just micro and just round by round by round mistakes, you look at the bigger picture ideas, you try to establish how a tier one team operates, the attitudes that are required. All of the experience that I have gained over the last three years, you are able to bring into this team very easily and help others learn. That's one thing Evil Geniuses did really well for us, they surrounded us with veteran players like stanislaw, autimatic, and RUSH, and we were always able to siphon knowledge from them, even valens being a former coach, and Malek. We were able to learn a lot through people's experiences and I'm trying to do the same.

You are only 22 years old, and it's very unusual for someone your age to pack up the mouse and become a coach and then have this situation where the players you are coaching are more experienced than you. Are you going to stay committed to coaching, is this the future for you?

I don't have any plans on returning as a player. I enjoy coaching, I enjoy teaching, I think teaching is actually one of the best ways to learn and it has helped me and my character develop a lot because you kind of have to be an example and a role model to the team. It helps you carry yourself better, work harder, and just be professional.

What is your main takeaway from your time with Evil Geniuses? Do you have any regrets about how things turned out?

I, honestly, don't have any real regrets other than I just wish we could somehow have kept RUSH, if this was a six-player game there was no reason for RUSH to have been replaced in any way. He is an amazing teammate, leader, and veteran, we loved him to death. That would be my biggest regret in terms of the business, just because he was a wonderful soul to be around. Evil Geniuses helped me gain so much experience and knowledge. Learn how to actually operate in a tier one organization. I worked with both players and management quite often, roster decisions were typically always my call, and I feel like I had to make a lot of tough decisions but it was all in order to grow. They truly treated me as professionally as they could, and I thank valens for that often, I actually just sent him a text today. In the EG CS program, it did feel like we were a bit of a family, for sure.

What's next for BOSS after this? What is the focus of improvement?

When we go home, the first full day we will be actually at home, we will have a match against Nouns, I hope we can get it moved because it would be nice to just unwind for a bit. We are going to have to ramp back up and I think there are some qualifiers coming, we always want to be able to go to Europe and travel, go to other events and then, later in April, we have Malta for Pro League. That's a huge tier one experience for all of them, it will be my second time there, I will be able to hopefully run them through the wringer a little bit better than my first time.

Do you think you honored cynic's memory here in Monterrey?

Absolutely. I know David would be very proud of us, 100%.