ReFuZR: "I wanted to do way better in the tournament"
Fisher College is part of a growing trend in the North American collegiate Counter-Strike scene to bring in European semi-pros to buff their ranks, with the Boston school bringing in two imports in the form of Alexander "AlekS" Andersson and Nils "ReFuZR" Groot. These import players were on display this weekend at Fragadelphia CS/DO as Fisher College managed to claim a playoff berth in their LAN debut.
Following Jeffrey "Mnmzzz" Moore's interview with AlekS, he also had a chance to talk with ReFuZR later in the day to discuss the team's elimination from the tournament, ReFuZR's time in America thus far, and his career back in the Netherlands, among other topics.
Please note that the full interview can be found below on YouTube, while the transcript has some key snippets from their conversation.
Fisher was eliminated in the quarterfinals by Xiaoma. What are your thoughts coming out of that match?
I'm a little disappointed because I wanted to do way better in the tournament and I was also a little disappointed in my individual performance on the first map. But coming into this event we didn't have a lot of preparation. We practiced once with two scrims and apart from that we've only played collegiate games.
Our expectations weren't that high but I'm still a little disappointed.
Now that you've now been in America for three months, how are you enjoying the country?
I've been loving it. I've heard from other players who have moved to America for collegiate that they sometimes feel a bit miserable being on a campus in the middle of nowhere. But, Fisher College is in the city of Boston in the center so I've been doing great. The esports program is really big in our school and I have a lot of friends there and I'm always busy so I don't really have time to miss home. I'm really enjoying America.
Having only played collegiate thus far, is it good to finally play some real competition?
Yeah it was really fun. In collegiate we just run around and kill people, so it's kind of boring. Now we have to actually try a bit harder and focus on our communication. In collegiate it's usually just one or two guys popping off and having a good game and we get the W easily.
Here we felt we actually had to play as a team and do our best.
AlekS your teammate is currently playing ESEA Advanced with Pryde. Is playing in Advanced something you want to do next season?
As of right now during this semester, I'll be focusing only on collegiate. We might ESEA next season with our university roster, but we're not too sure yet because next semester we'll be having someone else instead of ynoT.
If we play right now it'd be kinda useless, also during summer break me and AlekS will be back home so we're going to have to miss that season. So we're probably going to start the season next semester.
What made you come to America after playing for strong Benelux teams like LowLandLions and KRC Genk?
On my second to last team on Genk we were playing full-time and we were trying to make it to the pro scene. Eventually that project fell apart and I wanted to quit CS and get back into school and start studying. But, I had some struggles at home which didn't really make it possible so I had one more chance with Genk with a new lineup of younger players and I knew coming in I'd be going to the US as I had the offer at the start of this team.
It was mostly because I wanted to experience going abroad and I already knew I was going to quit CS and focus on school, so when this offer came it was the perfect time.
