messioso: "There will be no roster changes coming"

After a 2-0 start to the PGL Copenhagen Major Elimination Stage, Complexity let the event slip through their fingers. While the North American squad did face some of CS2's top squads, the inability to claim a single win in three Bo3 denied COL a top eight spot in Copenhagen.

Their final loss to FaZe was especially crushing as Finn "karrigan" Andersen's troops made quick work of a seemingly deflated Complexity. Following this loss, Dust2.us' Ryan Friend spoke to Complexity's general manager Graham "messioso" Pitt about the loss, the team's failure to secure a top eight finish, and what the future holds for the roster, 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.

As an organization that just became independent, how does this loss here hurt the organization?

I can't speak for the entire organization, but for the CS team it's still the furthest this iteration of the roster has even gone in the Major. It is only one step behind the [FACEIT Major London 2018] roster then there was the very early roster in 2013 that made the semifinals.

It's the third best result this organization has ever had, which is something to be proud of, especially for this roster as well. It's the furthest we've ever gone and we put up a great fight. We lost to three world-class elite teams, MOUZ, Vitality, and FaZe. If you can't beat one of them, you probably don't deserve to be in the quarterfinals.

This Major is one of the toughest Majors, all of the elite teams are getting quite deep and we have to be able to beat one of them if we want to get there. It shows where we're at and I hope people recognize that we've done really well to get this far but we're still very disappointed that we didn't get further and hopefully that's fuel for the fire.

I think there's going to be a lot of comments about how Complexity should have made playoffs. Do you agree with the sentiment that it was an expectation for this roster to make top eight?

Yeah, when we got to the point where we were 2-0, the playoffs were I think a lock, we should've had it. MOUZ clearly humbled us quite a lot, and Vitality said themselves they had a rough day with ZywOo not playing [full strength]. We definitely let that one slip, and everyone will agree that we probably should've converted if not the first two maps, Inferno and Vertigo, we should've at least won Anubis.

There's definitely a lot of regret in the Vitality game. FaZe played really well, they didn't make any missteps really and they punished a lot of our mistakes so that's for us. But, the Vitality game will be the one where we sit back and think, 'Jesus man, we should've won that,' and be 3-1 and the third seed in the playoffs.

It's hard and that might have contributed to some of the nervousness today, but at the end of the day we need to keep getting to these positions where we need to get nervous and get used to it. It's still a step forward for us in terms of how we performed and played against these elite teams, but there's still a lot more work to do still.

I'm just happy that we get to have three or four weeks at home because these guys have been on a world tour of incredible magnitude these last three months and it's going to be nice to give them a break and come back full force for the rest of the season.

The addition of EliGE last summer has helped push this team towards the next level. Is it on Complexity's mind right now to be looking at other potential upgrades or changes?

It's a performance sport, we're always looking at having the best roster we can field, but I think we've all been very clear and something we're very proud about is that we want to be a North American team. We're not going to compromise that to just pick up the next best European player to replace an American player, that doesn't make sense.

Everything has to come with thought to it, and we've just re-signed contracts with Grim, floppy, T.c, and JT, and we believe in the roster. We've signed multi-year contracts with all of them so that shows enough about where our commitment is and the support we have for our players.

We see those guys as the future of this team but at the end of the day we are in a performance business and if there are players up-and-coming who we think can improve the team, then we'll have to make those changes. But, there will be no [roster] changes coming directly off of this Major.