freakazoid: "Get back to the Major"
Before the final of the Legend Series NA LAN, I sat down with Ryan "freakazoid" Abadir and talked with him about his new team and about his break from Pro Counter-Strike.
Last season, your team went 7-9 in MDL, what do you attribute to the poor record?
My goal was just to get enough wins to make it to the next season. We also had a stand-in for a fifth, it's no excuse, but we had no team practice, no set five. Now we have our set five and have been practicing hard, so we will see what happens next season, but I think it will definitely go a lot better.
What is your goal going into the next season of MDL?
Probably just to win. One mini goal I have is to win MDL, but obviously get back to pro, and then obviously get back to the Major. That is my end goal, and obviously winning along the way. To sum it all up, pretty much just win.
When you qualified for the Legend Series North America LAN and saw the level of competition, what were your expectations heading in?
I came into this LAN expecting to get first, no other thought, especially with all the preparation we did.
Your team just beat Etherian eSports pretty comfortably 2-0, with 16-6 and 16-9 scorelines on the two maps. How do you feel about that series?
It went well, it really just shows all the practice that we did and it proved it in the match. Especially for Mirage, because sometimes it can get a little iffy. Train it was more straight forward it was a money battle for the first nine to ten rounds of the match, but we got control of that. We ended up giving away six rounds, but I knew our T side was strong and I knew that we were going to be solid as a team.
You took a break from competitive play after the Echo Fox roster disbanded, what was the reason for such a long time off?
Honestly I took a long break just regroup, enjoy life, and just not play CS for a little while and just see what other options there were in life and my personal life and everything. I didn't want to stream, just kinda wanted to stay out of the spotlight. I know I'm normal and just a human like everybody else, and that's just how I wanted to be. I didn't wanna be a part of social media or anything like that, I just wanted to regroup, and get the fire burning again. I wanna bring up my brother, so that's why I am playing in Mountain Dew League right now, it's to play with my brother and some friends who I think have the potential to go pro as well and I wanted to help them out.
You have been back playing competitively for a few months now, how are you feeling about you individual level?
I'm a lot smarter, maybe I don't play as many hours as I should for DMing and Aimbotz to keep my aim on point, but I am going to start upping that so I can get back to the level that I want. Also, I am calling and creating all the stats so I am busy with that and prepping the team and organizing the structure. But my individual level is going to become better because I think I am a smarter player because of all the research and demos I have done.
You are now in the final, do you think that you can win?
Are we going to win this final? Fuck yeah Of course. My goal when we came into this LAN, we knew it was two BO3 and a BO5 final map advantage. My goal was to not give up more than 50 rounds to opposing teams. So right now we are at 30, so we have to hold them to 20 rounds for two maps.
freakazoid and Swole Patrol have qualified for the Legends Series Cup LAN Final, an international LAN that will take place in mid February at the Esports Arena in Santa Ana, California.
