empathy: "Given a few more months we will be the top Impact team in NA"

On the inaugural day of ESL Impact League Season 5 Finals, TSM Shimmer suffered a tough loss against Fluxo Demons. Nonetheless, the team is proud of their performances recently, which netted them an organization to represent.

After their opening match, Dust2.us's Jeffrey "Mnmzzz" Moore spoke with TSM Shimmer's Lucy "empathy" Verkaik about the team, their matchups, and NA Impact CS.

The match against Fluxo Demons started pretty one-sided, but the team managed to pull it back in the second half to make things more competitive. What resulted in the two halves being so different from each other?

We had an hour-and-a-half tech pause at the beginning of the game. We were really hyped to play and the tech pause really annoyed everyone with having to rejoin the server over and over again. That led to it, not that we were upset, but we weren't warm anymore and having to wait and an hour-and-a-half before an official you fall asleep just sitting there waiting for the server to come back so it definitely was hard to deal with.

Overall we didn't play our game the way we wanted to. Me personally I was missing a lot of shots I don't normally miss. I definitively could've done a lot better myself but everyone was making small individual mistakes. I feel like we should've done a lot better. After halftime going into the second half we were a lot more confident and warm and so we played more of our game and making less mistakes.

On CT we lost swing rounds due to simple things so the half went away very fast and our economy wasn't great. Sometimes that happens especially on CT-side in CS2. If your economy keeps falling it can be very hard to deal with and we fell because of that.

How do you feel about your attempted comeback, is it something you can be proud of here?

Yeah, you know it's a lot better than having a blowout game. We were really hoping to have a great showing and the fact that we were able to do somewhat decent, and show a glimpse of what we are capable of it's definitely a relief. We showed our potential and some of our players off.

We were hoping to have a much better result going into it.

You went into the Impact finals being picked up by TSM. How did that come to pass as it was completely unexpected?

I started talking to TSM six months ago. They reached out saying they were interested in picking up an Impact team. I know they talked to me and a few other players about suggestions about who they'd recommend and rosters that would work really well.

They talked to me and I said Shimmer is the greatest team ever and everybody loves shimmer, and we're so dedicated. After watching the league and I kept talking to TSM after the regular season they said they wanted to make the deal happen and it worked out and fit perfectly.

It's a lifesaver because for so long we were struggling to find someone for almost two years and TSM came out of nowhere and its been great working with them. Its only been a couple of weeks but even then it has been really great to have this support.

What does it mean to the team to have org support, and what opportunities does it open up?

It means a lot to the players, it has been very hard for us to survive out of the game and there's been many talks about if people are going to be able to continue to play after this season. Dedicating eight hours a day to a game everyday is really draining to have to survive and deal with that [when orgless].

That encouragement and support financially to keep on pursuing CS it ingrains in everyone's heads that we are real players and we can continue to do this.

Adding Florence as coach was also a surprise, how did that come to pass?

We were struggling to find a coach for the entire time the team has been around. We have found a few here and there and they didn't fit well or mesh with the team. I reached out to a few friends who I thought would be good and Florence reached out saying he'd be down to try it.

We trialed him for about a week and he brought a ton of knowledge and a ton of structure right away. It was clear he fit the dynamic of the team very well. He wanted to keep coaching and we really liked having him coaching. He's very smart when it comes to mid-rounds and stuff we were struggling with, so its been a big help to have him.

Despite the team looking improved against Fluxo Demons in the second half, TSM Shimmer lost continuing the team's winless streak at Impact LAN events. What needs to change to take on NAVI Javelins later today?

We need to not get in our heads and play our own game. We need to have our rotates and everything be fluid like how they are in scrims. Being on stage can be a little uncomfortable at times and as long as everyone is confident we'll play a lot better.

It's a hard matchup but we can win if we play our game.

With the TSM signing, is Phoebe going to be able to stay in the country and not head to Australia in the off-season?

Yes so right after this event she is flying back to Australia while they work on getting her visa but after she gets her visa she will be moving to the US and we will be continuing to practice every day as a team.

Looking towards next season, NA will only have one spot in the LAN finals. Do you think TSM Shimmer has the ability to take that spot over FlyQuest RED?

Yes, and I want to say absolutely, I feel very confident about this. We have had a straight upward trajectory when it comes to building players and improving. It has been very straightforward and as time goes on we have gotten better and better. I feel very confident that given a few more months we will be the top [Impact] team in NA.

We've already put up good results against them previously and have beat them before so it's a matter of time with org support now that we're on the same page as them and we can match them.

We were putting up good results with no org support and having that behind us and a coach that is dedicating full-time to coaching we can improve drastically and take that number one spot.