Cryptic: "We have to raise our floor, our ceiling was just as good as any other team here"

BOSS' run at the Perfect World Shanghai Major Americas RMR came to an unfortunate end with the orgless squad falling in a reverse sweep against BESTIA, slashing BOSS' hopes of making the Major. Despite this, the team did well in their second RMR, showing their strength against M80 and Complexity in the opening Bo1 matches. This was a key theme Matthew "Cryptic" Whitmore touched on while discussing the team's exit from the RMR with Dust2.us' Jeffrey "Mnmzzz" Moore along with the emergence of Gavin "Fruitcupx" Norman, the team's high ceiling, and why organizations should give the orgless squad a chance in 2025.

Unfortunate end to the run here at the RMR, what do you think went wrong today against BESTIA?

We had a good game plan going into the match, it mostly came down to us not converting the anti-ecos. Every time we would win a pistol we would lose the very next round and if you think about it that way after the first map we didn't win a single pistol because we always went down the second round screwing ourselves over.

We were also not playing properly in clutches really. Our communication deteriorated in the clutches and in 2v1s and 3v1s we were just not communicating as well as we usually do.

Lastly, we didn't stick to our game plan. Our whole game plan was to be in their faces and while we were in their faces to begin the rounds after that we fell back to playing passive which is the play style BESTIA wanted us to play in screwing ourselves over.

In the series you claimed BESTIA's map pick, Dust2, but fell flat on your map pick Anubis. Can you explain the Anubis pick as you had a four-game loss streak heading into it?

We had a really good read of what BESTIA were going to do and how they were going to do it. You could see how our CT-side was panning out and we were playing CT-side the whole time it would have been way cleaner. As I said before, the reason why Anubis started playing so badly was because we weren't playing in their faces enough. We let them play their own game plan which in preparation for this match we said we can't allow that to happen and we still allowed it to happen.

Despite the loss, BOSS have a lot to be proud of here in their results against M80 and Liquid. How does the team feel about their run in its totality?

It's a 50/50 feeling of feeling like we lost to ourselves but also happy with what we showed up here with. Most of the losses besides the FURIA loss we lost to ourselves and it's a gut-wrenching feeling knowing that you had a chance with your original game plan.

In the FURIA loss we were simply outplayed, we don't have that much of a bad feeling about that game. But, losing all of these other games really close is a punch to the face.

One major positive for BOSS was the performance of Fruitcupx in his first RMR. Do you feel vindicated in gambling on bringing him in now that he has performed so well?

I'm really happy with how Fruitcupx panned out. If we even had a chance to pick up another player we wouldn't replace him now because he's just that good. He's probably the best pickup we could've made with his willingness to buy into our system.

What kind of player is he on this team? Did his inexperience show at all at the RMR?

He doesn't communicate as much and we're still trying to fix that but he's very kill hungry so we sometimes have to rein him in. But, that drive to get kills fuels the rest of us to go in with him. It ups our tempo although we have to sometimes rein him in.

It's a really good change of pace, especially when d4rty and freshie are more passive players, we needed that aggressive player in Fruitcupx.

What's it been like working with Warden as your coach, especially at the RMR?

He brings a lot of experience because he's been here multiple times and has won championships. He brings that calmness to our team and sets the correct mentality going into the matches and believing in ourselves to face the other team head on.

With the team exiting Shanghai in the RMR, what are the takeaways from this event for the team to continue growing in 2025?

We mostly just have to raise our floor, our ceiling was just as good as any other team here as you saw against Complexity and M80. If we raise our floor then we will easily be competing for the top four or top three of NA.

With the team's calendar opening up, any chance we see BOSS at Fragadelphia 18?

We haven't discussed that as a team yet. There is a small chance but once we get home we're going to be focusing on the next CCT series because we have a chance to qualify to LAN through that.

We're prioritizing that event at the end of January so it might help us to attend Frag, but we'll have to discuss it.

What is your pitch to organizations interested in CS2 to sign BOSS for 2025?

We're not only a young team, but we're also an experienced team. We have a lot of potential and we keep showing that we're improving constantly. You may be buying low but you'll be going very high with the BOSS "stock" with this team.

BOSS are now set to leave China and prepare for the new challenges and triumphs that lie ahead in the 2025 season.