autimatic: "Now I think we can compete against any top team, any time"
After Cloud9's win over SK, Joe "tolkienfanatic" Cardali caught up with Timothy "autimatic" Ta to talk about qualifying for the grand final, the past iterations of the team, and upcoming events for Cloud9.
You're the first NA team to qualify for a Major grand final for a while, how does it feel?
It feels good, obviously. I don't know, on the past teams I've been on in with Jordan and Mike I felt that we had the potential to get this far, but I think we just peaked in Brazil instead of at the Major. Thankfully now, I don't think we're peaking, we're consistently good.
Speaking of having potential in the old lineup, do you think it was something in the individual players within the team or the actual composition of the team?
For one, Stew didn't really want to lead but was doing it out of necessity. Mike [shroud] liked streaming a lot, and although Jordan [n0thing] was still motivated and dedicated himself, he just probably was not as much as Will [RUSH] or Tarik. I think those were the main things that were holding us back, and now we have Tarik who's taken over the leadership role, and he has me and Stew to help him with the strats, so we compliment each other nicely.
You mentioned Brazil there briefly, which was the last LAN series win over SK. What is it about this team that's tormented you in series play?
I think we've played them once on LAN with our new lineup, but I don't think we were good enough to beat them with our old lineup. I don't think it was specific to just SK, I think against top teams we just didn't stand the chance. We didn't have the structure, or proper calls, we just didn't practice that efficiently. Now I think we can compete against any top team, any time.
Looking forward to tomorrow and the matchup with FaZe, do you think that you'll have the secret sauce to take them down, or what extra prep work have you done for them?
I think we're going to prep the same way we've been prepping; go over demos, watch a couple of VODs on the maps we think we're going to play, and we're just going to play our own game. I feel like a lot of the times we've played FaZe in the past it was like we weren't even in the server. We'd lose and I wouldn't even realize the game was live, I didn't know how it happened.
We're just going to treat it like any other game and it should be a fun match to watch.
Talking to Soham [valens] yesterday, he's been full-time with you guys since about September. Has there been any changes that have come along with him becoming a full-time coach for you guys?
I think Soham is really good, for one listening to feedback and two not doing too much. Obviously we have really good players on the team that understand the game well and he kind of just listens to us and learns from us. At the same time if he sees something that's wrong with what we do or think, he'll talk to us about it and fix it up. The biggest contribution he's given to us is facilitating team discussions, he's really good at that and knowing how people feel. Because he knows that he's able to communicate with another teammate if they need to be made aware of it.
Looking beyond the Major, EPL is coming up soon. What do you think of the roster changes and new compositions you'll be facing off against?
It's kind of hard to tell with what all the new lineups will do. I think compLexity will be a lot better than they have in the past just because I know FNS is a really motivated leader. I think Slemmy is a good leader as well but I'm not sure if he was less motivated.
On NRG, I think Ethan is a good player, just if they can figure out the roles then I think that the team would be really good. Ethan's more of like a support type player who is really good at closing out rounds, so maybe that'll open up some room for Brehze to play better.
Rogue, I don't really know. I really like cadiaN — I think he's a good AWPer and also a good leader. I really like SicK, I think they're both really good. If they can do the prep work and get better structure and learn how to work together I think they could be a good team as well.
Cloud9 will face FaZe tomorrow at 2 PM EST in the grand finals of the ELEAGUE Boston Major as they look to claim the first Major title for North America.
