Drone: "[XotiC] was so excited, you could hear it in his voice"
What do you think of this experience from the spectator's perspective?
It's great, especially because it was only a 51-minute flight! I got to come up here for relatively cheap, and I'm getting to watch a lot of great Counter-Strike. I haven't been to an event of this magnitude before, it's really great to watch and experience before playing in one.
Is it personally inspiring or motivating to you watching all this unfold?
Yeah, and that was something I was thinking before I came here, how it would make me feel — whether I would be sad that I wasn't playing. But I think it is more of a motivator. The first day I was here I wanted to go back home and play CS, and was itching to practice.
Right before coming here you qualified for the IEM Katowice Closed Qualifier. You've made some changes in the off-season, dropping Mitch "mitch" Semago and been playing with Zack "XotiC" Elshani. What can you say about the shape of the team right now?
Right now we're looking really good, especially with the addition of XotiC — I think he'll be official by the time this comes out, so I can say that. With him we have a solid AWPer, last season we were swapping around between Kory "SEMPHIS" Friesen, David "DAVEY" Stafford, and mitch before he was let go. I think having a true AWPer on our team is going to push us from that level of being on par with a compLexity or Rogue, and bring us to the level of an NRG — teams that are in playoff contention.
You've filtered through a lot of lineups in your career, both with young hotshots such as Ethan "nahtE" Arnold and players like Daniel "impsta" Whelan who have labored in Premier/MDL. What are your thoughts on the differences between these kinds of players?
There's a big difference between an impsta and a nahtE, or maybe an Alex "aproto" Protopapas or Noah "Nifty" Francis. Even though aproto is still in Premier, they have a distinctly different work ethic. Specifically, Nifty would play so much Counter-Strike, more than I've seen anyone play. If he lost he would be deathmatching and looking at the demo, and really motivated to improve. People who have been there awhile like older players, they've come to a sense of comfort where they are in Premier. They lose and they kind of pawn it off on something, rather than reflecting and trying to figure out if they could have done something better themselves. If you're in that league for too long, you lose that drive to get better.
Can you talk about what your coach Zach "Eley" Stauffer does for your team?
Eley does a lot for us, he's a jack of all trades. He's always with us in practice, he's never not with us, really. He helps develop strats, give input in the middle of scrims. It's never a command with Eley, it's more like "Let's talk about it, and see what we can do better." He also handles a lot of our organization stuff, so even though we do have a manager, I go to him first. I'd recommend him as a coach for any team, honestly.
You were the youngest player on your team last season, what is it like playing with someone like SEMPHIS who has been around the block and then some?
It's an experience, especially with SEMPHIS specifically. Kory is just... so old, that he's over it. He still wants to get better, and man that guy has drive for being so old (if you're reading this Kory, you are very old!) He's got a lot of drive for what he does, especially because he has been around so long. He's always trying to get better, he's mad when he loses, which is good because it shows he has that fire.
Compared to a player like XotiC who is just coming into the scene, our first match against compLexity he was so excited, you could hear it in his voice. He was just happy to be there. The mix between the young and the old is good, because SEMPHIS can be hard-headed sometimes, or set in his ways. Someone like XotiC coming in, or myself when I first joined the team, it is good to challenge that a little.
What do you think of the general progression from the lower divisions to Pro League in North America?
I think the system was really heavily flawed before. It's getting better obviously with the expansion of MDL, and treating it like more of a professional league. They're setting match times, you can't change them because they are streaming them. Before Premier was just kind of a toss-up.
They're making the road to Pro League harder, but more consistent. I think there are improvements to be made, like a better Rank G type of thing. I don't play it, but from what I've heard it isn't great, there is a lot of trolling and not a lot of actual practice and grinding to Rank S. But in terms of MDL, I think they are going in the right direction.
Before 2017 closed out you guys were at ROG Masters, what did you think of that experience, I believe it was your first international LAN?
It was actually my second international LAN, but the furthest by far in terms of traveling from the East Coast to Malaysia — it was kind of ridiculous. The experience we got against Gambit and 5POWER I think helped me grow a lot as a player, specifically learning to deal with long travel time. You always think jet lag is a joke, but man that is a real thing.
At that event you were able to take a map off of Gambit, what did that mean for your team as a whole?
It gives you some hope. You think beforehand that if we go up against Gambit we would get smashed, but when you take a map off them and you're playing them, you realize they are human. They aren't unbeatable, you just have to have the work ethic and motivation. You have to stick together and learn from your mistakes, but you can beat them. With Gambit specifically we played them again on Mirage, and we got stomped. So we saw how they adapted to us, and we can take a lot from that as well.
There's a big gap between the top Pro teams and the lower teams. What do you think is necessary to close that gap?
That's a hard one. I think getting talent a molding it, like an NA Robin "ropz" Kool, we need more of that. A young player, who is very talented mechanically, that you can mold into a better player and fit into a team. That is how you should get your superstar, not recycle old ones.
ropz is an interesting example because he didn't go through those lower levels of league play. Do you think that is a positive or negative?
It goes back to your question earlier, people who are toiling in Premier for so long do pick up bad habits and become complacent. ropz was basically raw, and then they implemented the things they wanted for him, instead of having to break down the old. I think there is a balance, I don't think someone should necessarily go from Open to Pro. You need to have some experience, played some LANs, and have the experience of playing matches and professional etiquette. I also don't think sitting in Premier for like seven seasons is a good thing either, because they can both be damaging to you.
