motm: "We can make [MDL] playoffs"
After his team went 0-2 on the first day of the Legends Cup, Sebastian "Storm" Twohey-Jacobs, caught up with Etherian's own Ian "motm" Hardy to talk to him about the result and his squad moving forward.
Your squad came into the tournament with a 2-2 record in ESEA MDL, and a second place finish in the Legends Series NA LAN. Given these results, what were your expectations heading into the event?
We expected to put up a good fight against Pride, which we did. A lot of rounds that could have gone our way, didn't. We thought it was really unfortunate that we had to play against Swole Patrol because they clearly were the favorites vs 5Power.
Unfortunately, you lost your opener to Pride on Mirage. You were only able to get five rounds on your CT side, which you were never able to overcome. What do you think went wrong for your squad in that match?
We actually won the first four rounds, and the downfall of our CT-side was that we got eco’d. Which is something we always struggle with, we have trouble when the enemy team is on pistols. Those are rounds we need to tighten up on, and besides that, I think there was three or four rounds in a row where we lost a 1v1. So if a couple of rounds had gone our way, we would string more rounds together as a result of breaking there economy
Your elimination game was against Swole Patrol, a rematch of the Legends Series NA LAN Finals, what were your thoughts about this match?
When we came up against Swole Patrol, we always know that it is going to be a good match. The veto kind of went as we expected, and we expected to beat them, but we lost a couple of clutches and messed up a few eco rounds, and could not recover.
What can your team take away from going 0-2 at this event?
We can take away that our anti-eco rounds are weak and we need to fix our comms in late round situations. We also need to fix some of our CT setups that we now notice some small flaws in.
Last week your team battled it out and made it to the closed qualifier for ECS Season 5. Given the stacked competition, do you think that you can make it through?
If we play well, we can. If we fix our mistakes that we saw at this LAN and don’t get eco’d, It should be alright. We should stand a good chance.
Right now you are 2-2, where do you see your squad placing in the Mountain Dew League this season?
We believe that we can make playoffs, and if we fix our issues, we stand a good chance to make the MDL LAN.
How important is it for a new team to gain this LAN experience with regard to team chemistry?
It helps the team develop under pressure and when a team faces pressure they find out more mistakes they need to address. So when a team can tighten up on they mistakes they make early on, it will make them a better team in the long run.
In the past, you bounced around Main and Premier squads and never really found a long-term team. With this roster, do you feel like you have good synergy and that you will stay together for a while?
Yeah, I think our team has a good work ethic and we are all motivated to perform. Last season, all of our teams didn’t do too well, and we do not want to see a similar result. So, we are putting in a lot of work and a lot of effort to make sure that we can do a lot better than we each did last season.
