nitr0: "In NA it's probably the worst it's ever been"

It's been a bit better than last year since we made some roster changes. There's been a lot of online competition, so we haven't had much practice in Europe besides the week bootcamp before Pro League, so that was really productive, but other than that, we haven't had much solid practice.
Obviously, all the European teams are in Europe, a lot of the Brazilian teams are in Brazil because of qualifiers, so, we've been stuck practicing the same teams in NA, and we don't really get tested that much here.
As you could see in Dallas, this makes it really hard for us. We played two top ten teams, with Falcons probably being the second best in the world right now arguably, so it was really hard for us.
The one silver lining, though, is that it really showed us what we need to work on for the Major. In a way, it was really nice for us to get beat because we just don't really get beaten that much in NA, especially in scrims. So, we're trying to look at it in more of an optimistic light, I guess.

Historically we had a lot of Brazilian teams in NA and at some points Australian teams, even some mixes here and there, but, it's kinda hard to say.
The only team that we scrim against and play in a league against is Legacy, I think they're in Texas some parts of the year, besides when they need to be in Brazil for qualifiers. It's honestly pretty bad, I think in NA it's probably the worst it's ever been to have solid practice in the last couple of years.
The only consistent league is ECL, and obviously, a lot of the teams in ECL aren't even getting paid to play. There's a few teams overall that are getting paid, so it's really hard to find consistent practice throughout the whole day. Some days we can only find two decent scrims, other days we might get a BO3 against Complexity if they're in the country, or maybe even M80 or Legacy.
It's really hard to feel like you're being as productive as possible. Obviously, we would love to be in Europe and be able to bootcamp more, but the opportunity isn't presented to go there because we have to play so many matches domestically.
Right now, we're going to take a look at our schedule for the rest of the year and try to figure out what makes the most sense to try and get more EU bootcamps and more efficient practice to become a better team overall.

It's hard, in a way, it's a double-edged sword if you're not a really dominant team in your region.
For example, in the last ECL season, M80 decided to drop out, which in hindsight looks like a great idea because they get to play in Europe more. As long as they're qualifying for the big tier one events, they should in theory be fine, but then at the same time, if they're not doing well in those events, then they're not playing any matches and all their points go away because they're not keeping up their current points and wind up falling down the rankings.
So then you're stuck having to qualify, and if you don't qualify for one event you find yourself in this weird spot where you have to play all these open qualifiers. But, if you're in ECL, where you don't get the opportunity to play in EU more because you have to be at home to play your matches, you have the opportunity to get more VRS points and get within the potential invite range.
And then, if you lose one of those ECL matches, which we've done sometimes because it's online and a BO1, you lose a lot of points because you're losing to a team that is ranked far below you. That's why it's a double-edged sword.
It's just hard to find a balance on what you want to do if you're not a top 20 team, you have to find a way to get as many points as possible and you have to pick your poison on that.

Not really, to be honest.
Compared to a lot of my teammates I have a lot of experience at the tier one level, so, maybe my expectations are a bit higher. I know we work really hard, but sometimes it just comes down to inexperience, nerves, or maybe a bit of tilt or whatever, and as a veteran player, I always tell them to control the stuff we can control. Obviously, sometimes that gets a bit out of hand, but that's probably the case for any team in the world.
We all have the same goal, our goal from the beginning was to try our best to make it to the point where we can get tier one invites. Top 24 in VRS was the goal, and I think that recently we were like 22nd after the ECL playoffs win, so stuff was feeling good and we're winning everything domestically, but then Dallas happened and we just got destroyed.
We have to take a step back and see how we can make our team as good as possible before the Major, and we only have a week and a half before we go there and start instantly.
We need to find a balance of keeping our game up to date, making sure we're good no matter the circumstances, but also good enough to be able to make at least the second stage of the Major. Once we get there, we'll be playing better teams, so we just have to try our hardest to see how far we can go with the team.
That's where we're at right now, we're just trying to go event by event and qualify for everything we possibly can as long as the schedule allows for it.
Overall, it's been a really long year, with a lot of disappointing results. I'm not going to sit here and say I expected us to have insane results the second I joined, or even after a change or two, it was always going to be hard, it's really competitive nowadays and that's why we're going match by match, we just have to make sure we feel progress after each one.

I think he's very gifted mechanically, he's actually been around for a long time now, I remember him being around for early FPL games and the EG roster, obviously. I've always known he was pretty good, he was definitely the player to look at in NA, so it was really nice to be able to pick him up.
Once we got him, we lacked a star player on the team, so we wanted to find someone who had the potential mechanically to be that player for us, and we wanted that to be him. Even though he wasn't in those roles in previous teams, he wanted to do it, which is a good sign for us. It made sense.
I think he still has a lot to learn in terms of the macro game and timings, risk vs reward, and having the balls to do stuff in big matches, so maybe he's not ready yet, but I'm sure that in the future he'll be the player he wants to be.
Right now, though, we're just trying to look at our team player by player and figure out the strengths of each player to make sure they're all in a comfortable role for themselves.

We didn't actually know much about him because he's a newer talent compared to when me and daps were playing ten years ago, he started professionally around COVID.
We watched some demos and saw that he had a lot of potential, and we knew that the situation with Astralis didn't go how he wanted it to go, so we just had some conversations about vision for the game and how he sees himself as a player.
Everything sounded really good, and we lacked someone that would take initiative in a game and take space and set up plays, more niche situations in games. We saw it in br0, and so far he's been really good at it.
I think for him, being able to work with myself and daps, he's improved a lot just from joining our team, and I think he would say the same. Long term, it was a very good investment on our end, and it will pay it's dividends in future. He's a really talented player with a lot to show the world.

I don't remember seeing how he was as a player back then, but I remember considering him for Liquid back in 2020.
I knew he had the talent, and now I'm on a team with him I can see his strengths and weaknesses. There's definitely more strengths, he's actually very good mechanically, but I think he gets a bit flustered in some situations in big matches, and that's his only weakness right now. He needs to be himself in big matches.
I know he has what it takes to be able to compete with all the best players, I've seen him do insane things mechanically in scrims against tier one teams, so it's just a matter of the mental game for him.
He needs to figure out what kind of player he wants to be, because he's been pretty selfless for us. If we want him to do something, he's more than willing to do it and to swap roles, he's been moved around a lot which makes it hard for a player to find themselves when that's happening, but it's just how the pieces have moved with the roster changes.
I know that he's very motivated to show everyone that he has what it takes to be really good individually, and he knows what he needs to work on, so I think it's only a matter of time until he does that. Even at Pro League, the first day he was playing really well, almost solo carrying us against GamerLegion, so he definitely can do it.

To be honest, it's kinda ambiguous for me, I'm not really 100% sure yet. I haven't prepped for them yet because of Dallas, so once I watch them I feel more confident in terms of the kind of game we should be playing against them.
But, I remember watching them at Pro League and there are some shooters on that team. Macro-wise, I think we beat them in every department, but we just have to show up on the day and beat them individually. We have to trust in our game plan and in ourselves and the teammates next to us.
It's a really good match up for us, it's just a matter of us showing up that day and shooting back.