A-a-and! Action!
Action! Hello, Virtus.pro fans. This is NEO. Welcome to our YouTube channel.
Here is Maria—she's gonna do an interview with me. And her first question is?
So and my first question is about this place: about Atlanta.
This is not your first time in Atlanta, I know. Tell me about summer time in this place, in this part.
We spent one month in the summer time in here. It was a long tournament.
It was really fun. I mean, it's really hot in here in summer,
so we tried to spend as much time in the pool as we could cause we had a nice pool in the hotel.
Apart from that, we played some football in here with some other guys from tournament,
just tried different things, practiced a lot, of course.
I went for jogging sometimes here, shopping—just regular stuff.
That's pretty comfortable in here in summer.
What do you think went wrong in the WESG 2016 semi-finals? What emotions did you save from your trip to China?
Well, first of all, Kinguin are the second or maybe first now team in Poland. They are really strong.
They've proven it in the past tournaments that they can compete with top teams.
We've been the top Polish team for years.
I haven't lost a tournament with my team for thirteen years maybe, maybe fourteen.
So it was my first big loss like that. I thought it was gonna be an even worse feeling, but it wasn't that bad in the end.
They did play really well, but I think, most of all, we just couldn't handle that pressure that much,
so we didn't play to our best shape, performance or whatever.
Just we didn't play our game kind of, we couldn't really get there. I don't know…
The first map was pretty close. The second—we got stomped.
That happens: it's sport. Next time we're gonna beat them.
In your opinion, what are one team and one player who deserve the title of the best in 2016?
One team and one player…?
Yes, in the world.
Probably, like the HLTV rankings—it's called there… it would be the SK team.
They won two majors as far as I remember, and cold was really impressive.
Well, I could… I mean, I don't know how much impact he has on his team, how much he helps FalleN strategically.
The other person would be FalleN, so that's like between these two. You'll never know.
There are tons of opinions on the internet people saying:
"This player should be out of the team", "They should replace him with that one."
You never know who brings what to the team, so you can never say
that when you don't really have inside on what's going on with the team. So yeah…
… Probably, cold and FalleN. I would place Snax as third.
Recently the earlier version of CS Classic Offensive has been shared—kind of an attempt to make CS:GO like nice CS 1.6.
Have you played it? And what do you think about such mods? Is this an indication of that people are missing 1.6?
I haven't tried it yet. I only saw some videos, streams of people playing it. So I can't really say much about that.
But since the tournaments are gonna be run on CS:GO. I don't think I will try… Maybe I'll try it for fun,
but when you play one game professionally, you have to stick to that. I mean,
you can try different ones, but in the end you have to come back to the main game you play
and you have to just spend time in that particular game.
Yeah, about educating, about old school versions and stuff, I would have to try the game.
I cannot really say how close it is to the old 1.6.
There are two approaches of the snipers in the team: permanent players who consistently take the AWP
such as KennyS in EnVy and a team with the players who take AWP depending on the situation as the first NiP squad and yours.
What are the strengths and weaknesses of these approaches? And have you ever thought about changing your style?
That's a good question. Well, having one sniper on the team has good and bad sides of it.
If the sniper has a bad day, the whole team depends on one person, one sniper. All set-ups have that sniper that executes his AWP the best,
and he has a bad day, the whole team loses. Of course, they try to set everything so he has comfortable situation to use the sniper.
But still what I believe is… Maybe for SK it works, for Astralis, they use dev1ce as a sniper, and that works pretty well for them.
But recently we tried doing that with Snax. He was our main sniper, but then we found out… Well, Snax is a unique player:
he is really strong with not only AWP but with also rifle.
So we found out there is a loss in our game that we don't have such fire power when he had an AK before.
We tried to force him not to have that much AWP as he had for some time.
We also, when TaZ was the in-game leader, we also tried me as the main sniper of the team.
But then we found out it's better if, depending on the situation, someone picks it up. It's maybe not bad but good for us.
That's what we found out and just what we try to execute.
So there is no rule you have to have a player as a sniper or mix it up. Just whoever feels comfortable with what, I guess.
Which team in the group were able to surprise you? And do you like Swiss system?
Yeah, I like Swiss system more than regular group stage system. I feel fine with it.
I find it good for us: we have developed our map pool. So we usually have only one map to remove,
which also we don't have to remove against teams which don't play that map.
So yeah, having that wide map pool, we feel comfortable with that system.
I don't really like the fact that the last map is random here. It's kind of Valve makes that major so random.
Because the last map is being picked randomly, and also the team when there is a drawing for teams for next stage,
the team that's picked first has the chance to decide whether they remove two or three maps. So that's also random.
So that makes it totally random like more. But the overall system is fine for us. I like it.
Well, the closest game was with G2 looking at the score. But that wasn't a surprise for me: they play very…
they have a really mixed up style. They play losing tactics, and we were not that
greatly prepared against them as against other teams. We lost both pistol rounds against them
and two ecos and still managed to win the game. So it wasn't the hardest game for me. Well, personally,
I had the hardest game against Gambit cause I didn't really play well. I'm covering alley now on Train,
which is a very hard position, so I had a bad day. Dosia was really a terrorist over there.
I don't know, but, probably, OpTic was really hard.
I think we were really lucky sometimes in that game. And if Snax's performance wasn't awesome, that could be a loss.
Many people measure the quality of preparation to the major by the hours spent in the game. Are they right?
We have that saying in the team that hours don't play. So some people spend time in the game that adds hours,
but they're actually not playing. So it doesn't really count that much.
Of course, you have to play a lot before tournaments to be good.
But before WESG some of our players had really a lot of hours on Steam, others didn't.
So, for example, Snax doesn't really have that much hours, but he still plays awesome.
So it doesn't really count as long as a player feels comfortable with the performance during the practice.
It's ok if they don't have that many hours I think.
What do think a good player should keep in mind before the game? The main thing?
Probably, I would advise not to think about their own performance, just to focus on the team overall.
Because sometimes when people are trying too much to have really a lot of frags,
they try too much and they forget about the important things that win a game for the team.
Yes, and about the process. Actually, Snax told me: "Before the game I don't think about anything. I'm just sitting."
Yeah, but the whole day before he watches his matches, previous matches, frag movies.
So it's up to everyone, I guess. Like who wants what.
Many years ago you and TaZ played in a small computer club. But now you have become super stars of CS:GO,
and you're still together. What do you think about it and what do you feel?
It's funny. It's really funny that we're still here, both of us.
Before we started playing together, we were the biggest enemies in Poland.
For two or three years we played against each other many times in Polish tournaments.
But we knew we both were some of the best players in the country.
And after some time we decided to collect for one team and compete in the international scene.
We knew if we wanted to be really good internationally, we had to collect, merge our teams.
Since 2004 we have been playing together in one team, and that's just really something
you've never seen or has never happened before.
And we still keep on moving. We know each other so well.
Sometimes it's like we don't have to talk and you already know from the face what the other person thinks.
And that's like old marriage or whatever.
That's like a part of you?
Yeah, yeah. But it has good and bad sides. Sometimes it's harder for us
to cooperate because of that: because one of us cares too much about the other one in the game.
To separate life and game?
Yeah, yeah. That's how it is. We have learned to have that balance between these two things: game and life.
So far it's been working out pretty well for us. We have that team. I think we're pretty successful.
Even in CS:GO we've been in the top tier. It's all good.
Okay, Maria. So I have two questions for you.
Okay.
Do you play any games?
Oh yes, but not a lot. I play, maybe you know, kind of an RPG—Sacred.
Yeah, I've heard of it.
A little bit…
Yeah, that's it. So this is your first time with our team. How do you find our team? How do you like it?
Is it hard to handle with gamers?
You know, for the first time… I'd never heard of you guys before I started working for Virtus.pro.
But when I met you, I became your fan. Yes! I'm your big fan.
Because you guys have a lot of jokes, a lot of energy and a lot of smiles.
You're like my old friends. Not actually friends. Like my old brothers.
Yes! And I like your team, I like you guys.
Me too! Me too! I'm your fan too!
Yeah, yeah! He's a fan of Snax.
NEO, give me your signature!
You're a fan of Snax!
Happy to hear that.
Thank you!
Thanks for the interview. That's been NEO and Maria having some time here for our YouTube channel.
Thanks for watching and see you next time!
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