When it comes to Counter-Strike, very few people know as much about the game as launders does.
A genius mind and a wicked caster, back at IEM Cologne, we sat down with launders to discuss how some the new teams are shaping up, as well as whether some will need more changes.
Read on to see launder's view on the new NAVI lineup and iM's struggles, NIP and his high hopes for them, as well as Complexity and how a roster change could run the risk of being too hasty.
There are a lot of new teams at the moment, are there any that have surprised you so far?
Yeah, there's a lot of surprises. I think it's been both impressive and disappointing to see some changes. Some teams got gutted, like GamerLegion, who came in and are actually doing quite well, Monte had to make a change too but they got eliminated.
One the flipside, NAVI made serious changes but they've just taken out FaZe. I expected some of the teams who didn't make changes to do better coming into the season, I thought there'd be more stability, so it's pretty impressive to see a team like NAVI survive switching to English and replacing players like Perfecto and electroNic, which I thought would be impossible.
Do you think they need more impact out of iM?
Yeah, there's definitely something wrong there. He's not getting the same liberties as he did. He's not the best player on the team anymore, and I think that takes some adjusting to, and also he's got some tricks that worked while he wasn't under the microscope, but now tier one teams play him regularly he'll be getting watched in demos and while I don't think he's losing confidence, maybe he feels like he can't take control of rounds or do the things he used to do. I think they need to find a way to use him a bit differently because, as we've seen, lurking every round isn't the way to do it.
You said you've been disappointed by some teams, can you give more insight there?
FaZe is one. Even not making a move, they have the same team they won Cologne with, the same team they won a Grand Slam with, they should be building on that. I thought in terms of motivation, this would be the event they want the most and we'd see the best FaZe.
But we saw the energy, the interview with Twistzz, they look sort of despondent, you know, not really there. I'm not sure exactly what else you can ask for. We know that the team can win, but they just aren't, and that's disappointing.
Do you think there's a risk for FaZe that now, with some of the moves that have happened around them, like flameZ to Vitality, that they've missed the boat?
A chance to get a player of that calibre? I think it was a very risky move for Vitality to make, but I think the fact it's playing off is one version of reality. If they made a bad move, they would be heavily criticised for cutting a player they won Rio with, won the Major with, and who has been amazing for the last few months.
But the reality is that dupreeh has been bad for the last two years, and he had three good months, so they made the executive decision to take a risk and move, and will other teams do that? It was a tough move to make, and I really want to credit zonic for that.
It's easy for teams like Heroic, G2, FaZe, to be like 'no we're just going to keep the same roster', but at the same time, I'm not sure who I would replace on those teams. I can totally see the logic behind the dupreeh move, I'm not sure I see that with, besides karrigan and HooXi as individuals, but as callers, they're incredible, so it's hard to see where they'd find a better player.
What about NIP then and headtr1ck in particular? It seems like he's really maturing as a player and starting to really step up; what's your thoughts on NIP?
He makes NIP a real team, a tier one team. He's not the reason they lose these matches. I think they need Brollan to be the player he was signed to be. He was the best player in Sweden when he joined NIP, and I think his consistency is not there. Now he has a real AWPer, so I'm expecting more consistency on the statsside from Brollan. hampus had a really bad event, but he took a really long break so that's going to happen even with crunch practice, so I expect him to get better. I don't think there's many moves to make for them to become solid, but I think with headtr1ck as the AWPer, there's a prime opportunity for them to win a tournament and that should be their goal.
There's quite a few international teams about now, there's teams like fnatic and OG that maybe don't inspire confidence when you first glance at them, do you think fans need to learn to lower expectations for these teams and not just go off the name value of fnatic way back in 2015?
It's a good question, because you want your team to win, right?I can't be a fan of a team that I don't think can win an event, and that can go pretty far down the list. There's teams like MOUZ, or BIG, teams where I'm saying that if they win one event in a year, I'm a fan.
Teams like Liquid even. It's tough to win events with the amount of good teams there are out there, so you do have to temper expectations even for the good ones. But I think there are teams that make moves that move them forward and create potentially tournament winning rosters, then there are ones that don't spend enough money, don't take risks, don't think clearly about what's good and bad about their rosters and they end up losing and I think they should be criticised.
What about Complexity then? Are you disappointed in they've shown so far or have they shown potential?
I think that you get a huge upgrade taking EliGE over FaNg, I don't think anyone would argue that, but I think you get a weird discrepancy in ego though. Not to say that EliGE is bringing a bad energy to the team, but he's won so much and they haven't won anything so they were a sort of workshop project and I wonder if, in some of these matches where they're playing against better teams, he's saying 'if I was on Liquid, I'd destory them'.
Whereas on Complexity, you need to be more willing to see what they can do in a game and for that energy to bring them closer in some of their upsets. At the beginning of the year they got close to FaZe, NAVI, they were pretty scary on LAN against some big teams. I feel like they're sort of coming away from that in some sense. I liked Complexity's upgrade on paper, but I am starting to doubt it.
Do you think the future for Complexity might involve another roster change?
You know, maybe it is one of those things where they just need more time. In terms of the players they could grab, I don't know who they could get. JT's coming under fire, but again, he's a low-fragging IGL who's actually a really strong leader. I can't say I know who they should get to make their team better within NA, so that's an issue. I would say they did so much with FaNg, they should be doing more with EliGE, so until we get to that point or at least six months from now, maybe don't make a change.
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