With HeavyGod departing for Cloud9, OG needed a new fifth to complete their roster for BLAST Premier Fall Groups 2024.
A permanent option may not have been found, but the European team have secured themselves an excellent temporary option in the form of UK CS legend, Thomas.
We caught up with Thomas before Fall Groups to talk about his stand-in appearance, his year since Paris, and what it will take to get a 'God save the King' out of him in Copenhagen once again.
Definitely, yeah. I definitely think it will be an experience, the professionalism from this team is another level in terms of the support they're offering.
The timescale isn't too much, but I think it will be good enough to hopefully make a competitive match, especially because we have a hard game [against Spirit]. It's not ideal circumstances for either side, but I'm happy to give it a go.
No, I'm feeling confident. With ITB we went through a really bad phase after Paris and lost some key components that we were never able to replace.
I still believe that the style I'm bringing and the organisation I can bring to the team is something that can succeed. I definitely feel so for this team especially because I think they've been lacking that for a while. I think it'll go alright.
Yeah, to be honest, I just want to see how it's going to go and build the confidence and experience from trying my system out in a new team. I previously installed it into the 5W roster and that had a lot of success early on, so I'm hoping I can replicate that here.
The opponents are much harder, but if we can show that we have a competitive edge and that we're able to compete against these teams then that will give me a lot of confidence in my abilities.
It's just something to experience in the sense that BLAST is a really big event and I want to see if this style will be more suited against tier one opponents like it was in Paris.
I had the opportunity to remain at ITB and help rebuild the roster, but I wanted to go into a different direction and explore myself. I wanted something new, fresh, new faces all around.
5W fulfilled all of those elements and I felt really comfortable implementing my system.
The period after Paris was full of internal issues, over-thinking, the environment just wasn't great. I wanted a full reset from that and the time I took off to explore myself and find my confidence again was really important.
5W really reignited everything, and so far it's been going well with the guys so I hope it continues.
I didn't expect it, but I knew it would be difficult, especially maintaining the level that we had, but we didn't even get given an opportunity.
Teams like GamerLegion got to keep their core, they got to keep their system. Apeks also got to remain with their roster for the most part.
We finished Paris, played one event, and then lost our team's culture in the sense of having a UK core, we had to change our entire system, our approach to the game, our style, out of every team that did well in Paris we got blown up the hardest and the fastest.
We weren't able to fight to keep the players.
It's definitely the most idle part of my career, but I feel like I've been more focused on realigning myself with what I was doing prior to Paris and doing a project that I truly believe in.
I feel like, right now, I just want to continue working with good coaches who are helping me, because this was a major thing we lacked when I first started IGLing in terms of proper support to help me integrate my own ideas alongside theirs.
Playing wise, I do think it's been a rough time, but at the same time it's smarter to do that than go into something half-hearted.
I don't know [laughs]. I don't think anyone truly knows, but I just hope that I can help these guys and hopefully qualify. Obviously, we've got a hard group, but I believe that in the time we've had we could potentially make it through. The guys are really buying into the style and everything else I'm bringing, and I think I'm filling in the gaps they had previously.
I just hope that I'm able to show myself and my capabilities not only to these guys, but also to other people who are looking. It's been a strange period.
I think... if we qualify, I think that's fair [laughs].
Oh, yeah. If I donk donk, I'll say it.
BLAST ApS., Hauser Plads 1, 3., 1127 Copenhagen