stanislaw on facing Metizport: "susp's twin brother is on the team, so we're going to take them down for him"

The year started off a lot better than it currently is. We got a win in the Frost & Fire tournament online, and I thought we were progressing well.
And then, in our two biggest tournaments in Katowice and Bucharest, we were very close to achieving our goals, but we came short by just a few rounds. If those rounds had gone our way, I don't think I'd be feeling the way that I am now.
But, losing those games and losing our VRS points, that put us on a downward trajectory and exposed a lot of our weaknesses as a team. Since then, we've been trying to figure out the best ways to get back to where we were, which has been a challenge for me personally.
So that's the summary, it's been a rollercoaster, but we were close to taking the next step.

I definitely welcome the challenge. That's what has always kept me going in CS, there's always something that you can improve on, whether that's within yourself or within your team.
But I can definitely feel the frustration as of late. We've had to make a lot of changes within the team in terms of our positions, there's been a lot of instability not only with us and with factors outside of CS.
It's been difficult to find our footing and we need a stable ground to just be able to focus on practice and make those improvements. There's been a lot of inconsistencies, so that's where the frustration lies.
Now that we're all together at a boot camp, we're able to iron out the issues that we want to and hopefully we'll be ready for the Major when the time comes.

In regards to our team, we've spent more time in EU, so we've just had to adapt to the current landscape of CS. It feels like it's mainly EU-based, so the three North Americans on our team spend most of our time at our headquarters in Poland.
We have a lot of boot camp support and we spend a lot of time in Europe, if NRG aren't doing that, it's for their own reasons and their own problem. But, if you want to make it in this industry and you want to make it far, you're going to have to figure out how to spend a lot of time in Europe and get the best practice you can. That's just the way it is right now.

It's very important for people in our position to be able to pass down our knowledge and experience, but also, one thing that I've realised which has been difficult is finding players, especially in NA, that are eager and humble enough to learn.
I also don't know what it is, maybe it's the TikTok generation, but I feel like the learning curve is a lot smaller with the new generation. It takes them a lot longer because I don't know if they're able to retain information as well as they can, their attention span is a lot shorter.
Back in the day, you were able to have hours and hours of theory, now you have to break it down in specific parts. You look at all the tier one teams and all the players have play books and these papers with them on their desk, you don't have to remember anything and it feels very robotic, you just look down on the paper and do what it says versus how my generation wasn't how prepared.
Back then, you used your experience in most situations, and that's why I feel like the level of competition is so much higher now because everyone is working a lot harder. There's a lot more preparation involved and so much depth in everyone's playbook.
So, to answer the question, there has to be a balance. Experienced players that will be leaving soon need to pass down the experience to the younger generation, but that younger generation also needs to find a way to be humble and eager enough to learn. If you have that, you'll end up with a more seamless transition and hopefully not be leaving the NA scene for dead.

I think that in terms of mechanics, you can definitely find players that have it, and it's more down to their decision making, attitude, and work ethic.
But if we're talking about saving the NA scene, I just believe that there needs to be a lot of changes with not only players attitudes and individuals themselves, but also the system itself could do with some changing.
Right now, it favours EU, and I don't want to use that as an excuse, but it's difficult to spend most of our time in Europe. Homesickness is a factor, but like I said, you have to make that sacrifice if you want to make it. That said, it doesn't change the fact that we are making sacrifices and it can be difficult to spend months of time away from home, you get burned out a lot quicker if you're from NA, it's more expensive for NA orgs to operate, there's a lot of factors involved. I feel like a lot of changes need to happen across the ecosystem for CS to thrive, not just in NA.

I'm not really concerned, I think he's developing really well and it's just going to take more time. Experience is something that only comes with time, and he's been improving at every single tournament.
But also, it's not just him, we've been struggling as a team. That experience as a team is important, not just the individual, so as time goes on, hopefully he'll get more comfortable on LAN against tougher opposition and we'll take that next step of being more consistent against tougher opposition in that environment.

When we actually go to these LANs, we need to make sure that we're learning everything we possibly can from playing the better teams.
We also need consistency, like I said before, in those two big tournaments at the beginning of the year we were rounds away from making it to the playoffs of both or beating top ten teams. So, just finding the way to get those rounds and those wins, to cement those consistent results, from there you can use that stability to get more LAN experience and the direct invites.
That's the way the system is set up right now, you have to be able to win to get the invites, because open online qualifiers are brutal and you can get upset at any moment. You have to take the chances when they come.

Oh yeah, that was a nightmare. I wish things were different and that we didn't have to do that, but we did, and there's nothing we can do about that now. It definitely did put a bump in the road, though, we had to start over and we couldn't pick up from where we left off.

I'm very excited, I'm hoping that the crowd is on our side, us being based out of Texas as Wildcard is going to be very exciting for the fans and the org itself.
I'm always a fan of playing in front of the home crowd, one of my favourite memories is playing at ESL New York with EG and winning it against Astralis. The crowd was one of the best crowds I've ever played in front of and it's a memory I'll cherish for the rest of my life, so I'm hoping that we can have the same feeling, but first we have to make it to the playoffs to play in front of the crowd. I'm hoping we can achieve that.

For me, it doesn't change anything, I have the same amount of motivation at every tournament I go to.
But, when you're actually playing in front of the crowd and you feel the energy, it does give you a bit of an extra boost. It makes it a lot more exciting, for sure.

I'm feeling good, susp's twin brother is on the team, so we're going to take them down for him.

Our goal is to make Stage 3 like we did in Shanghai, but for this Major, I would personally like to make playoffs.