Quinn: "Gaimin Gladiators was my last shot to see if I was good enough"

It's a work in progress. We were garbage for the majority of the year, and now we're slowly starting to get better. The results are a little better, and things are starting to get better as well, so I think we're getting there, and we just need to keep putting the work in. The only way to do well in this game is if you work very hard, and that is exactly what we're trying to do – grind very hard until the end of the year.

Well, you can say the inverse of what makes you good… we just like we were grinding for a long time. We just got second at The International (TI), people took long breaks, and we got lazy. We underestimated the impact of switching up a player, combined with the fact that we didn't work that hard, so the combination of those two just made us like super, super bad.

On the contrary, it wasn’t Watson’s fault that we were losing or performing badly. The rest of us were playing badly and not putting in the required efforts, which cost us a lot of time and made us lag.

Things have changed in terms of draft because both have different playstyles and hero pools. Malady loves playing heroes with a lot of spells, while Selery likes playing heroes with control units and prioritised farming a bit more.

Despite the difference, the functioning within the team is somewhat similar to what it was before. But things always change when a new player comes in, and we just have to learn and adapt to the situation and evolve.

Going into this, I don't really have any specific expectations. I'm planning to play and invest, like we all are. Whatever happens, happens. I'm just going to give it my best and see how things unfold.

I think this patch is pretty decent for us. It's not the greatest patch ever, but it's not bad either; it feels fine. So, any difficulties we're facing aren't because of the patch itself; they really just come down to us needing to perform better.

We need everyone to consistently nail all the small details and perform at their individual best. When you get that momentum going, things suddenly start to feel effortless. Ultimately, being good at something comes down to everyone being on the same page.

It's tough to pinpoint one specific thing and say, "If we do this better, we'll be good." It's more about each person putting in the individual work, and then, all of a sudden, it clicks, and the game feels easy.

No, I didn't think so. I've always had a lot of self-doubt. Plus, coming from North America, you kind of get used to not winning much. You show up, try your best, but your best isn't close to being good enough, so you end up placing around 12th [in tournaments] and then head home. I was pretty used to that. I had a lot of doubts about my own skill level.

Gaimin Gladiators was sort of my last opportunity; it felt like my final shot to see if maybe I was good enough. I honestly didn't know, but it ended up working out, and I found a lot of success. So, definitely, throughout all of it, I never thought I was amazing or anything like that.

The first time wasn't as bad because we kind of just got dunked on, and we were also exhausted because of the long lower-bracket run. It was less painful to be honest.

The second one was the worst loss I’ve ever had. The emotional toll of losing two times in a row generates a lot of feelings, like “Is there something wrong with you?” “Why is this happening again?” combined with the fact that losing TI in general, especially when you're that close, just hurts.

It's the only thing that I care about winning. It’s the only thing that matters now. I’ve done everything else I wanted to do, and winning TI is the only thing left that I care about. To put it into perspective, how much I want to win the other tournaments is like whatever; if I win X or Y tournament, I don't really care. But winning TI would mean something to me.

It hurts that extra amount because of that.

I’ll keep trying hard until I can. I’ll play pubs all day long, grind hard, but I’ll keep trying.

I don't know if I love doing many things, but I think I have a lot of friends in the talent space, and the talent base is full of like really good people. I would like to join the talent space and contribute towards the game if I step away from competitive gaming.