After recently joining FNATIC, Cai “CYPHER” Watson was within touching distance of qualifying for the BLAST Open London Finals in the OVO Arena Wembley. Unfortunately, they couldn’t get it over the line as they lost in the lower bracket final to M80.
Even though the British rifler didn’t qualify for the event, he still popped in to watch some of the games over the weekend.
UKCSGO sat down with CYPHER to talk about his run at BLAST Open London, winning DraculaN, and joining FNATIC.
How’s it been at a UK event, where you’re also one of the big names?
It’s definitely quite a surreal experience. Every time I come here, there’s been quite a lot of people, especially this time for some reason. A lot of people are coming to say hello and take a photo, definitely quite a surreal experience.
When you’re sitting here and watching an event in London, does that give a certain bit of drive?
When I was here last year, I said to myself, “I want this so bad.” I hear how everyone is cheering for mezii and other UK players. I think when I was so close and I lost, I think I posted it as one of the most heartbreaking losses I’ve had. Just because of how much I wanted it.
CYPHER playing at DraculaN – Credit: messioso
That must have been an emotional roller coaster couple of days. Between winning DraculaN and making the lower bracket run in BLAST Open London, it must have been a bit of an emotional rollercoaster.
We were definitely on a high, then we were also fatigued. We had a long, long weekend. So that definitely didn’t help. We were all on a high from winning LAN. We also said to ourselves, “It’s not an easy game, we’re not done yet.” We still need to go 100% all in [against M80]. I’d say we almost got 100%, it was really hard because of how much we did the whole weekend. We started slow, and then that was what the issue was: we started out too slow.
You’re a player who can be criticised for being a bit inconsistent sometimes. Did you feel validated because, in some of those games, you played incredibly?
I know for myself, when people say inconsistent, they mean stats. I think I bring a lot more to the team than stats. I know my job is to make space; if I don’t make space, I know I’m incredibly good at dead talk. I think one of my main strengths is dead talk, so I help my team a lot in that sense. If I’m not hitting shots, it’s not the greatest, but I’m still bringing something for the team, and I’m not a useless bot.
Everyone will talk. That’s the thing, everyone will talk. At the end of the day, people don’t know half the things people do for the team. With KRIMZ, everyone will flame KRIMZ, but people don’t know how good a leader he is and how good his midrounding is. People don’t understand these things that go on behind the scenes. So it’s definitely annoying at times, but people don’t appreciate how good some players are.
DraculaN was your first substantial win in a while. How does it feel to win a LAN event after so long against some top Tier-2 opposition?
I think I said something along the lines of we can be the best Tier-2 team. I think it goes with every team in Tier-2, when everyone in a team is on point, comms are great, the shots are on point, it’s insane. That’s what we did at this LAN, we had good energy, good communication, and we were all shooting hard. That’s all you need to do in tier-2.
I want to speak about joining FNATIC because that was very unexpected. How did that opportunity come around? How does it feel to represent a name like FNATIC?
It came around quite randomly, to be honest. I think one day I just woke up, and I was on BC.Game and we were talking about signing simple, so I was quite excited. Then all of a sudden, FNATIC messaged. My agent was like, “FNATIC is interested, would you be interested?” I was like, “It’s FNATIC, I obviously am.” It just went from there. Playing under the FNATIC name is definitely an achievement in itself; not many people can say that. It’s definitely an achievement and an honour. Right now, I just think we need to prove that we deserve to play under FNATIC. Hopefully, we will.
So you chose to play with FNATIC over s1mple?
Yeah, I did. FNATIC was someone I couldn’t turn down.
You’ve got a very strong chance of qualifying for the next Major thanks to recent results. It’s also been two years since that Cinderella run in Paris. What are your feelings now that you’re back in that position?
I have felt enough heartbreak with Majors and to do with RMR runs. I’m not thinking ahead of the Major, I’m just taking it as it comes.
