GamerLegion had a rocky start to the BLAST.tv Paris RMR with a loss to Apeks in the very first round. However, just like their run last time around, GamerLegion bounced back and dominated OG to go 1-1 in a display of incredible cohesion. The European mix led by a British coach will be aiming to repeat their success from the Rio Major RMR where they knocked out G2 and qualified for the Major.
Between the two games UKCSGO’s Dafydd Gwynn sat down with GamerLegion coach and British Counter-Strike Association founder, Ash “ash” Battye. He expressed his joy at the success of the two UK teams in attendance before explaining his coaching style and how GamerLegion are able to bounce back after tough losses.
You are a member of the British Counter-Strike Association (BCSA), which is an organisation dedicated to helping UK CS. How does it feel seeing two teams at the RMR?
It’s really good. It’s a bit of a surprise because of all the teams we’ve never had a team make it to the Major or even this stage before. Then these guys, a little out of nowhere, have just come up and suddenly have arguably, achievement wise, is one of the best teams we’ve ever had in the UK. Which is a bit insane and probably a bit of injustice there for Endpoint who never quite did it, but I mean they are doing great and they look like they belong.
We found out last time that playing against the best teams and doing well gives you a lot of confidence for the rest of the event. You’ve already got your foot in the door now, the worst case scenario has happened, you’ve been there you’ve lost it so you have nothing to lose now. It is probably going to be better than if they had won the first game.
From what you’ve seen in their first two games would you say they deserve to have confidence and what would you say their expectations should be?
Honestly I would just to say to have the same expectations as we did, just play every game and don’t have any expectations. Viperio has had quite a few changes and Into the Breach are so new that it’s going to be really hard to say “we should be beating this team, we should have beaten that team” they just need to play each game and just give it their best. Because if they can bring it back against fnatic and NAVI, if they get a good start they can have a good chance against anyone now. Play it game by game and they’ll have a chance.
Having two UK teams here, does it show the scene has grown since when you were coaching Vexed back in the day?
Honestly I don’t even know. Qualifying for it is honestly an amazing achievement in itself because the qualifiers are a nightmare to get through. So for them to both get through is insane, especially because Viperio beat SAW and they both looked pretty convincing coming through it. It’s kind of proving that we’ve had talent for quite a long time and it’s never quite been the right mix and maybe not been the right circumstances getting through qualifiers. You need a bit of luck and even the best teams can go out, to see them put it all together and then show up is refreshing for the team. It shows we are not an anomaly where we can’t produce good teams. Every one of these little nations has the ability to build a good team it’s just can they get the right opportunity to do it and these guys both did it at the right time and now they have a chance to show that UK CS isn’t as weak as people think it is.
You mentioned that they are finally representing the UK is a good way. What would you say the biggest change in the players is from when you were in the UK scene to now?
I wouldn’t say there’s a big difference. I don’t know the guys that much, especially Viperio. I’ve never spoken to them that much I’ve probably spoken to biscu more than anybody else, but even then it’s not a lot. All these guys kind of came in long after I had already left the UK scene. So I don’t know too much about them. But when I was coaching it was mainly the motivation to play that was the main thing and honestly the Vexed team had the potential to be in a similar situation, but if you don’t get through the qualifiers to get there then you don’t get a chance to show it.
We were similar back when we played, we were a top level advanced team and had Premier like Into the Breach, ex-Into the Breach, which is what these teams have been doing, but if they never get a chance to show anything then UK CS is always going to look weak. I don’t know if there’s a massive difference between the player mentality or anything, but I don’t know the guys well enough to be able to determine that.
Moving on to you and GamerLegion, has your mindset changed at all after a shaky start to the RMR?
No. I will say no. It’s something that we talked about before. We just need to have the same attitude we had last time which is just play each game one at a time and winning the 0-1 game doesn’t really mean anything because the seeds get thrown around and you get a harder game and losing you can end it with a better run. So the first game, I don’t want to say it’s meaningless, but it’s the least important of all the games that you play. So it’s not something we are going to stress about or anything. If you go 0-2 it’s a bit different, maybe it’s there in the back of your mind that you need to start fighting for our lives but the first game is feeling the event out, it’s how people feel confident. Get the nerves out of the way and then you start playing the rest of the event with no stress.
You mention the last RMR run, what can you take from that experience and apply it to make yourselves better at this RMR?
I think we know that we can deal with the pressure. Last time we were going to get knocked out if we didn’t beat G2 and then we play the first map and we lose 16-3. That is as close to getting knocked out as you are going to get. We know we can deal with it and we know there’s a lot of teams here who can’t get over that line and we’ve already done it once. That means a lot honestly when you play these events and you see in fixtures where some teams just can’t beat another team when they should be able to do it. We know we can get through this event, we just know we need to focus on ourselves and if we are confident and play our game we should get through. We just need to raise our level after the first game.
As a coach, when you are 0-1 down and everything is on the line, what do you say to your players in that moment?
Honestly just keeping them focused. It doesn’t matter, even if you’ve won you just need to forget about it and just play what the situation is now. It sounds so cliché and stuff but if everything is in the back of your mind it makes you more nervous when you are on match point, or if you have a bad start you are thinking “oh we are going to lose something.” You just need to stay as focused as you possibly can and that way you can actually stick to how we have been practising for seven or eight months. It’s not just going to be random rounds with people doing their own plays. Keep as much structure to it as you can and play the way we have practised. That is the way to do it.
You just went in to your coaching style a little bit there, keeping everybody focused being your main priority. Would you say your coaching style has changed since your time at GamerLegion compared to Vexed, London or Divine Vendetta and the other teams in your past?
Yeah, I wouldn’t say from those to GamerLegion, but since we had siuhy it’s changed a lot because I feel like in my old teams I’ve had almost all the structure and everything coming from me. We saw at the last event we tried to shoehorn rusty into playing in-game leader, he’d do it and he was happy to do it for the team, but it wasn’t like he wanted to or it was natural for him. The problem was when we went to the RMR I can’t speak for any of the rounds and when we played online I was making a lot of the calls from spawn or saying things in the rounds that we should do and I think we suffered at LAN because of that. I was then not part of the game.
So my approach for when we got siuhy was that we were just going to buy into everything that he kind of wants to do and I will try and step back a bit in practise, I won’t talk as much in officials online. I will just play as if it’s an RMR and I can’t speak and I’m thinking what have we been doing, what has the other team been doing around the map, what pace have we been playing – these sorts of things. That’s when the change has been me relinquishing more control, focusing more on the mistakes and the management, but still be involved in everything and making gameplans with siuhy. It’s just adapting to what you have a little bit.
You are a team who has been in tier two for a long time on the verge of making it further, when you made the Major did it change your expectations as a team, did it change the way that you perceive yourselves?
It just feels like an opportunity to prove ourselves. I don’t know how the team feels, but I feel pretty hard done by that for us to stay in the top 30 it is such a struggle. We have to play every event possible, we have to win it or make the final and even then last week we had a 85% winrate in a month or something and we dropped out of the top 30 for the first time since we formed the team.
Because the other teams are playing BLAST, they get invited, win one game and they are playing against teams with stand-ins like NIP who are in absolute disarray at the moment and all these other tier one teams who are a bit of a mess. They beat those teams, win one game and they get 100 points. We have to grind for two months to get those points and we drop out again. So coming to these sorts of events, hopefully it doesn’t backfire, but it’s a chance to prove that we deserve to be there and get some points ourselves. We know all of these teams from the top 20 downwards, we are consistently able to beat them. We do consistently beat them, with the odd blip in there because these teams are dangerous. It’s very hard to be consistent in tier two because there’s a bunch of different playstyles, so being well-rounded is really really tough to be able to do.
