Bevve: “We had really really good anti-strats for them on Ancient”

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The EPIC.LAN 41 finals couldn’t have started better for K10. They won map one, their opponent’s map pick 13-6 as Jamie “Tree60” Callan does what he does best by dropping a 1.42 HLTV rating and winning the mental war over Owen “smooya” Butterfield. However, The Neighbours turned it all around off the back of a Ninja defuse on round nine and ‘G2 Moment’ – not defusing the bomb – deep into the map.

With the momentum swung back in the favour of The Neighbours, map three couldn’t have been any easier. Dubbed ‘Adampass’, Adam ‘Adam9130‘ Ahmad led his team to win their T half flawlessly 12-0. It was only a matter of time until the champions were crowned, and James ‘bevve‘ Slinn won his third consecutive EPIC.LAN.

After the game had finished, UKCSGO talked to bevve about what it was like to win three EPIC.LANs in a row, how did they change the momentum of the game after map one, and has the ‘bevve curse’ lifted?

Congratulations on winning your third EPIC.LAN all in consecutive fashion. What are your thoughts after the win?

It is always nice to come to play an EPIC, taking part and the win is a big benefit. Coming into LAN we don’t care if we lose, just as long as we are having fun. Yesterday especially, on Saturday we struggled with that. But today was much better.

Even after our map loss in the finals, we all went outside laughing at each other, bringing up the mood, we then took that confidence into maps two and three.

Did it feel good getting revenge from the Upper Bracket Finals and then also a reverse weep?

For me, a reverse sweep should only be used for a BO5, not a BO3. It is cool winning two maps in a row, but the whole title of a reverse sweep is meaningless in a BO3. I have always thought this, I find that word can be used for a Cologne or Katowice final because that has a high impact BO5. At an EPIC.LAN it is just pub teams. It is always good fun though.

As for revenge, I don’t really think so. They came off way worse than us yesterday, just looking a bit worse after the stomp the day before. Yesterday was just a full shock day from start to finish anyway. We had some scary close calls against Sorex and kicA, The Last Resort took it very close as well. 

Looking at map one, you had a slow start. What was the reason for the slow start and how did you bounce back going into map 2?

Like I said we came out after map one and just laughed, it was like the Spiderman meme, we were all pointing at each other. No-one was playing with 100%, no-one really had good energy or wanted to be there, more like ‘let’s get this day done’. Adam sat us all and asked how many LAN finals we lost. Smooya said one, Extinct said one, and Adam said one, Dobbo and I said zero. He then said we have lost more LAN finals than they have been in, so use that as motivation, let’s just go tear their heads off.

We had really really good anti-strats for them on Ancient from Adam and Owen [smooya]. They came back last night while still drunk and watched their demos, and there were some really big tells on what they were doing. Even though on Ancient my stats looked bad on the CT side, I was basically calling from the 15th second in each round if it was A or B. We surprisingly had those tells against a lot of teams this LAN. 

The impact isn’t shown by the stats for myself, but that was the level we came into the LAN with.

On Overpass you had a 12-0 half, what did that feel like on the server after a close map two where you got saved by a ninja defuse and a ‘G2 moment’?

I think map three all stems from the ‘G2 moment’. The round they did it, Owen went in when it was 9-6 and said that their money was not great and neither was ours. If we win this round we win the map 13-6, if not, we are in for a very sticky game. I heard the crowd chanting but then looked over and they all had their heads in their hands. I looked back at my screen, saw them tap the bomb, and run off and I just started laughing.

Owen also got a funny ninja defuse. After both of those moments, they were finished going into map 3. I am not sure if they came out and reset properly, it is hard to come back from that.

You said you guys have lost more LAN finals than they had been in. Do you think they didn’t know how to reset as they have never been in this situation?

It is SLY and Rezst’s first time on an EPIC.LAN stage so maybe. Especially when we played the first time they were not used to the desks, the goofy chairs, and the cold hands when you came in at 9 am. It is a whole different climate for them and that does play a big role sure. Regardless, I think we just owned them on Overpass, to be honest.

Finally, has the bevve curse lifted, will you get some good luck after this win?

I fucking hope so, I need to fucking catch a break [laughs]. Adam, dobbo, and I hope we can get orgs looking at us a bit more, but we are not sure this will change anything. Hopefully, soon something will come up. Adam had a great event, dobbo and I struggled a bit. We can put that down to dobbo being a bit sick and so was I for a few days, we will put it down to that.