For some players they spend their whole career surrounded by the same teammates, they build up chemistry and a comradery that adds an extra flavour to their game. This is the case for Ryan “dox” Young who has spent most of his career playing alongside the same players, until recently when the success of Oscar “AZUWU” Bell and Oliver “leaf” Jackson saw them both get picked up by international rosters. Having to rebuild his orgless team, dox found the perfect players and Ex-Coalesce continued to thrive, so much so that they have now found a home in K10.
At the UKIC LAN Finals, dox spoke with UKCSGO about his hunt for players, his expectations for the LAN, and which pro players he modelled his playing style after.
How are you finding the transition into joining K10?
It’s different because for the last six months to a year we’ve been searching for an org, we haven’t had a clear goal. We feel like we have to do a lot better than what we have been doing, because I think we have the potential to go really far and break top 50 HLTV and stuff.
We just haven’t reached it and now we have an organization that can support us, like, that’s what we need to work towards.
How does that lead into your expectations for this LAN?
We definitely expect to win this LAN.
Who do you expect to see in the final?
Verdant. It has to be. I just think they’ve showed that they’re the better team for years now.
You had to replace two big names in UK Counter Strike, AZUWU and leaf. How did you go about that recruitment process?
I think I first heard of Tree from Gizmy, when we played with Gizmy, but then he ended up leaving to join The Prodigies and I started watching Tree’s demos. I saw something straight away from just watching him. He has a good skill set, he brings something to a team. He plays the lurk spots really well, so we brought him in and we just tried things with him. We tried him in more aggressive spots and it didn’t really work out the way I wanted it to, so we put him back to the lurk spots and from then we’ve definitely improved a lot.
When Leaf left, that was a bit of a shock there was only a few days left until the season started, but I’m really happy that we got Jacob [Rezst] in. I think he fits the role perfectly. He plays aggressive spots and makes a lot of space for us and that’s something that I always had to force myself to do. Now I don’t really have to do that. So with him in the team, it helps a lot, it takes a lot of stress off me.
In the UK scene he’s not very well-known, being a player from the Benelux scene. How did you go about finding him?
Through a mutual friend, that’s how I found him. Again, I just watched his games after I heard about him and I could see straight away, he brings a skill set to a team. I think that’s something that’s really important, you need to build a skill set to find a team and then it just makes everything so much easier.
It’s so hard to force yourself to play in new positions and stuff. If you just work on a skill set, it’s really easy to just be plugged into a team.
When you have these teammates who you’ve been playing alongside go on to play in these international projects, especially as an IGL, do you get a feeling of pride?
Yeah, it’s nice to see my teammates go to like other teams and especially with Leaf IGLing, he’s going to do really well on that team. It’s a bit of pride. I’ve been playing with Leaf for four years. I know that he has all the qualities to make a good leader, and he’s really smart, so I’m sure he’ll do well.
Speaking of IGLing, how would you describe your IGLing style?
Well, I play a lot of loose-type of defaults, where everyone has space to do things. I’m focused on the mid round, that’s mainly what I do. You get all types of styles, in CS, you get teams that do a lot of set rounds, teams that do a lot of fast plays and stuff like that, but I try to kind of mix it all together and I’d say if you had to put my style down to one thing, it’s just playing loose CS.
Would you say your style has changed at all with the roster moves?
It’s always kind of been the same. I expect things from players, I tell them what I expect from them and then they just carry it out.
How are you finding the content side of being with an org?
It’s definitely new to me, but it’s something that every player has to do so I’m happy that I have the opportunity to do it.
Is there any pro player that you would say you modelled your game on?
I’ll say there’s a few, yeah. I’d say the very first person that I learned from, I suppose you could say was Dazed, because he had a website called NetCodeGuides, which had CS help videos, I learned a lot from that. The main players that I watch gla1ve and cadiaN. I think those three names are like really good leaders that I’ve based my style on and learned a lot from.
