Fizan “Fizzy” Anjum recently joined The Last Resort after being on DuckDuckGoose, the mix who qualified for the UKIC Season 0 Finals at the end of last year. Now with his new team, he is performing at a much higher caliber individually, and the team has also been performing at a higher level. Currently 8-3 in ESEA Main and 4-1 in UKIC Division 1, the team comes into the LAN with high spirits as they beat Verdant this week.
UKCSGO sits down with the rifler to talk about the games they have played so far [the interview was done after Round 5], the issues with the format that TLR has faced, and Adam “AdamJC” Colwell calling style.
You have had an interesting day as you have had to face two teams twice. Firstly looking back at when you first played Coalesce, what was it like beating them finally?
There was the first power cut early on, so during that, we had a chat about what was going wrong and what we could do better. We came back and had a lot more ideas as to how to counter them, we understand that wfn was starting lower and how to counter that. We won four or five rounds on the T side and pistol on CT and then as soon as we get to 6-10 the electricity goes down again. We go get food, get back and the funny part is we knew the round they were going to call because when the internet died we saw one of them lining up a smoke, so we had an idea of what they might do.
We read it a little bit and they tried to do the same thing, we just naded the smoke by door and killed mozwho was trying to go down vent, and just streaked from there, winning every key round. We just played different setups to adjust and keep the guessing. Make sure they don’t know where Flicky is or where I am, it just kinda worked out after that.
The following game versus The Neighbours you guys held your own. Can you talk me through that game and are you guys still happy with your performance?
Going into the game Adam said that these guys are a better team, and to beat them we have to play with guys, catch them off guard, doing plays you wouldn’t anticipate. A little bit to what we did versus Verdant [at UKIC Finals]. There was one round anti-force, I asked Flicky to smoke A main and Adam told me to push, dobbo was carpets and I just jumped scared him as he didn’t think I had the balls to push the smoke. We started streaking, went up 10-8, and unfortunately, we didn’t pull through and it happens.
You just played Coalesce again, meaning you have played flowstate twice and now Coalesce twice. What are your views on this new format?
Personally, I think this format is a bit silly in the sense that the game we beat versus Coalesce meant nothing the first time. The second game was the more important one, and it feels like the first game was a waste of energy. To pull the comeback we did and then lose the much more important game is annoying.
What would you want the format to look like?
The regular format could have worked with an extra game. It would mean teams would have to stay at the LAN hall till 9 or 10. In the long term teams wouldn’t have cared that much I think, because you would have played against worse teams and wouldn’t have been so consistently intense. These tendencies you have to understand against the best teams you figure out in the upper bracket playoffs, but now you have to scramble in the regular group stage every game.
What is AdamJC’s call style like, it seems like everyone is calm on the team, how does this call style differ from other IGLs you have played for?
Adam compared to IGLs gives me the most freedom I have ever seen, you are allowed to be involved in the round and suggest what you want to do [editor’s note: AdamJC is “not happy about all the suggestions”]. Most of the time, teams play too much by the book and I feel like Adam thinks ‘What can I do to get an entry kill versus these guys’, even if it is a bit of a monkey play. ‘If I do this versus this team in this environment it will catch them off guard’. On LAN when we play teams that are better than us, it does catch them off guard. They try to take aim duels, run strats, and not hold every angle.
For certain you guys are doing really well outside of LAN. From my perspective you are playing the highest level of CS you have played before.
Yeah, I guess you can say that with DuckDuckGoose last season it was shaky, we couldn’t find the right roles. But with this team, I am more of a pack player instead of a lurker which suits me better.
How are you finding this upward trajectory and how are you taking that in your stride?
I am really enjoying it. Last season was possibly the worst stats I have ever had. I look at it now this season and I keep up with the whole team, I have positive stats and it feels good to be involved, shooting back, and keeping up.
What are your expectations for this LAN?
This LAN we came in with the expectation to get top 6, since we got seeded top 4 other teams think we can do better than that. Obviously, a big part of it is Adam’s mental and how he keeps people calm on LAN. We will aim for tour four, but if we get top six we won’t be too tilted and still be very happy given the new format we have taken on. Playing Coalesce twice on the same map wasn’t ideal. We knew how we should have played the second time, but a lot of rounds came down to 1v1’s, and Karrar just came out on top. They had the first half flowing more in their favor even though we started 4-0 up.
You are 8-2 in ESEA Main and 4-1 in UKIC Division 1. What are your expectations for the online events after LAN?
I think UKIC we expect to make playoffs, and potentially push for LAN but I am not too sure how many teams will go to LAN, it is a bit of a question mark.
For ESEA we want to win 2/3 of our upcoming games, if we win those we are going to grind for Advanced and go all the way. Going into this season the lads had a bad season previously, they were far away from playoffs, so even getting playoffs will be a huge plus.
