A clinical rifler and respected shot-caller without an org in the UK scene, a story as old as time itself it seems. Luckily, powering through with stubbornness, Joe “godkU” Fowkes continues to show up, both literally and on the scoreboard. He may not have disrupted proceedings this time around, but The Lizards definitely fulfilled what they set out to do.
Speaking with UKCSGO’s Josh “Joshampton” Arnup, godkU shed some light on how (and when) this team was put together, alongside some deserved self-praise for his close-call reaching FPL-C.
What were your expectations going into EPIC39 now that your run is over?
We weren’t really sure coming into this. Honestly, at the start, without knowing the groups or anything, our goal was to make playoffs. It was like the main thing but then on the Thursday when the groups got drawn, we realised top four make it, and we were third seed. We really did not expect to be third seed, so we were very happy with the groups and how they turned out.
Once I found out the groups, my main thing was to beat 9-12th, because I think I’ve come 9-12th four LANs in the past… and then this one 9-12th again, so… (laughs).
Ten rounds against The Neighbours, a pretty good ten rounds considering. Is that quite a big achievement?
Yeah yeah, I think we played ROYALS earlier in the day and we lost 16-6 there, but it was like early in the morning and we weren’t as comfortable with each other and we lost like two 1v3s, I think two 1v2s as well, and even afterwards Swaggy came up to us and was like you guys trolled like seven, eight rounds against us.
So then going into The Neighbours game like two games later, I’m very happy, it was 16-10, but it was kinda close, I think we were 4-0 up, we were getting pretty excited by it, we didn’t have that feeling of like “we could’ve done a lot more”, I think we really tried our best that game, and 10 rounds is a very good scoreline.
You go under The Lizards banner for most events, how do you choose your teammates?
Most of the time it’s usually been like people in my friend group. I’ve gone with Seiren, Heartles, Rayman and Praisy in the past. They’re similar level, like main level and they were a really fun mix in the past in some of my first LANs, those were the only people I really knew in the scene.
This one, I wasn’t going to come here at all and then I was with DemonInferno, the guy on our team, we were walking back home from a night out, he was saying that he really wanted to go to LAN, and I was like, “I don’t know if I can really justify going with friends” so he said, “What if I pay for your LAN, will you come with me?” So I was like… okay, okay, yeah, alright, sure, sure (laughs).
And then Freday, I’ve known him for like a year, we played in like a couple teams together, but he lives in Sweden. So it’s a really good opportunity where I get to meet him in person. GTMac is like friends with both of them and then Ourob, like we were looking for a fifth, I played last LAN and really enjoyed playing that with him. So, that’s how this team came together.
You’re still orgless and have been for a while, do you enjoy being outside of the spotlight and not so much amongst the elite?
I mean, I really want to, I’ve been saying it for the longest time, I want to come with my actual team and, do well at a LAN, practice as a full roster, see how well I can actually do.
The way things have happened, I’ve not had the opportunity yet. Right now, we only have four players and we had to put things on hold for a while because one of our players, Frip might need an operation. We didn’t know how long he was going to be out. But four or five days ago, we found out it’s going to be at the end of August, and it will only be a week out. So, now we’re back looking for a fifth, obviously a bit too late to come here. Hopefully October’s EPIC.LAN we can make it.
In general, I’ve been streaming a lot, I’ve had like a lot of people talking about my FPL-C qualifier run, when I came third which was kind of sad, but I’m enjoying the attention I got from that. It’s been nice
That’s what I want to talk about next actually, you almost made FPL-C, you’re clearly getting to a really high level as a rifler, are you considering a move away from IGLing?
I wanted to be a caller the whole time ever since I got into CS, the first team I was in, I was calling. I think that’s where I’m best. I feel I can have like the most impact in the team, I think for sure. I’ve kind of played at a decent level for a while, but maybe just the way things worked out, like I played in Legates with K6y and them, but in that team I wasn’t calling, K6y was calling, and he’s a good caller, but I think I didn’t have anywhere near as much impact in that team because I wasn’t calling.
After that with Seiren, in the Raptors, we just had roster changes and people were going on holiday since it was like in August last year and so things just didn’t really work out. After that, I almost made a team with like a bunch of really good players, which would have been good, but then I think it was mainly with Mophoria, we needed him for like a main spot, then he joined Clique, and it kind of fell apart.
You qualified for ESL Premiership, you almost beat Endpoint, can you just talk me through that?
Yeah, yeah, it was honestly really surprising. I think it was just put together by Seiren and originally with his friends like Awks, and xey and then I brought in like Frip as well. He’s Latvian, 5K ELO, like he’s an unreal player.
In the open qualifier, it was like eight teams one side eight teams the other side and I think the top seven teams were on one side and it was like me and our team and NHR on the other side of the bracket. It was crazy.
We lost to NHR, but then another team couldn’t make it, so we got an invite and then from there we like went to another level. I think we beat Dutchie’s team [Next in Line]. I know we beat AdamJC’s team, K10, which was a very close game.
We went into ESL Premiership thinking Endpoint and Viperio are gonna be like, untouchable but Arctic Raptors, 7AM, and Legates are team we felt like we could beat. We got destroyed by 7AM and Arctic Raptors, then 16-14 against Viperio, 16-13 against Endpoint, so it was kind of the opposite.
Is there’s anything else you want to say?
I’ve got four players in my team me, DagThePimple, tsutskam and Frip. We’re looking for a UK player as the last one.
If you’re interested, you can get in contact @godkUcs
