Legates showed up to EPIC.LAN as a relatively unknown quantity. With a solid record in ESEA Main, despite losses to UK teams K10 and Vitalize, the team’s performance heading into EPIC.LAN 38 was relatively unclear.
On Friday morning, Legates managed to finish second place in Group A, with eMasters being the only team to best them in best-of-ones. Despite the narrow 16-14 loss, Legates earned their spot in the upper bracket quarterfinals for playoffs, and have been matched up against the top dogs of Group B, the Arctic Raptors.
Kerran “K6y” Bartlett took some time to speak to UKCSGO about the team’s expectations for the event, how he thinks Legates are valued in the UK scene, and their goals for the rest of the event.
*this interview was conducted before they played Arctic Raptors in the upper bracket quarterfinals.
You’ve just come off of a win versus shushgg. A 16-13 victory with a 2v5 to close it out – what were your expectations going into this game?
We knew it was going to be difficult, shoobie is sort of our kryptonite at LAN. We didn’t expect to play Nuke against them, we thought the veto would go elsewhere. We were expecting an Overpass, maybe a Vertigo pick too. Once it went to Nuke and we didn’t fumble our start on CT, we got a fairly decent start and managed to finish with a 10-5 half. We knew that our T side should be strong enough to close it, as long as we made the right decision in important rounds.
So is that something your team has identified as an issue going into some games?
Yeah, slow starts are where we fall down a lot at the minute. I think in the eMasters game we were 0-7 down at the start of CT Vertigo, and it just turns the game into an uphill battle as opposed to bringing in the momentum yourselves. We did well to bring it back in the end of that game, and I think that carried forward into the shushgg game. Had we just been steamrolled 16-7 the game before, it wouldn’t have been as easy to reset going into it.
Let’s talk about the seedings. Last EPIC.LAN you were put into pot three, and this time round you’ve been seeded third again. Is this something you expected?
We’re LAN bottlers, I’m not that arsed about it. Last EPIC.LAN we were frustrated, mainly because the competition isn’t quite as strong as it is this time. Outside of eMasters, I don’t know if there were any other actual teams at the event. There were a lot of good mixes, but they’re an unknown quantity when it comes to LAN. This time around we got third pot, and we’re not really upset, especially when you get a group like ours. We could’ve been playing the likes of Arctic Raptors, ROYALS, Clique, we could’ve had a much harder groups. I feel like we got one of the nicer pot 1 and pot 2 teams… we’re gassed about it.
Going back to EPIC.LAN 37 again, you made some roster moves after the event. Was that because of where you placed in the tournament?
Dag decided that he wasn’t really enjoying it, which is perfectly fair. I feel like sometimes it is difficult to enjoy it as much as you can when you’re losing. It’s perfectly understandable. With regards to whether it was due to LAN, not particularly. Dag had never been to LAN, but I think he enjoyed himself. He had a funky Nando’s order, but apart from that he was pretty sound. But I think it was more personal reasons outside of the game, and obviously at the last LAN we’d only just picked up Praisy again, so while you’re unstable as it is, it’s better to make the moves all at once rather than once every few months.
Thinking back to your other games in groups, you had convincing wins against the lower seeds in your group, with those teams only reaching single digits for rounds. You had two close wins against shushgg and 25AVG, of whom the latter was up 7-1 on T side Overpass. What happened for you bring it back?
Nothing really, obviously they won pistol and they converted, that meant they were already off to a good start. I feel like on T side Overpass especially, having those first three rounds under your belt – even if you pick up only two, three more, you’re gonna have a good half regardless. We won the first gun round and then they broke us back… the game’s 5-1 and you’ve had two gun rounds, of which you’ve won one of them. You’ve got 50% of the gun rounds, and you’re 5-1 down, so I don’t know.
It’s one of those ones, sometimes that’s the way it goes. But I think with LAN, it’s foreign territory. That was our second game of the day and we’d farmed the first game. We hadn’t actually had a taste of competition up until that point, so maybe some nerves or whatever. We brought it back at the end of CT, we sort of steadied the ship. On T side, we didn’t necessarily out-perform them in the macro, we just individually shone through.
Let’s talk about ESEA. In Main, you guys have a solid record just now. You lost to Vitalize and K10, do you think that led to this feeling you seem to have of being undervalued in the UK?
If you take the UK teams out of our season, we probably look a lot better than the rest of them. Obviously, we got rolled by AdamJC which makes me want to die… the Vitalize game, fair play to them.
We got rolled by AdamJC which makes me want to die… the Vitalize game, fair play to them.
They turned up with a stand-in, and Rhys has absolutely farmed us. They were definitely the better team on the day, but they’re all nice guys and I don’t mind losing to them as much. They had a good T side to keep them in the game going into CT, and we weren’t able to keep up. We live and we learn.
On a more positive and recent note, Legates are in the upper bracket for playoffs. You’re against Arctic Raptors as your first match, what are your thoughts ahead of this matchup?
Again, out of the pot 1 teams, to have eMasters in our group and Arctic Raptors in the upper bracket, we’re gassed. Atrox obviously used to play with us, so we all know him fairly well. I’m looking forward to screaming, it’s nice when you know Atrox is on the other team because he’s like 50kg [laughs], you know you can say whatever you like and he’s not doing anything about it. It’ll be good craic.
The map pools favour them, we’re in sort of a weird place with the maps. Obviously we’ll be looking to pick Nuke against them, they permaban Mirage, although we’d have liked to play Mirage if we could’ve. As far as we’re concerned it’s probably Inferno and Overpass, and they probably should beat us on those two maps. If they don’t, something’s going wrong for them, and it’s going right for us.
Now that you’ve got to this stage in the tournament, is there any pressure on you guys? Is there this expectation that you’ve got to meet or is it a case of going as far as you can?
To be fair, I don’t think I’ve opened the bracket and seen who we’d be playing next. I like to wait and see the game pop up on my screen and then I’m like “oh, we’re playing them, sound”. I know that underperforming at LAN before, you sort of plan ahead by 3 games and then lose the next game to shitters. We’ll cross each bridge when we come to it, and I know that if Arctic Raptors lose to us, I expect at least a couple of roster changes because that’s just criminal [laughs]. I feel like at LAN, strange things happen. If this was an online best-of-three it’d maybe be different, but LAN CS is a different breed. You never know what’s going to happen at LAN, maybe we’ll be unreal and absolutely roll them.
Do you think it’s fair to say that there’s no reason you can’t go all the way?
Oh yeah, even just getting 14 rounds against eMasters and beating shoobie, we’re in the best form of our lives when it comes to LAN, this is gas! Our form is improving too, as much as we rolled the lower seeded teams we played earlier in groups, we’ve done that at previous LANs and then we’d fall over our own feet against a pot 4 team or something. We haven’t done that this time and we’ve beaten everyone we’re meant to beat, and almost two teams that we weren’t meant to. There’s no reason why we can’t beat Arctic Raptors.
Lastly, is there anything you’d like to add?
I just wanted to congratulate AdamJC on making it through to the lower bracket. I know it’s been a struggle with Wiiam, I had a chat with him outside and gave him a little pep talk, pat on the back, told him it’s alright… that’s made my LAN to be honest.
