Surrounded by screams and shit-talking, Reegan “ReegaN” Ward played it cool as he let his gameplay do the talking. The young star has impressed as Temperate has lived up to their reputation so far. If Temperate win one more map they will face the other favourites in the lower bracket final. With the first day wrapped up and playoffs started, UKCSGO’s Dafydd Gwynn had the opportunity to chat to ReegaN about their performances so far, being at LAN and what it will take for them to win the event.
You’ve just played against a tough opponent, a team that could be considered a dark horse in this competition, how does it feel to get that win?
They definitely have players like dexie, who has played at a top-level in the UK for a few years now, they have stop_it, a crisp aimer I’m not going to lie he has really good aim, and the rest of them are just solid players. Obviously, we don’t go into it expecting to just white-wash 16-0, 16-0 but we did expect to win it 2-0 to be fair they did put up a good fight but I feel like our composure let us win the game.
Speaking of composure in the first map you went down big, what did it take to come back into that game?
I think we just had to realise we were doing a bit too much, we were getting ahead of ourselves in the first half and then when it got to the CT-side I had my round on pistol round then they all screamed and that got our energy up. I think it was just getting the energy up, just thinking “we know we are better than these guys” so there’s no pressure.
This is your first LAN as a team, what does that mean for you guys?
We need to put up a performance, especially considering the other opponents, we already know we were going to be one of the top seeds, as we are, at least pot one. We have made a lot of mistakes already and we can see the mistakes come through but playing at LAN is really good. The mistakes happen, and we go back and look at what we did wrong. It’s good to get all the mistakes out.
You guys are a favourite for this tournament, in recent events such as EPS you are the underdogs fighting for a seat at the table, how does it feel for that not to be the case? Is there an added pressure to being a favourite that you haven’t felt before?
To some people there is pressure definitely but for us we are just confident, especially that game where we played well, even if we are going down we just need to slow down, composure, we know we are better than these guys and then we will eventually win the game. And that’s what happened there.
In one of your first games, you played the new ancient, how prepared where you for that map with it’s recent changes?
We were prepared on ancient, but I think them as a team aren’t to our level so I think it didn’t really matter what map it was we would have of eventually won. No flame to them.
What other teams here do you see as your rivals in terms of being favourites?
It’s got to be BLVKHVND right? It’s either us or BLVKHVND. Then you have the big mix of emps kids, with CYPHER, cryths, JackB, Moshi and Yoshwa, they are all great players. I think it’s us three but if you just talking about teams it’s us and BLVKHVND.
Obviously you guys see yourselves in the final, who do you see yourself playing against?
(laughs) At first, we did think it would be us and BLVKHVND in the final but with recent results, emps kids have 2-0ed BLVKHVND in the upper bracket so they could potentially make the final. If we beat them, which we hope we do, we will knock them back down to lowers and then they’ll have their scrap. We feel like it might be BLVKHVND still but you never know it might be them, they might get the double win over them.
Is there a big difference between attending an event with an org as opposed to without one?
Just the costs really, if the org pays for it you know. But there’s also the pressure that you need to get their moneys worth, you can’t just show up and mess around as they’re paying for all your LAN stuff. You just want to make them proud I guess but also put up a performance that you know you should.
In terms of LAN, would you say the environment around LAN affects your play?
It affects it but I wouldn’t say by like a crazy amount. The energy is a lot more on LAN, there’s screaming, there’s shouting, you even hear it from other games. We heard emps kids when they were screaming, definitely cryths as well he was screaming a lot, when they were beating BLVKHVND. It’s crazy, it’s really good, it’s fun.
Do you shit-talk or is that not really your personality?
I’m not a screamer, but the rest of my team love to scream, especially fluffs_. It doesn’t matter if he’s going 2-25 on the scoreboard he’s screaming every winning round.
Speaking of fluffs_, you have been playing on the same team for coming up to two years, how much has he influenced your career? What’s it like to play with one person for that long?
When I first teamed with him, he had a lot more experience than me. I feel like we get along really well, me and him. Playing together, he knows my strengths, I know his strengths, and we will play quite a few sites together. We are together a lot on the map, so especially if we have a good relationship out of the game it’s going to help in-game, especially with the time period we’ve been together.
In the UK scene that’s quite rare.
Yeah, exactly but you’ve also got that FAMBIT core that’s been together for a long long time.
Not just for this event, but going forward, what are your expectations for this roster?
With the competition that came to this event, we are looking to win it. For the ESEA seasons, this one we were definitely good enough to get advanced but we made too many mistakes and we just threw a lot. But we won’t use the excuse of roster changes for our seasons results, next season we should be looking to make advanced as an objective.
