MINALTE are one of four international teams travelling to EPIC.LAN 46 in pursuit of VRS glory. So far, they are on the right track.
Seeded fourth, the Polish-French fusion matched their seed, going flawless in the group stage and finishing fourth. In the first round of the playoffs, they met up against UK side The Last Resort, whom they beat 2-0. It wasn’t a breeze, however.
TLR put up a really valiant fight on both maps, and even took them to the full 24 rounds on map one.
Now, MINLATE are to face Phantom in the upper bracket semi-finals, which are being played on HLTV. This raises the importance of the game as they will now be playing for VRS points.
Before their game against the Poles, UKCSGO catches up with the IGL Sébastien “SBT” Sabbadin to talk about his experience at EPIC.LAN 46, their unsuccessful journey to Fragadelphia Blocktober, and the importance of doing well in Kettering.
SBT will be looking to lead MINLATE back into the VRS rankings
Welcome to EPIC.LAN, what has your experience been like?
I really like it. When we came, everyone was very kind, and the admins were really involved in the LAN and were doing a lot to fix problems. We got PCs from Endpoint, and everything is going well right now.
What did you expect? Did you have any preconceived conceptions about what the LAN would be like?
I am usually watching a lot of these LANs, even if we are not involved. When there are EPIC.LAN matches I was always checking, especially when some friends from France were playing there.
FUT last LAN, and Diviiii when he was playing with Verdant. I knew what to expect from this type of LAN, and we are used to it from French LANs in the past.
I want to ask about how MINLATE formed. It is a unique mix of players with ex-Ghouls players coming together with amanek. How did this French and Polish fusion form?
We were playing together with Ghouls. Me, sk1tt and ex1st. We had a VRS core because we went deep in the PGL Astana qualifiers. We wanted to stay together as a three, and even rejected some individual offers.
After a time, the old MINLATE disbanded, and our manager, s0rryyy contacted me to make a team with amanek on MINLATE. We then picked up POLO as our fifth.
MINALTE isn’t a proper organisation, right? Is it supported solely by amanek?
It is an organisation from amanek. He is providing everything.
While under MINLATE, you guys have been very busy recently. Going to bootcamp and playing many online games, it has been a very packed schedule.
In two months, I think we have not even had 10 days off. We are playing in so many Tier-2 events, ESEA, qualifiers and just so much. We are spamming officials and praccs. We then signed up for four LANs, EPIC.LAN DraculaN, Dreamhack Stockholm and Fragadelphia in America.
A lot of games and tryharding everything.
At Bootcamp, you train to get to a certain level, but then going into such an intense schedule, it must have been hard to keep that level from bootcamp with the lack of practice.
In the end, yeah.
I think what happened, after the bootcamp, we were out of energy, but when we came back hard, we had even more officials than before. On bootcamp we were really good, qualified for Galaxy Battle, ESEA Elite Cup and ESEA Advanced playoffs.
When we got home, it felt like we were out of energy and were irregular. We have worked on it and are trying to get wins on LAN, starting with this one.
You went over to Fragadelphia Blocktober but didn’t make the HLTV stage. That must have been a very frustrating trip, not having your hard work pay off.
We had to play with a stand-in because sk1tt couldn’t get the visa in time. So we had to play with noleN and he helped us a lot. Even the LAN had some weird conditions.
On the first day, we had two guys full sick, because of the AC in the room. You can’t make excuses, but it doesn’t help, and the next day, we had no sound. It was a weird experience, but good to play in these circumstances and learn from them.
It is a bit sad that we went from France to Poland, to Hungary, to America, to not even make it to HLTV, even though we made it out of groups. In the first game of the playoffs, we lost, and it’s just, boom, bye-bye.
Even though we were disappointed, we had to reset immediately to get back to work again.
EPIC.LAN 46 end of group stage and first round of the playoffs
Does that put more importance on doing well at EPIC.LAN, after Fragedelphia and losing your VRS rank?
Yeah, the main goal is to be in the top three. When we looked at the team list, I think we are one of the favourites with Nemesis and Phantom. I think there is Prestige behind us, but the main favourites are Nemesis and Phantom. We need to fight to make top three at least.
Of course, you always aim to be top one.
You are through to the upper bracket semi-finals, but you did struggle against TLR. That was an unexpected close series.
On the first map on Mirage, we just started the map badly. We lost some key rounds to them, saving one M4 and killing us all, some good individuals, to be honest.
In the scenario of the game, we didn’t win the key rounds, but we managed to close the first map and series.
Do you think you will be better on Saturday after settling into this environment?
It is just step-by-step anyway. It was the first day, just taking the temperature of the event and getting comfortable with the setup and comms. Saturday will only be big matches, and we just have to be ready and instant in the match.
Today, it was a bit of a struggle as we played opponents in the groups who were barely 2k elo, or not even level 10. You start to get into the mood for sleepy games. But then you finish the day with the harder game, it is harder to get into it. Tomorrow, we will be ready for sure.
