Into the Breach qualified for the RMR back in February during the online stage, alongside fellow Brits Viperio. They reached a peak ranking of #46 on HLTV, and their European imports have proved to pay off for the roster after looking at their recent success.
Sebastian “volt” Malos sat down with UKCSGO’s Matthew “meffew” Godsell to talk about their opening match at the RMR, his tenures in previous teams, and their expectations heading into their second match against Sprout.
Earlier today you suffered a tight loss against NAVI, what were your expectations heading into this match?
We didn’t expect it to be a close game, we went into it and we wanted to try and play a different type of game rather than playing the default way we usually play. We wanted to bring the game more to them, because obviously if we’re going to play NAVI, we can’t beat them by just playing normally. They are much better, so we had to bring out something different.
We wanted to bring the game more to them, because obviously if we’re going to play NAVI, we can’t beat them by just playing normally. –Â volt on NAVI match
First half, it looked like they were going to destroy us. We started off super rough, it was an 11-4 half and they won the second pistol as well. At that point it seemed like it was all going to be over, but then CYPHER had a crazy forcebuy round and brought us back into the game. We started getting a crazy streak of eight CT rounds, but the thing is, when we got to 14-13, our money was so bad that after losing one round, we didn’t have anything else for the rest of the rounds. We got screwed over because in our streak of rounds, there was two clutches we won, so it was pretty rough. Overall, as bad as it is to lose in overtime, just making it a close game and not getting shut out completely was nice.
Would you say that’s due to the map too? Inferno is notorious for these tight matches where it goes the distance despite your team being down 11-4 at the half, did the map choice play a part in that?
I think that in general, we struggle on the T side of Inferno at the moment. It was the first game, so it was hard for us to get into it from the beginning. They were owning us, electronic, I think he was 20-4 in the first few rounds? Every single time we were attacking his site, he was just owning us all the time. Maybe it wasn’t even us playing badly, maybe it was just them out-aiming us because as soon as we peeked them, they instantly killed us. Inferno was one of the two maps that we expected, so we were prepared for it heading into the game.
Obviously there are some things you can prepare for ahead of these matches, was there anything you noticed that was lacking? In terms of communication, or individually?
I don’t think it was that different, we played kind of similarly I think. Our comms were slightly better, we gave it 20% more I guess. But in the end, they won out because they were the better team.
Let’s talk about you. You played under fnatic Rising recently, and now you’re back on a UK majority team. Is there anything you’ve taken from your experience at fnatic Rising?
100%, I think that in fnatic Rising, coming in after I had played with FAMBIT, I developed a lot as a player. My communication got so much better, my way of thinking as a player improved a lot, so I’d say that the experience I gained was super valuable to bring to this team. If I look back on how I was playing one year ago when I was playing with FAMBIT, it’s completely different to how I’m playing now. I did gain a lot, for sure.
As far as the roles go, did you have many positional changes considering that you took some star roles in FAMBIT?
I don’t think I was in star player roles in FAMBIT, I was in the rotate roles because obviously arTisT IGLs and AWPs, and IGLs are usually in the rotate positions. Someone has to pick them up, so I’d be playing those roles. On Vertigo for example, I’d be the rotate player on A, on Overpass I’d play B rotate… not really star player roles, but decent roles. In fnatic Rising I’d say it was 50/50, I had some good roles, but some other more laid back roles. We didn’t have our roles set in a way that it was one player getting set up, everyone had their chance.
Speaking of arTisT, the core from FAMBIT when you played with them are here at the RMR. How does it feel to see them here, and possibly even play against them?
First of all it’s crazy. The last time I met them in person was at the last LAN, Insomnia 68. This month is the one year anniversary since I last met them. Out of all the places I would’ve expected to see them, it wasn’t here. I would’ve expected to see them at Insomnia or EPIC.LAN, or somewhere else. To meet them again at the RMR in Copenhagen is the last thing I expected to happen. It’s super cool to see them here, the chances of both of us making it to this stage is super low, so I hope we don’t get them in a 0-2 game. But after we win today, who knows. Please no elimination game, but if it comes to it, someone has to go down.
To meet them again at the RMR in Copenhagen is the last thing I expected to happen.
After joining ITB you peaked at #46 in HLTV Rankings after qualifying for the RMR, have the expectations for yourself and your team changed at all?
As a team we’re still trying to figure out how we want to play. The thing with us is that when we formed, it really was just five different players being put together. There was no core in this team, and Thomas is IGLing for the first time in his career. It’s a huge change for him, and for everyone else, we’ve had to get used to each other. Me for example, I’ve never played with three of them before. Even CYPHER, I’ve only pugged with him. Just the fact that we are five different players mixed together, it’s going to take a lot of time and there’s a lot of things to work over. Right now, I think we’re improving pretty well, but there’s still a lot of work to be done.
What’s the biggest facet of your game that the team needs to work on right now?
Our playstyle. Because we come from different teams and different scenes, Polish, UK… I don’t know about Dutch [laughs], but the playstyles are going to be different. People have different ways of thinking about the game, and in a team, you want everyone to be thinking the same way. Otherwise, you have one player playing a certain way and another one playing a different way, it’s a big clash within the team. Right now we want to get everyone wired the same way, and I think it’ll be much better that way.
People have different ways of thinking about the game, and in a team, you want everyone to be thinking the same way. –Â volt on ITB’s playstyle
Does that mean Thomas is taking more control with IGLing, or does everyone have a say in things?
It’s pretty free right now, I don’t know… maybe he should take a bit more control. It’s a hard thing to say. Everyone wants to do their own stuff as well, but you have to figure out when it’s too much. You want to play as a team, more than just one player doing this because he thinks this, and another player doing that because he thinks that.
Your next match is against Sprout. You last played them about a month ago in a best-of-three where you beat them 2-0 despite the close scores, what are your thoughts ahead of this game?
We’ve prepared a bit between the last game and this one. We have an idea of what the map will be, and I think we’re pretty confident. The one thing we’re trying to do is not to take the NAVI game as something that will make us play less seriously. Obviously right now we’re more confident after that game, but it means we shouldn’t just drop our focus. We can’t think that it’s going to be easy now that we’ve played the hardest team in the group. We’re trying to go into the game with the same mentality we had before our match against NAVI, and then take it from there. We’re ready for this one.
Any last comments?
See you at the Major!
