The Surrey Stags – the first team of the University of Surrey – have recently reached some serious heights in the university Counter-Strike scene. After a challenging couple of years in which the Stags’ roster changed multiple times, the team, comprised of Archie “Wilson” Hodgson, Jack “Jite” White, Tom “Madt0m” Rouse, Adil “Hashlamon” Hashlamon, and long-time Surrey soldier Alex “SK3L3T4L” Rubinstein, found consistency and success, winning UKIC Season 5 Varsity. Now, they’re keeping the roster together and competing in UKIC Division 2 for Season 6, looking to continue their run of success against even tougher opponents.
UKCSGO caught up with the IGL for the Surrey Stags, Wilson, to talk about the Stags’ recent Collegiate success, a behind-the-scenes look at what it means to be the captain for the Stags, Wilson’s CS journey, and what’s next for the team at the top of the game.
To start with, I’ve got a nice broad question for you. How does it feel to be at the top of the university Counter-Strike scene?
It feels good because we did a lot of work, especially in the week leading up to the final. We didn’t practice loads until then, but we play quite a lot outside of the server just because we’re mates. We didn’t play too many official, formal pracs, but we played quite a lot of games. We played more than we usually would, dry running new pocket strats and stuff we wanted to do, mainly on the T-side.
So, to see the work pay off was quite rewarding. A lot of the work we did was on Ancient, actually. T-side we kind of messed up on, because last time in the NSE lower bracket, we beat [King’s College London’s TaoTie roster] 2-0. So, in a way, we kind of regressed in the final, but their prac definitely helped them. We made some silly mistakes, but yeah – it felt good to see it all pay off.
It was our goal to win because we kept our spot in Div 2 and then chose to come down to Varsity, so the goal was always to win. Anything less than winning would have been considered a failure for us. It got a bit close, considering the last map got pretty damn tight, but yeah – we’re super happy.
Can you run us through the Surrey Stags roster?
Yeah, so I’m the IGL. With my business analytics background, I love the antistratting stuff. I find it really interesting to go in and find the patterns in people’s games and work out that side of things.
Madt0m is a rifler. He’s really solid – he plays a lot of the rotate positions. He goes away and solo-queues at like 3k Elo all the time, so he’s got a really good base knowledge of the game. He’s pretty quiet, but he does chip in if he thinks there’s a hole somewhere or if he can see what the opponent is doing.
SK3L3T4L is sort of the secondary caller. If I’m having a rough game or I’m lost for ideas, he’ll normally be the one chipping in the most to help me out.
Jite is our AWPer, but also our Nova specialist. The system is sort of built around letting him do whatever he wants, almost. Like, there’ll be some strats where we’re doing a B execute and he has to come with us, but pretty much on every default it’s just “Jite go kill” and then we sort of play around that.
Hashlamon is pretty similar to Madt0m, but he’s a bit more vocal. He’s just a really solid rifler. He can play solo sites and anchor really well. We know, for example, that we can just leave him on A Site on Anubis CT and we’re going to be fine for the whole game, because he’s such a solid individual player.
You mentioned the last map got a bit close in the Varsity finals – how do you guys manage the mental when things are getting tough?
Well, even though I’m the Captain, I don’t actually have the best mental, to be honest [laughs]. I think it’s both a pro and a con, though – I wear my heart on my sleeve. When we win, I feel it to the max, but when we lose, I also get really down.
SK3L3T4L is a really calm guy. He doesn’t really get tilted much. It’s the same with Jite and Hashlamon – they just sort of play the game and get on with it. They never really tilt – they actually keep me level-headed, and then it’s sort of the same with Madt0m. I think we have quite a good mix of personalities, where we have the right amount of people talking and suggesting ideas. It can get tense when I show my emotions, but then we can regulate that with everyone else being like “it’s fine”, “we can just chill”, “we’re better than them”. That kind of vibe.
Tell me a bit about yourself. How did your university Counter-Strike journey start?
Well, I was a bit of a casual when I first came to uni. I think I was either Faceit level 4 or 6 or something when I joined, and Surrey had an esports application form. I was like “yeah, I want to play in a more competitive scene”, so I just filled out the form. There was a spot open in the first team – the fifth spot, so it was like four level 10 players and then me, so I was quite pleased to get in.
We had a lot of turmoil in that first year, needing a lot of subs, and the roster was pretty unstable. But I just played a lot, played a load of pugs, and most nights our friend group had a five-man going, so it just allowed me to grind the game, and slowly we found a more stable roster. Obviously, SK3L3T4L has been there for ages, and then Madt0m joined the year after me, and we just managed to hold on to our talent. The team was basically built around being able to keep a few people each year, to where we got to this final roster, where we played for two years straight with the same team, which has really helped with chemistry in the server.
Let’s touch briefly on SouthLANder. Would you consider your victory in the LAN finals there something of a proof of concept? A moment of realisation that you can do some good stuff in LAN finals?
Oh yeah, it was nice to know that we wouldn’t crumble under the pressure, because that was the first final we’d been in and having it on LAN was a nice environment to bed us in. I’d never really had to play outside my environment before, so it was a good experience. It wasn’t a massively high-pressure environment for us. Obviously, we wanted to win, but it wasn’t the end of the world to us if we didn’t.
I think we knew we had it, really. We wanted to be at the top of the scene, and we sort of knew that we were Top Five anyway, so it was nice to confirm that we are at the top level. Obviously, there were some really good teams kicking about at the time. Half Natty were in their leaf and Gizmy era, so that was always going to be a tough game if we played them, but we were thinking that we should probably be better than the Warwicks, KCLs, and UCLs. At the time, we considered ourselves the second best behind Half Natty, so it helped to shore up our confidence, definitely.
What are the plans for the team moving forward, as the core are leaving university soon?
That’s a good question. I think we want to keep playing as the Stags, or some variation of it. I don’t know if we’ll change our name or anything, but as for the goal? We need to stay in Div 2. That’s our objective for this season – to keep our spot in Div 2 and keep our success going. Obviously, we could play in Div 3 – we have before – but Div 2 is sort of where we want to be. We played Div 2 before – two seasons ago – and we want to stay there.
We know we can do it. It’s not like we got smashed before. We know we can win some games in there. It’s a good level of competition for us, where we can improve because we’re playing against some really good players and teams, but we’re also not getting smashed.
That’s the short-term goal. But then for uni CS, I don’t know. We might see a merging of the top players from the Surrey Sausages coming up into the Stags and playing with Jite and Hashlamon, but maybe they choose to stop playing after having such a good run.
I know we have a lot of people who still want to play the game and improve. Like Doaky, who’s on the Sausages. He loves playing the game and will want to keep improving. SLANG will want to keep playing as well. So I’m sort of leaving it to all of them, really.
But yeah, I’d quite like to keep playing in the UKIC scene, maybe ESEA. I’m not sure. But I just, at least for the short term, definitely want to keep playing as a five.
What’s your take on UKIC’s involvement with uni CS, and its effect on the UKCS talent pipeline?
I think it’s really good. Obviously, putting in big prize pools and getting it in front of more people is cool because, like, let’s say there might be someone playing in Div 3 that didn’t know uni CS was a thing. They might end up signing up for their uni and doing some cool stuff.
More exposure is always a good thing. Of course, a lot of it is on universities having to have good, competent reps, like esports reps, to organise the teams. Because, if you’re new, obviously you’re adjusting to a new environment and a lot’s going on. You might not necessarily be thinking about getting yourself on a CS team straight away.
It’s definitely helped, though. With NUEL not running stuff anymore, it’s been really great to have UKIC as a replacement, and to keep two leagues running. It’s definitely a force for good in uni CS. Also, I think the way they’ve organised it is a pretty cool system. You don’t need to have like 80 teams, like in NUEL, to run a Swiss system. You can just have the little groups, which I think is cool. It sort of creates regional rivalries. That’s sort of what I like the most about uni CS – playing against people you sort of know.
Like, if we play against Durham Defenders, for example, I’ve spoken to them a few times – maybe like once or twice – outside of the server. You sort of feel like you know them a bit more than just some random faceless stack on ESEA.
Are there any tips you’d give to uni CS teams who are maybe struggling to find their consistency and success?
Yeah. I think having a solid five people who just want to play the game is important. Also, if you have the choice between a Level 10 who isn’t really committed or interested, and a Level 8 who really wants to play the game and improve, I’d always go with the on-paper lower-skilled player with a better mindset for the game.
Don’t be afraid to just play the game and ask your mates, “Do you want to play some pugs?” Playing with people from the Stags informally, or spending time with them outside of the game, has helped us a lot. I live with Jite and Madt0m – we’re really close friends in real life – so that’s helped things.
It’s not just an online friendship. We all know each other really well, so…[laughs]…it’s the power of friendship.
[Laughs]
Okay, maybe not the power of friendship, but just play the game and create a community in the uni where you find people that you genuinely want to play with. It should never be a chore to play CS. It should be something you want to do.
So, I’d say, as long as you’ve got a team that wants to play, you’ll be fine. Just play the game for fun, consistently, find some mates and grind with them. That’s a solid basis to have a successful team in uni CS.
