shox: "I don't fear any team"

Richard "⁠shox⁠" Papillon's Epsilon placed 3-4th at DreamHack Summer, albeit thanks to an easy route, and bested HellRaisers thanks to his mega-performance for a second place in Valencia.

The Frenchmen also took part in G3, but were one of the two teams eliminated wrongfully, as G3 used a weird ruleset that should have never been allowed to be put in place.

Now shox and company hope that they will be able to overcome HellRaisers and NiP to get to the playoffs at ESL One Cologne. Read on for an interview with the French star.

How have you prepared for ESL One Cologne so far? Do you have a bootcamp planned for the final days leading up to the event? Do you feel adequately prepared?

Richard "⁠shox⁠" Papillon: We are playing as much as we can since G3. We couldn't bootcamp because GMX is moving to another house and so he hadn't be able to be free to move for some days. I know we are not fully prepared but we are doing our best and I trust in the team to be in a good shape at the event.

After a long hiatus from international competition, G3 took place last weekend. What do you make of the results? Were you surprised by anyone? What comes to mind when thinking about the event?

Richard "⁠shox⁠" Papillon: Well we didn't pass the group stages so we clearly under-performed [compared to what] we were supposed to do, we had really really bad games against IBP and LC which cost us the play-offs.

No-one surprised me, I knew all teams were really good and there was a long break without a big major LAN so I expected results to be close and that's what happened.

About the event, we were really exhausted... We had to wake up at 6:30 the first day to be ready to play at 9, we had 2 matches (NiP and fnatic), then we waited from 13:00 to 20:30 to play our next matches. Moreover, we were supposed to play all the matches this evening and the order was LC and IBP at the end. When we came on stage to install our stuff around 22:30, admins said to us we are gonna play IBP first, but... Why? We were talking about the match against LC and when they said to us 15mins before the game starts that we are gonna play IBP I was really mad. All the event we searched for admins, we never knew where they were and it was really painful.

To finish, after our match against IBP we went to take a cig before the next match and GMX came to us "Admin just said me we are playing the next match tomorrow morning cause they have to close". So we waited 7 or 8 hours to play only 2 matches, we finished our game against IBP around midnight and we just learned that we gonna play LC in the morning so yeah we were really mad.

And it wasn't finished, because we didn't know which time the match was supposed to be played so we had again to search for an admin for like 20mns to know the schedule. After this we had 30mins travel to go to our hotel, had a really bad and small night. I never saw this kind of organisation in all LANs I did in the past, we were all really mad in the team. So what comes to my mind when thinking about the event? It's just that I want to forget it.

At ESL One you’ve been placed in group A together with Wolf, NiP and HellRaisers. Can you go through each team one at a time, and tell us what you think about them, and your chances against them?

Richard "⁠shox⁠" Papillon: We surely gonna begin our first match against HellRaisers, it's gonna be a really tough game, we recently beat them in a bo3 but they always win the first map in general, they are really good at it. And the GSL format for ESL One is bo1 so we can beat them but we'll have to start really focused in the match and give everything we have, otherwise they gonna beat us.

After this, we gonna face NiP or the Indian team. I can't say anything about the Indian team because I have no idea how good they are so we'll have to see their game against NiP to see.

For NiP, I know they weren't in a good shape at G3, they gonna do everything they can since that event to grow up and to come back stronger so I would say we could beat them but all depends if they'll come with a lot of new stuff or not.

What are your expectations going into the event? I realize everyone will say they are in it to win it regardless of stature, but would you be happy with a quarter-finals exit? Top four? A spot in the grand finals?

Richard "⁠shox⁠" Papillon: First of all, every groups are so hard and it's best of one format, so everything can happens. If we can pass the group stages I will be really happy because HellRaisers and NiP are serious contenders for the title so it's gonna be all but not easy. If we can pass to the play-offs, win a quarter-final and go to semi-finals it would be the perfect thing and everything else will be only a bonus.

Do you have a clause in your contracts regarding the sticker money that will be coming in from ESL One? Is that something you had added later on specifically with Cologne in mind, or did it exist in the first place?

Richard "⁠shox⁠" Papillon: I can't say anything about it, only because we didn't approach the question with the sponsor yet. We want to focus at 100% on the event, we'll see the rest after.

It’s now been weeks since ESL announced the new map pool, featuring de_cobblestone and de_overpass. Now that you’ve had a chance to practice them, what do you think about them? What do you think about the new map veto system? Do you think these changes will work for or against you?

Richard "⁠shox⁠" Papillon: I really like both, I love new things so I'm really happy about it :D. Moreover, we practiced it and as a team there are few things which are really interesting, can't wait to see theses maps being played at LANs !

I like the new map veto system because it's way better than to make a coin toss. For example, at G3 against LC, they won the coin toss and they could choose the final map between dust2 and inferno, I think if we had won this, we surely played the match on dust2 and I guess the score [would have been] different. Now with this new map veto system, there wont be any advantages for one of the two teams and that's better in my opinion, it will be random and so you have to be prepared on more maps so you need to work more than usual.

Dunno if theses changes will work for or against us, I think it's the same for every teams and if you want these changes to work for you then you have to be ready on every map :).

At both of the previous majors we saw a new team win a title (fnatic, Virtus.pro), propelled by new players rising to stardom (flusha, schneider, byali, Snax) . Do you expect another new team to rise up this time and if so, who could it be? What about new players?

Richard "⁠shox⁠" Papillon: I don't really see another new team to rise up, same for players. For me all teams and players who are at the event deserves it so I won't be surprised of any kind of results (teams/individually).

You were apparently fairly sick at G3, and you missed the playoffs only due to G3’s idiocy in their tiebreaker rules. How was the event for you? Did you feel happy about beating NiP, or did the poor ending to your run make it seem like a wasted opportunity?

Richard "⁠shox⁠" Papillon: The event was really painful for me as I said before due to delays etc... I'm happy for the team having beaten NiP because I know that's really important for all the players in terms of psychology. But yeah I had to forget it really fast because I would have prefered to lose to NiP and to win our decisives matches to be out of the groupstages :P.

That's a good thing for the team, but we also have to say NiP were not in their best shape so I don't really give a big importance to this win.

The good thing about G3 was that fxy0 proved he can be a dominant player on LAN as well. How much higher do you realistically believe your ceiling is now, when both him and you are firing on all cylinders? Is there any team you can’t beat in a playoff series?

Richard "⁠shox⁠" Papillon: I already knew fxy0 would do well at LAN because it was the same on CS:S so I haven't been surprised at all. I know we can be a really dangerous team and it's not on me or fxy0, everyone in the team (kioshima, sf & gmx) can do really well and I really think that's our main force, we don't need anyone to make 30+ kills to win a match, we just need to be all "normal", it will be enough. The thing is at G3 I wasn't "normal", it was the worst LAN of my whole career including CS:S also, if I wasn't so bad against LC and IBP, would have win both matches (I'm not saying it was needed me to do 20 kills, but atleast 13/14 and not 6/7 would have been enough).

I don't fear any team. I trust in my team and I know we can beat anyone.

shox's Epsilon will tackle HellRaisers in the opening round of ESL One Cologne, set to begin at 09:00 on Thursday. They're in group A with NiP, Wolf and HR.

Denis "⁠seized⁠" Kostin: "We've been more effective"

Christopher "⁠GeT_RiGhT⁠" Alesund: "Time to win a major"

Kyrylo "⁠ANGE1⁠" Karasiow: "I like the [new] maps a lot"

Nicolaj "⁠Nico⁠" Jensen: "Our A-game can beat anyone"

Vincent "⁠Happy⁠" Schopenhauer: "Tired of quarter-final exits"

Wiktor "⁠TaZ⁠" Wojtas: "We haven't reached our peak"

Pål "⁠Polly⁠" Kammen: "We are here to stay"

Henrik "⁠FeTiSh⁠" Christensen: "There is no I in team"

Jesper "⁠JW⁠" Wecksell: "We can surprise a lot of teams"

iBUYPOWER: "Too many mistakes"

Spencer "⁠Hiko⁠" Martin: "You are in for a treat"

With under two days remaining before ESL One, we have four more interviews coming up featuring Vox Eminor, dAT, Titan and Wolf -- as well as a viewer's guide, and a preview.