innocent: "We screwed up [with CLG]"

Gamers2 started off with a narrow loss to CLG on de_cache, which sent them to the lower bracket against PiTER, who played quadruple overtime de_cache of their own with Titan.

We touched on Gamers2's preparation going into the qualifier, their first match with CLG, as well as the one with PiTER, which is now underway, after we talked about events surrounding Valve's decisions throughout the last few weeks.

With all the bans and events around it, you only had a week of practice basically, so how much preparation have you actually got?

Paweł "⁠innocent⁠" Mocek: "We were practicing for like a month actually before the qualifiers, Katowice is the most important event for us this year, so we were preparing for it directly. Our game lately was kinda shaky where we couldn't win and we were losing 15-0 with Na`Vi for example and then 16-2 with fnatic. I don't know, we were just shaky and not confident, and later with this whole ban affair, it made us less confident and under a big pressure. I feel like we are prepared, but something went wrong in the first match."

Before we get to the first matches here at ESL One Katowice qualifier, let's talk about the bans, was there any communication at all with Valve before you got unbanned?

"We just learned about the ban on Friday night and we didn't know what it was about. We never sold a match, they treated us like other teams like Epsilon, who actually sold their match. We thought there was some kind of evidence that we also sold a match. We kept digging and digging and didn't find anything, we even asked csgolounge and ESL, but they didn't know a thing. So we wrote to Valve, we made tons of statements and stuff, and they replied us that they wanted to talk actively. Just have a good conversation, I e-mailed them and got a response after three minutes. They were sitting on our case and I don't know, later on they just figured out that it was unfair and let us play, which we are grateful for. But it was really not a cool move to ban people after rumours."

How long before that did Gamers2 approach you? How long have you been in talks with them?

"The first contract was signed like three days before our ban, everything was just set. We were meant to join them on Monday, and then we got banned. We got banned and they said "Okay, we don't cooperate with match-fixers," and it was over, they said our contracts are done for and that there is nothing to talk about. But later they asked us what happened and if we have any explanation for the situation. With the common forces with them, we talked to Valve about the ban, ocelote was texting them, for example Carmac to bring as much power as we can. I really appreciate that they didn't cut us off and let us play and helped us a lot with the situation."

Let's go over to the matches here then, the first match, the only one that you played as of now, with CLG. You managed to win the eco after losing the pistol and got two more rounds as Terrorists, but you couldn't get anything more done. What went wrong on your T side?

"I'm sure that we felt pretty confident after winning the eco and we just had the perfect respawns. Every round we had a spawn to B to pick, to middle to pick and we just wanted to try that. It was a mistake that we did that, but didn't practice that. Our game was based strictly around strats, and we worked hard on it. We started to worry about the score when it was 9-3 and it was too late. In the last three rounds we played a set tactic, one of them worked and two remaining rounds were pretty close. I don't know, we just felt too confident, we didn't use our tactics and that was the mistake. It won't happen again."

Then you got to play CT, you lost the pistol, but started coming back into the match after, you even had a 1v2 win throughout. What did you do as CT to prevent those attacks from CLG?

"I would like to say that we had this game, after winning the pistol round, we had this game. We started a comeback, we knew exactly what they would play. Every strat, every grenade that we saw, we knew what the tactic was. I don't know what went wrong, we lost an eco and then lost a 2on4 and every other round we played excellent. We just read them, we were watching a lot of demos, but it wasn't enough. We just screwed it up and I hope we can bring two victories after this. It's a huge motivation for us, we will not play that bad in other matches." 

You were talking about knowing what CLG would do, you had at least a few days to figure out your initial opponent, how much have you prepared specifically for CLG and maybe Titan, who you could expect to meet later on?

"We were not preparing just for the opponents, we didn't make anti-strats or something, we just learned how they like to play, what they are doing. We were talking about it three days before the tournament, for example that tarik likes to go inside of a smoke when they attack A, or they throw the smoke and rush to vents. We just knew what they play but we never positioned ourselves to prevent those attacks. It was just knowledge that could make us win, but we lost the easiest rounds of the game and that cost us the whole match."

What do you think about PiTER as a team, nobody expected them to do any good because they changed two players a few days before the tournament, what do you expect from them now?

"They are playing with two stand-ins and they almost managed to upset Titan, who are the favourites of the whole competition. Definitely a team to be scared of, not going to be easy, I think it might be even harder than the CLG match. I'm sure they are pumped up and they wanna play even better than against Titan. But I expect them to lose, because they're playing against us (laughs)."

Do you have any shoutouts to your new sponsors, fans, etc.?

"I'd like to thank every possible person that cheers for us, every fan from my fanpage, Gamers2, the management of the organization for the amazing work with our ban and the amazing support that they give us, the sponsors and everyone who supports us!"

We've got another interview lined up with the first team to advance directly to ESL One Katowice, specifically CLG's Tarik "⁠tarik⁠" Celik, who shared his thoughts on their matches here in the angelo Hotel and more.