B1ad3 "losing online was a challenge"

After coming back on Nuke and Cache after having lost the opening map, Train, against FaZe, FlipSid3 earned a spot in tomorrow's quarterfinals, where they will face the North American squad Cloud9.

Andrey "⁠B1ad3⁠" Gorodenskiy spoke to us about the match, going into some detail about the turning points on Nuke and Cache, tactical CS, coaching and leading in game, and the state of his team in the following interview:

Congratulations on being the only local team to make playoffs. First of all, can you run me through the match itself? The first map was pretty rough, you seemed out of the match, in between maps you were really silent, but on Nuke you were able to come back. How did you prepare for the veto? Run us through the basic points of the first couple of maps.

We expected to play these three maps, Train, Cache and Nuke, but not in that order. We wanted to play Nuke first, we were expecting them to pick Cache, but they're really confident on Train and picked it. We always have this problem, we're not so experienced and confident as a tier one team for example, so we always have tough starts in the matches if we're making mistakes.

Teams like FaZe, they take advantage of these mistakes and they did it perfectly. It looked like we were not so confident after the first rounds on Train, and, you know, we were motivated and we wanted to win and we knew that we can win, but we were still making mistakes. We knew how they play on the first side, but there were stupid mistakes like when we were pushing T mid and we knew that there's a guy, but we didn't communicate properly to kill that guy. A lot of similar mistakes.

Then I explained how to play against T side and we took some rounds, but it still wasn't enough rounds to play against FaZe, they have really good individual skill and to play T side against them you have to play perfectly. You can't miss against teams like FaZe, but we still knew that Train was only the first map and that we can play better on the second and third map. We also knew we always start badly, like when we played against NiP at the Major and lost the first map.

I think it's a good thing that we played Nuke as second map, because I can say not a lot of teams know how to play T side on this map confidently. If you wanna close the match you need really confident rounds and know how to control the map even if it's hard to control. That was the plan, to play Nuke second if we lose Train. And it worked, we lost some stupid rounds on T side, but when we changed sides we talked a bit and the plan was to focus as much as possible on pistols. We dicussed every possibility, if they go B, if they go long, or A, we have these retakes and stuff. WorldEdit had like three amazing shots on ramp and from there on we started the comeback and we knew the pistol was the main shifting point.

After we won Nuke we knew how they play Cache, we knew all their habits. We started T side, because we knew what kind of mistakes their players usually make and we took advantage of that and took like the first five rounds. Then we started to make stupid mistakes, communicate too much, we were too hyped. On Train we didn't have enough communication but on Cache we had too much communication. After 5-0, on TeamSpeak, someone was talking at all times. That's why we lost some of the rounds, but then we calmed down and took about three or four of the remaining rounds.

There was one round, which was a critical round towards the end of the match, where you decided to put three players in B and I think FaZe didn't expect that, having that third guy gave you the round and eventually the match. What was the thought process behind that?

Well, considering the reads of the game, there were two perfect reads. On Nuke, I told WorldEdit to expose himself on long on A and then rotate to ramp. They went to ramp and we killed everyone. Also, another good round was when they took the timeout on Nuke and I was 100% sure they would go four long and one door and they did. We discussed each step of that round and it worked perfectly.

On Cache it was the same, the round you're talking about was when I was in heaven and jumped down with the five-seven. It was a B execution, but it was too long, they spent too much time on it, that's why I did that. We knew they rarely take mid quickly, so we just played 2 A and 3 B, we didn't even try to play close mid. That's why I was B all the time. They always start A or start B, never mid, sometimes they go mid fast but in this case we just decided to gamble and leave it. It was a rare situation, so we didn't even think about mid.

At the end of Cache we felt like they were almost coming back, on Nuke I was confident we'd win but on Cache I wasn't, because I didn't know what they would come up with in the last round. The last round was really important and we made good rotations. We were playing two B, so the plan in the last round was to rotate as much as possible and to try to take as many chances as we can, if they're B, throw a flash, kill B, if they're mid, flash, kill mid, and don’t let them go to A site.

FaZe are really notorious to be a really aim-based team, their strategies are not always so thought out and their style is very loose. Whereas your style is kind of the opposite, it's a lot more mental. It seems CS has gone from a heavily aim-based meta to becoming more tactical, the fnatic style was very popular, then the SK/Na`Vi style was prevalent for a while. Where do you think the game is right now?

It was just a matter of time, I was always confident it will shift to a more tactical and strategical meta rather than individual skill, because if you only have individual skill it's not enough. In any sport as soon as someone reaches your individual skill and have good teamplay and communication and strategies, they will outplay you. I was so annoyed by EnVy's playstyle, especially when they won the Major. I felt like it was kinda stupid, because it's easy to win against such a team by out-aiming them and playing smart, like Na`Vi are doing for example.

But Na`Vi couldn't out-aim them I guess. You just need to have five players who are equal and just add a lot of stuff that other team sports have, like teamplay, communication, decision-making. So it's mostly tactical and strategical, and it will always be like that.

Some teams were getting five really good aimers and then a coach to lead. With Valve's new decision, everything's kind of in the air, how do you feel about the decision and where do you think that's gonna leave the game?

I think it's kinda imbalanced when the sixth player is doing most of the job when he's the in-game leader, he sees everything. I tried it with HellRaisers at DreamHack and I saw that it's really easy if you know the game and if you prepare your own strats and everything. You know how other teams play, then it's 51% of the win if you're coordinating.

So yeah, they have a good point of view, I think the decision is right, because they say that it's a game of five players, not six. A coach who's an IGL is definitely a sixth player. I don't think it will lead anywhere, only a few teams have an in-game leader as a coach, so I don't think it'll affect the game in a bad way. Some teams will suffer, like Na`Vi, because they have starix, although now they have younger players like seized who can coordinate. NiP is another team like that, with THREAT.

Let's move on to your preparation for the LAN, online you've been struggling a lot and had a long losing streak, what was the mentality of the team going into this event? Did you expect you could do well?

The whole losing streak was a challenge for the team, if teams want to progress and become better, they always need to face this challenge and to struggle with it, they need to use it to become better. No matter what, they have to believe and see the reality and not let the disappointment and frustration get in their head. You need to focus on the win, not the failures.

It's really hard for a lot of teams, they collapse because of that. We were losing a lot, but we played a lot of tier one teams and some of those matches we could have won. Yeah, we were making mistakes, but we were losing to strong teams and struggling a lot. It was always a good fight, at least on one of the two maps. It was also because of our vacation, we didn't have any matches so some of us didn't play for like ten days and by coincidence we eventually had almost four weeks of vacation, so it was really bad.

That affected us a lot, our teamplay was off and we didn't look like a chain after the vacation. Our players did suffer a lot because of the losses, they were really unhappy. I told them it's just a matter of time, that it's okay, for example Virtus.pro finished in last place in Pro League last season but they won ELEAGUE after that. You just need to face your problems in a proper way.

We didn't have a bootcamp, mostly we were just practising, we didn't prepare anything special. We were just playing, trying to communicate as much as possible, discussed afterplant situations, mid-game situations, trade frags and so on. We were focusing on that. It helped us a lot, but at the same time we lost a lot of matches, and that's why we weren't confident.

How did you gain the confidence back at this event?

I think every player realizes his potential deep inside. We also had a team meeting yesterday and spoke a lot about this, that we need to stop being childish and start focusing on the problems like professionals. It helped us a lot, we were trying our hardest until the last rounds versus FaZe. If we still have a chance, we have to do everything we can just to win. That's all. That was the plan, no matter if we're losing 5-10 or 4-11, we have to try to come back every time. We always know there's a chance to beat any team if you have a good plan and spirits.

Lastly, the team has been together for a while now, a lot of teams shuffled players during the Summer and made changes. You guys did really well at the Major, making it out of groups and now this is another tournament where you advanced from groups. On LAN you've been showing up despite struggling online, what are the team's plans and goals for the near future?

The main plan is to become a better team before the next Major. It will be at the begining of the next year, it will be tough but we want to use the remainder of this year to improve as much as possible. We are Legends, but a lot of teams don't see us that way. We know we're not a stable top eight team, so we will try to improve, to become stable. Also, we're much better on LAN, we can discuss a lot of things, hype ourselves, motivate each other...

What do you think the path to that stability will be? How can you get there?

It's just a matter of time and hard work, that's all. The perfect example is SK, they weren't even top10 and then they began their path after Cologne 2015 where they beat us in overtime, became top8 and after that they were working hard, improving a lot and then won two Majors in a row. So it's just a matter of time, if all players are working hard and aren't lazy. I think all sports are the same that way.