Nifty: "We are trying to create a good connection between everyone"

Aaron "⁠AZR⁠" Ward has done much of the heavy lifting this weekend for Renegades. In the match against CLG, Keith "⁠NAF⁠" Markovic joined in on the fun, and Noah "⁠Nifty⁠" Francis added some of his own highlight-worthy plays.

Nifty was all smiles after getting the better of CLG

You just won the rematch with CLG from earlier in the group, how confident were you heading into the BO3?

We were definitely really confident coming in. Our record prior to this win against CLG was like 8-1 in the past nine maps, so we have felt really good against them lately. Even though the first match here was 16-14, we didn't feel like it should have been — we just didn't play as clean as we would have liked to. Going into this we thought it was going to e a 2-0, unfortunately we messed up a bit on Cobblestone.

Aaron "AZR" Ward has really been performing this event, but we've seen streakiness from him and Justin "jks" Savage before — what do you attribute that to?

Unfortunately, at this current time, everyone is struggling with something whether it is outside of the game or inside of the game. Right now I'm really trying to hype up AZR and get him going, because he is a world-class player, so it is just about bringing out that consistency. So I'm working on him right now, and he just needs to stay focused and do what he does best.

For jks, he is going through mental things, he has these mental frustrations in the game. If he could just move past that, he is so good — his aim, his intuition, his positioning and everything. He is just so smart in the game.

Tomorrow you'll face BIG in your semifinal match. I don't believe you have ever played each other, so how are you feeling about that?

Yeah we have never played BIG, only watched them play. We've watched demos of course, they are a really good team, a really innovative team. We are definitely excited, I would say, because it is a new matchup for us. I think if we are on top of our game, and communicating like we did today, I truly think we can beat them and go to the finals.

You have the Asia Minor coming up, how do you like your chances at that event, and what do you think of the controversy over it being invite-only?

I would say there is a little more competition this time around, but the way I see it, I think we are better than we were before. So I don't think we'll have an issue there, I think we'll come out on top.

As far as the invite controversy goes, when I was first told how it was being done, it was weird, I guess they just didn't want to deal with qualifiers and clashes. I guess I'll say it is OK for me — because we're invited. But for the teams that didn't get a chance to qualify, I'm sure they are frustrated, so I can understand that for sure.

Another team that did get an invite is TyLoo. What do you make of their recent addition of Vladyslav "bondik" Nechyporchuk?

TyLoo is weird man. With Luis "peacemaker" Tadeu as their coach, and now bondik. I believe that they speak really good English, but no one has ever witnessed it. They walk by at events and say hello, it sounds good. They definitely have good players on the team, but you can't help but wonder how the hell do they communicate and work together in a good fashion, how does the coach have a consistent effect on the team.

You had a brief experience using David "Jayzwalkingz" Kempner as a fifth, how did you decide to bring him on?

Because we had him on trial to start, we knew that he was more than likely going to be replaced, because we had other good options on the table, one of those being Keith "NAF" Markovic. But he came in and he really gave it his best, he put in a lot of effort. He took part in everything we do in the house together, tried to learn the strats. I give him a lot of props for coming in. The day after we asked him, he was on a plane.

He was ultimately replaced with NAF, talk about what he brings to the team.

NAF brings a lot of experience, of course, and a high skill ceiling. We are still trying to create a good connection between everyone, and fit him into the team. I think it was very important when we started playing together that we weren't going going to fit ourselves around him, it is all about implementing him into our team.

We would love for him to live in the house, but we aren't going to force him to do anything. He is really reluctant to do that, that might be because his first team house experience was with OpTic, which was a little rough. I told him that we're a family in this house, we have a lot of fun, but we get stuff done.

What do you think of the current state of North America, below the Professional level?

I think there are a lot of players that are coming up that are really good, and can be implemented into Professional teams after they get a certain amount of experience. The Premier teams get chances to play Pro teams in qualifiers, so I think [the overall level] is getting better. There is definitely Australian talent coming up as well, I hear it from my teammates all the time — they keep up!