tucks: "When ESL said I could play their events, it was the best day of my career"

Chiefs made headlines following their upset wins against North and fellow countrymen Renegades at IEM Sydney last year in May, where we spoke to in-game leader Tyler "⁠tucks⁠" Reilly for the first time.

tucks is eager to compete at DreamHack Open events

Since then, Chiefs continued to be a dominant force in the Oceanic region and went on to represent Australia at other international tournaments including IeSF World Championship, WEGL Super Fight Invitational and most recently the ESEA Season 26 Global Challenge LAN.

After being the first Australian roster to qualify for the Global Challenge LAN twice, we sat down with tucks to learn about their current situation, upcoming events, and other matters. 

First of all, what do you think of New York and all the snow we have here right now?

I love it! In Australia, it is 35 to 40 degrees celsius every day. I love the cold, and love dressing up for the cold.

Coming into the event, you've been seeded as the eighth seed. Do you feel that you got shortchanged for coming from a non-Major region?

Yes absolutely, I completely disagree with the way the seeds work on that. I think every Australian team pretty much outperformed at least nearly all the NA teams except when we played [in Season 22], so I don't really see the logic behind the third-place NA Premier team being seeded higher than us. It's pretty ridiculous and we probably would have schooled them if we played them. I think we proved that internationally the Australian teams, in general, have done better than NA Premier teams. I think it's just a bit lazy.

So you think that Chiefs should have been the fifth seed at least?

Easily, I think we should be seeded at least above the second or third-place NA teams and even the first. I'm not sure, but I don't think an NA team has made it out of groups before or had easy groups if they did. 

Moving on, you just had a roster change happen, kind of forced on you. How tough was that after being together for a while? 

It sucks losing Joshua "⁠INS⁠" Potter because he really is a good player, but I think that it probably was a blessing in disguise and no disrespect to him. Matthew "⁠Texta⁠" O'Rourke is an incredible player and offers more to the team. Something we really needed was someone a lot more vocal and confident, who can read and make calls and stuff like that, which Texta adds. Also, he consistently make big plays, which is what we needed in our team. 

Chiefs showing the world what they could do at IEM Sydney 2017

Can you talk about the salary and sponsorship conditions that you are working with in Australia, as a Minor region? 

It's building, I think, it’s the best way to say it. 2018 is going to be very big because this year the salaries rose a lot. When we attended Mountain Dew League in 2016, we were the only team there that was not getting paid. There were barely any teams getting paid, like $200-$300 a week, which made no sense to me.

It’s gradually going up, sponsorships are getting more into it. More events are on the way, and with ESL giving us spots to their big events now, it’s going to help us a lot. Now the Australian teams will be given more opportunities to be recognised globally, and sponsorships will jump onto that.

Speaking of ESL, you have the Oceanic closed qualifier for IEM Katowice coming up on the 20th. How are you feeling going into that? Because you had to attend this event with your old lineup and obviously you have to prepare for the qualifier with Texta.

I think we’re going to do a bootcamp for that and Liam "⁠malta⁠" Schembri is going to WESG APAC Finals with ex-Kings after this MDL event, which cuts off a week of practice for us. It’s not the worse, but I think especially in Australia, scrims aren’t the greatest. I mean they are good, but you don’t want to play the top Australian teams all the time because you are going to be competing against them during the qualifiers.

So I think a week of just bootcamping, dry-running, practising and talking about the game 24/7 is the most effective way of practice for me instead of two weeks of online playing. It’s very fresh and you have all these ideas when you come to the bootcamp. A week of bootcamp before the IEM closed qualifier is really good and we will be ready to go.

What do you think of the overall state of the Australian division for MDL in terms of the competition level? 

I think the competition level is really bad, but it’s good for the up-and-coming teams to get best-of-one games against the top tier teams. However, for the top teams, it is a waste of time.

I wouldn’t mind it if the league was a shorter period, where you could smash out the games in 2-3 weeks, but you have to play for up to 8-10 weeks, and it just annoys you because it gets in the way of your practise and you’re only playing one best-of-one match every night.

The league consisting of sixteen teams is a stretch for that kind of competition, but it’s good for the up-and-coming teams to be able to get some sort of experience over the top teams.

Gfinity is coming to Australia this year, after seeing a couple of successful seasons it had in the UK, do you think it will have any meaningful impact on the scene?

I’m not sure, there’s been minimal details about it publicly. I know it’s a LAN league and that would be nice to play in. It just depends how Gfinity will do it, they can easily destroy it or do it well, make the players hate or love it. Right now I think I can speak on behalf of the majority of Australian players, because it can be worrying that the top players have no idea what is going on. When Gfinity Australia first announced it, they announced these unknown organisations that you would represent in the league. I don’t think any team would want to leave their current organisations, so we have to see how they will handle that. Teams are worried that they would be bought out by random organisations.

Unfortunately, Australia is the only MDL region that doesn’t have its correspondent professional league. Obviously that limits your team in terms of prestige, has it ever been a thought as a team to move to North America or Europe?

Around the time of IEM Sydney, when we had a lot of success and we were dominating the Australian scene, we wanted to look at that. However, Josh [INS] has a girlfriend here and we have families, so we were hesitant and didn’t push for it at all. Maybe now with the new roster, it could be something we can look into. I don’t want to go there if we’re not in form. I want to go there being ready to blitz through Premier in NA and I think we can qualify for Pro League the first season we are there, no problem. It could be worthwhile, but it has to come through the investment from Chiefs if they think it’s worthy. It’s a lot of money sending us over there, getting us a house, PCs and everyone moving over.

tucks' career changed when ESL and DreamHack allowed him to compete following his VAC ban in 2014

Seeding issues aside, the core of your squad has taken part in a couple of these Global Challenge events by now, what do you think of them in general, and the interesting mix of teams that show up?

I think they’re great. Especially for us in Australia, up until recently we didn’t really get a lot of chances to go overseas and play an event like this, which is well-run. There are a good mix of European and North American teams. It’s really good for Australia to come here to play against them, see their playstyles, meet the players, and get their opinions on things and what they think. Lastly, just don’t give us the last seed.

What do you think of South Africa being axed from the MDL circuit?

I remember reading about it because I know they weren’t too happy. It’s unfortunate for them since you’ve pretty much seen nothing outside from South Africa at all. I think they had one decent team called Bravado and the one player called bLacKpoisoN. I think it’s tough and I don’t really remember them and how they did, so they must not have been impressive. It would have been a good opportunity for them to compete, so it definitely sucks for them.

Then as someone who has struggled with eligibility to play in certain tournaments because of your VAC ban, what are your thoughts on the new ESEA rules that will force further age limitations on players?

I can fully relate with how these players would feel, waking up and seeing that rule knowing that you have to wait until the next 6 months or more is done. You have to play with weaker players in the same league and not being able to achieve any higher. It sucks and unfortunate for them.

From a player’s point of view or someone in a similar situation, I feel bad for them and the teams. The time does fly in a way, so I think right now they will be supportive of them and in six month’s time and you have your birthday, you’ll be fine. It’s not the end of the world if you’re missing out on one season of Pro League or Premier.

Finally, with the rule changes for ESL, DreamHack and seemingly others getting with the program, would you say your 2017 for Counter-Strike was the most enjoyable?

Absolutely, this past year has been incredible, we achieved so much and formed a great team. I made a lot of good friends and met many cool people. When ESL came out and said I could play their events, it was the best day of my career, and DreamHack too!

It creates many opportunities for us, and I want to try attend DreamHack Open events this year, because it would be good for our learning experience. It is something the Chiefs organisation would be willing to pay and send us over to those events. Hopefully we can get an invite or qualifier. I know 2018 will be even bigger, and I am very excited for that!