autimatic: "We prepared a lot [for our first matches], almost to a point where it was too much"

Cloud9 are now 1-2 in the Swiss format after suffering losses in the first two rounds, 8-16 to G2 on Cache and 13-16 to Space Soldiers on Cobblestone, and picking up their first win in round three with a comfortable Mirage against Virtus.pro.

autimatic feels that the team overprepared for their first matches

Our next interview from Atlanta is with Timothy "⁠autimatic⁠" Ta, who discussed what went wrong for Cloud9 in the first two rounds and how they adapted for the Virtus.pro matchup:

Let's go back to day one and your loss to G2 on Cache. Did you expect it to go down on Cache at all, since it hasn't been much of a favorite for you?

I think we actually had the pick and we picked Cache, yeah, we were well prepared. They pretty much countered us in the first three gunrounds or something, I think NBK even said it in an interview. The first six rounds, actually, they played just to counter our strats, so the first gunround we went out, he was truck, we died, second gunround I think we went out mid, but they were well prepared for that, and then the third gunround they were ready to delay boost Z, which is really unorthodox. They played really well.

This was your first time playing Space Soldiers, but it didn't go your way on Cobble, what happened at the end, why do you think you weren't able to close it out?

Yeah, it was our first time playing them, but we had a pretty good read on what they were going to do, especially on the CT side we almost always knew what site they were going to take. But I think it just came down to that we weren't really playing our own game and we weren't getting kills that we normally would get. Like for instance, I had four kills maybe on the CT side and they were coming A a lot, and I normally always do pretty well at A, but that match I was playing poorly. And then on T side we almost brought it back, but we had a bad anti-eco round that we should have won, we had two bad anti-eco rounds I think, and that pretty much lost us the match.

Third match, VP on Mirage - quite the opposite, very comfortable for you -, what did you think about facing the Poles, who normally have this reputation facing North American teams?

VP's a team that I respect a lot and I know that they're going through kind of a rough patch right now, so going into the game we didn't really think about who we were playing, our coach just gave us rundowns of a couple of go-to strats that they have and who plays where. Other than that, we were just focused on playing our own game, I think everyone was really in the zone, Stewie particularly was really in it. We just had good reads and good communication that game.

Was it important to get the second round on the second half to stop their momentum, as they closed out the first half with a few rounds going their way?

Yeah, whenever you can win an eco round, it's pretty important, but even if we didn't win it, we had a lot of strats that we were going to run that a lot of people haven't seen yet. We were well prepared either way.

You've still got your backs against the wall with two losses already, how do you feel about going into the last day here?

The first two losses we got, we prepared a lot, almost to a point where it was too much. It really just messed up our flow and we didn't really play our own game, we were always trying to counter and always trying to think about what they did instead of what we were doing. For these next two games, we're just going to focus on playing our own game. We're obviously going to review a little bit, try to think about how they like to play, but other than that, focus on us.

After you guys went 3-0 in the Main Qualifier, RUSH said that you were feeling on point individually, has your confidence been affected now?

Even though we're 1-2, we're still confident that we can come back 3-2. Personally, my confidence is pretty high right now, everyone else is feeling like they're hitting their stride, everyone's feeling good individually, everyone's feeling good as a team, because we've been putting a lot of work into reviewing stuff. We feel like we're on the same page.

You've mentioned your preparation and reviewing your opponents quite a bit, does that come down to valens trying to feed you information, does he work with tarik in that sense? How does it work when you try to prepare for opponents?

It's not anyone's fault that we were preparing too much, I think everyone was trying to do their best. Pretty much everyone on the team knows their tendencies, whatever team we're playing we know how they like to play, and everyone's just giving feedback and sometimes it becomes a little bit much for the caller. It's no one's fault really, everyone's talking too much and sometimes we need to let tarik call, because I think he's really improved as a caller over the last couple of months.

Has tarik changed in any way?

Yeah, before, he was a little bit more relaxed with his calling, he kind of just liked to do everything on the fly and that's okay, but on this team, I think we operate a lot better when there's some structure. Even if we're playing fast, it's good to have structure and it's good to just be certain about what everyone's doing on the team. He's changed in that sense where whatever strat he brings he'll bring it to the team first and then we'll refine it, rather than just doing it on the fly.