tomkeejs: "This was the biggest experience we could have had"

Despite getting off to a good start in Budapest, grabbing one point against HellRaisers after a tie on the second map, Inferno, Dark Tigers finished the tournament in last place, as they lost both maps to FaZe and GameAgents.

We spoke to the team's in-game leader, Tomáš "⁠Tomkeejs⁠" Tomka, towards the end of day one and asked him to evaluate their experience in Hungary.

After qualifying for V4 you had about a month to practice, how did it go?

Since the qualifier we practiced about a week for a local LAN, but then we unfortunately had afternoon shifts and we only started to practice about a week before V4. So there wasn't too much time to practice, but I think we still progressed a lot since the qualifier.

Since this was by far the biggest tournament you've ever attended, was there any special way in which you prepared, did you for example focus on the teams in your group?

No, not at all, we didn't watch a single demo of our opponents, we mainly tried to play our game, which worked out, at least when we played on the stage [against HR].

What were your expectations, who were you confident against in the group?

We definitely believed we would 2-0 GameAgents, which sadly didn't happen because of our mentality after the match against FaZe. With HR we knew it was going to be more or less even, that we could snatch at least one map and fight for a playoffs spot.

You had a 12-3 lead against HR on Inferno but ended up with a tie, what lacked in the second half?

When it comes to the HR match, I think we could have won the first map already, but we made awful mistakes on the CT side. On the second map, I have a feeling we thought we had already won the match and we let go of really important rounds.

You mentioned that the FaZe match affected you ahead of the GameAgents series, what was the morale like after the loss to FaZe?

On Mirage the beginning went perfectly, we were winning 4-0, but then we lost a 2v1 against GuardiaN and from there, we couldn't get into the game at all, our communication was really bad. On the second map, the beginning was similar, it was about 4-4, but once again we shut down after a few lost rounds and we got flashbacks from Mirage.

How would you evaluate your results here and the experience overall?

It was the biggest experience we could have had, we played on a great stage against a good team, we got the chance to play against the best team in the world, which may have been a fiasco, but it was certainly a good experience. 

We expected to 2-0 GameAgents, but I think we can't be ashamed of how we played, we were the biggest underdogs and there were zero expectations of us. We are more or less satisfied, even though we feel bad about not going into the GA match at a 100%, and about Inferno against HellRaisers.

Dark Tigers was originally only a mix for the V4, are you planning on sticking together after the tournament with the same lineup?

At the moment, we have no plans of changing players. We'll try to play with the same lineup, we'll see whether there will still be progress. As long as there is progress, there's no reason to change anyone.

You've already mentioned a local LAN that is coming up, what else do you have in the future, say the next few months?

We'll take a breather when we come back home, particularly because of our mentality, just to sort things out. Then we're going to start practicing again, we want to play the next season of ESEA and try to win as many local tournaments as possible.

What do you make of the Czech/Slovakian scene at the moment? Several teams are still working out new lineups and keep changing players, what are your thoughts on that?

It's definitely a problem on the local scene. At the beginning of the season there are constant changes before teams form, teams disband, people put together various lineups and it's completely different the following month. We're also missing organizations who offer better conditions than just paid expenses, as well as contracts, which we're about to sign.