smooya: "I would love to be competing within the top 20 by the end of 2018"

Epsilon are among the 114 teams partaking in Copenhagen Games' BYOC qualifier, which will have only four spots in the $100,000 tournament up for grabs. 

smooya's Epsilon will be in Denmark for Copenhagen Games

We caught up with Owen "⁠smooya⁠" Butterfield during Epsilon's bootcamp in Belgium and quizzed the British talent on his spectacular form in 2018, Epsilon's chances in the qualifier, their preparation for the Danish event, and more.

This is first LAN event of the year for you. How excited are you?

I'm very excited to get the chance to compete against tough opposition on LAN since we have had some really good success recently online. It will be good to see if we can have a relative similar showing on LAN as online.

We haven't been that strong online within the past 2-5 weeks, but I'm confident since it is a different game on LAN, and when we are all pumped and communicating as we should be I know we can bang with the best teams at the event.

How did the bootcamp in Belgium go? How long was it and what did you work on?

It was planned to be exactly two weeks, but sadly "Jenko" had to leave for exams that he didn't get told about until he was here, which was like five days into the bootcamp. In that time we watched many demos together and just did 5-6 scrims a day working on mainly our team play on taking map control and executes. Of course we practised more online, but we took the last three days off to just take a break and work individually so we can be ready for the LAN.

The bootcamp was good since we have definitely got better on maps we were terrible on, but we feel as if it could've gone a lot better for us.

The BYOC Qualifier in Denmark will feature tough opposition such as Rogue and Imperial. How do you see your chances in the qualifier and in the main event if you can advance?

I am fully confident that we can beat any team at that event on the day if we are hitting our shots, that's all CS is about. So we will have to see, the tougher opponent is definitely Rogue since they have players who have proven they are good on LAN, whereas Imperial have a few players who have not. Either way I'd love to face either of them as it would be a good match.

Talking about the recent roster changes, what was the reason for cosmeeeN's removal?

We did not remove him, he had wanted to leave for a while now since he wasn't happy with how he had been playing and with the roles that he was getting in the team. It sucks because he is by far the most talented player I have played with in a team, but it just wasn't meant to be. I am happy to say I played with such a player and managed to achieve what we did, even if it was just minor things, he's a great guy inside and outside of the game. I wish him the best in whatever he does and I'm sure he will come back and be GODMEEN again pretty soon.

You guys chose to add Tom "jenko" Jenkinson in his place. Could you tell us why you chose him and how this roster change has affected the in-game roles within the squad? What are the current roles?

Since there was literally no good European players available (we looked hard and made offers for some), we thought that, since we all know Jenko, for a short-term fix he would be a great idea. Sadly, it affected us negatively since we did not gel as well as we expected at the beginning, but I'm confident in him to perform on LAN since he's always been known to play very well on LAN.

Current roles are:

Smooya - Awper
Robiin - IGL on cbble, nuke, inferno, mirage, overpass
Surreal - IGL on cache, train (not even joking).
Tsack - support
Jenko - entry

You've personally had a great start to 2018, averaging a 1.28 rating. What do you think about your own performance and how have you developed your game in the last few months?

Any success I've had recently all comes from my team, 100%. They let me do pretty much whatever I want, whenever I want, I get all the roles I want and tsack has even resorted to dropping me Deagles in the second round if we lose pistol so I can save for my AWP without wasting $700 in the second round. There is a lot more things that they do for me, but that's just an example.

But I have been putting in a lot of time playing DM and I've tried to stay away from pugging at a lower level as much as i can to avoid bad habits and just focus mainly on deathmatching, and it seems to be working!

What are Epsilon's objectives, both short and long term? Any other LAN events further down the road?

Short term goals for this team, I guess, is to get top 4-8 at CPH Games, long term is to make it to the ESL Pro league and compete there against the best teams in the world. In terms of LANs, I have no idea, we are just just going to have to try and qualify for some through online qualifiers.

I would love to maybe get a chance to join a top 25+ team and show my true potential and even grow as a player even more. I would love to be competing within the top 20 by the end of 2018. If it means making roster changes within this team then that will be done after Copenhagen Games.

I would also love to play at a Minor, but since we can't do that with this team it kind of gets crossed off the list.

How do you feel about the United Kingdom getting to host the next Major in September? Will this one have a special meaning for you?

It has no special meaning for me really since I won't be playing or even spectating. I don't really get excited over the idea of watching high level CS in a stadium. I'd much rather be the one playing, so...

The Major announcement came at a time as Gfinity dropped CS:GO in the Elite Series. What is your opinion about Gfinity's decision? Do you see this as a step back in the development of the UK scene?

Not at all, since Gfinity left we have found many more stable rosters. Wind and Rain are a bunch of talents who had played in random teams within Gfinity then all found each other once they left, they are currently in EU MDL and have been doing very well for themselves. Endpoint have also found a very solid lineup who are looking very strong, they've just made the playoffs in ESEA Main and are hoping for a chance to get to MDL also through the UK EPS. I wish them and everyone from the UK the best since I know we have some real talent here, we just need to find consistency against the EU teams.