nexa: "We enjoy being the underdog"

After Imperial won their opening match at StarSeries i-League Season 6, we sat down with Nemanja "⁠nexa⁠" Isaković to hear his take.

nexa & co. started strong out of the gate in Kiev, beating #11 team in the world, HellRaisers, on Cache, to start with a positive record in the Swiss group stage of the $300,000 event.

nexa talks about what changed in the team from when Imperial went out to ENCE in the DreamHack Montreal semi-finals to now and how the team has evolved with hAdji and pounh, the match against HellRaisers, and his role as the team's in-game leader, among others.

Last event you played was Montreal, where you went out in semis. What shape were you in then compared to now?

We had just gotten pounh and hAdji, it was our first LAN with them, so it was the honeymoon. I think we should have beaten ENCE pretty easily, but we lost a 2vs5 just like the one we won here on Cache today, and it just snowballed out of control, going to overtime where we eventually lost the game.

I think we were playing well individually, my calling was on point, and our T sides were really strong. We were just unlucky because we don't have much experience so when things start to go downhill people start to get tilted and nobody has strong enough character to bring the team back from the pits of hell.

As you said, that was right after hAdji and pounh joined the team, so tell me how it is going now that you've had more time to adapt together and feel each other out.

Well, we used to be five individuals playing CS, and now we're more like a team. We set proper roles, we found some new set-ups because all of our CTs are really bad, so we're just trying to work as hard as we can to play as a team, play together, have good set-ups, flash for each other, and so on, but I think it's still early because all of our players are PUG players and they're not used to buying flashes and mollies and so on.

After we win a pistol round I'll look around and everyone has an AK and one smoke instead of SMGs and nades, which is a habit picked up in PUGs... It'll take a while for us to change things like that, but people are on the team to learn and improve and I'm confident that with time it will happen.

Talking about leading a team like this that is more puggy and doesn't think about strategy as much, not being a full in-game leader... How is it working out for you?

Well, being 100% honest I don't really want to keep IGLing. It's not my primary role and I don't really enjoy doing it, I'm just doing it because we didn't have other options and somebody had to step up and do it until we find an IGL who is actually an IGL. As far as IGLing on this team goes... I don't want to say it's easy, but I've been playing with EspiranTo and nukkye for over six months now, so I know exactly how they want to play, how they're going to move, what plays they like to make, how they hold, and everything like that, so it makes it easy for me to call. I like to keep it loose because it's a puggy team and that's the way you play in PUGs, three guys play contact somewhere, rushes, just basic things. Having players that play that way makes it easier to call.

Tell me a bit about how you prepared for HellRaisers, anything particular you paid attention to or did you just go out and try and win the aim battles and so on?

Well, we knew how the veto was going to go. I expected it to be Train, and it was down to Train and Cache, but for some reason they banned Train and we ended up on Cache. I don't want to say we completely anti-stratted them, but we did have a basic idea of what they were going to be doing. We started off on the wrong foot, but that's expected from us because we always have bad CT sides. I kept saying, "don't get down, guys, we know we're insane on T side, we'll get over 10 rounds, let's just grind out the CT side."

Some players made some good plays late in the half, we got a few crucial entries, EspiranTo and nukkye had a few good individual rounds, which gave us six rounds, and that was probably one of the best CT sides we've had in a while... As soon as we switched sides I was sure we could win, and when we won the pistol round that kind of confirmed my suspicions that the second half would be a breeze. We got like 10 rounds and they only got two.

What is it that makes you such a good team attacking?

It's because you don't need as much teamplay, it's more reliant on individuals making plays. You could see EspiranTo walking through the mid smoke and getting two entries, or nukkye getting a double after picking from Main, or me opening door and getting two. It's just based off of individual play, which is our bread and butter.

You beat HellRaisers, who are considered one of the better teams here. Where's your confidence at right now?

It boosted our confidence a lot. I would say we're a LAN team. When we're online it's just hard to get the hype, so players get easily tilted and that's why you see us losing maps to teams we shouldn't be losing maps or matches to, but when we're on LAN we're on another level, our focus is completely different than online. We're hyped, we're fist-bumping each other, we're yelling, all of the things you can't do online.

The only bad LAN we played on LAN was DreamHack Tours, which is when we lost to HellRaisers and finished in last place, so for us this was a bit of a revenge. We wanted to beat them on LAN because we beat them online the other day and I was suspecting that if they then beat us here they would think we're just onliners, so it boosted our confidence that we managed to beat them on LAN as well.

That was in the EPICENTER qualifier, which you lost to AVANGAR last night. Did that affect you at all coming into today's match?

We played the quarter-finals the day before yesterday against HellRaisers, a match we won 2-1, but the TO didn't want to move the dates so we had to play the semi-finals and the finals yesterday. Since we were all at home, we had to fly out here early in the morning to be in time to play the qualifier.

I came in at like 14:00 and the first match was at 15:00, so I got in and set up and instantly played. I had woken up at 5:00, like most of the guys, so we all came, set up, and played from 15:00 to midnight. We just couldn't keep our focus up until the very end, which is why I think we lost. If we played that game again and everyone was fresh and not tired without sleeping for like 20 hours, I'm sure we would beat them 2-0 every time.

What's the team's goal here at StarSeries, did you set anything?

We don't have really high expectations, we're just hoping to get into the playoffs. That's the main goal, and then just see how far we can go.

So trying to not stress too much...

Yeah, exactly. We enjoy being the underdog, and I think we perform better when we are.