jks: "I don't think there's any reason why we couldn't get back to where we were"

We managed to catch up with Justin "⁠jks⁠" Savage ahead of ESL One Cologne and heard about Renegades' preparation, the AUG nerf, and the currently LAN-heavy circuit.

The Australian side had their best run of form to date earlier this year when they surpassed expectations at the Major, reaching the playoffs, and following that up with a 3-4th placing at StarSeries S7. However, after climbing up to the 5th spot in the world rankings, visa issues hampered the team and saw them struggling to maintain that position.

Going into Cologne, Renegades are ranked 15th in the world, falling out of the spotlight as other teams made their breakouts. In our interview ahead of the tournament, jks says that his team has become underdogs in other people's eyes, and they will be hoping that works in their favor as they look to regain the status they had earlier in the year.

Let's start with when you got the crew back together after almost two months of visa issues. What was the first course of action to get Renegades back on the path you were after the Major and StarSeries S7?

When we got Sean back it was only two days before Dreamhack Dallas was starting, so the best we could do was to update him on all the new things we had implemented in game while he was gone, and of course practice as much as possible before the event started, outside of media obligations and such. But it's still tough to adjust after not playing as a full team for two months. I think our result at Dallas wasn't too surprising considering that, but I think we still had an OK showing if you look at the results considering the lack of game time.

After that, we decided it was best if we went back home for a two-week break before starting up again. We had basically been on the road since the Major, on top of having all these visa issues, traveling everywhere and playing with stand-ins. We decided that before we play ESL Cologne we will have a bootcamp in Europe, with the same practice schedule and a similar environment as we did before the Major and Starladder at the start of the year. Everyone's feeling refreshed and keen to play some big tournaments again.

Team chemistry not being as good as it was before was something AZR saw as an issue for you guys at DreamHack Masters Dallas, a tournament you played shortly after Gratisfaction flew into the States. How has the in-game chemistry been developing since then?

It's been improving every day since Sean has been back playing in the team. I think the main issue over the last few months was mental fatigue though, at least personally. Being on the road and traveling a lot, combined with not having a date of when Sean's visa will be accepted was pretty mentally draining. It also doesn't help that we didn't have proper practice for a lot of that time either, and then having to adjust our game and strategies playing with stand-ins. So it was difficult for us to be at 100% with all these things happening. But thankfully those issues are now behind us and we are improving and picking up where we left off. Hopefully, things will continue that way and we can show it at Cologne and the following tournaments!

Tell me about the bootcamp, what's the focus and how happy are you with how it has been going?

We've been bootcamping at the NVIDIA offices in Munich since the 21st and it's been great. The offices have the best facilities for a bootcamp and the staff are very welcoming also. The focus has been on a few things, starting with getting the chemistry back together because we haven't played properly as a full team for a long time, and getting a lot of hours up in game because we are just coming off a short break. We're adding new things to our game map by map, as well as reviewing what hasn't worked for us over the last few months and removing them from our game. I think everyone is pretty happy with how it is going, and the atmosphere is good! Everyone is excited to play some CS again, so hopefully, it pays off at the tournaments coming up.

Earlier in the year, you managed to reach the fifth place in the world rankings as somewhat of an outsider team, but since then, Vitality and FURIA have managed to pull off similar feats. Do you think the downtime you had and other teams rising up will make it harder for you to climb back up to were you where, more difficult than it was initially?

I think the obvious reason we aren't still up there is that we haven't played any big tournaments since then, as you said. I think we can definitely compete with teams that are around that ranking still, so I don't think there's any reason why we couldn't get back to where we were. It's up to ourselves to perform and to show that we deserve that top 5 ranking again. All the teams in the top 10 are competitive and playing really well, so it wouldn't be easy, but we have done it before so I believe we can do it again.

ESL One Cologne will be the first event where we will witness the nerfed AUG in action. From your experience in practice, how do you think the decreased fire rate will impact the meta? Also, Renegades was one of the squads whose rise coincided with the rise in popularity of the AUG, do you think its nerf could impact your team more negatively than others?

I'm not too sure, to be honest. I haven't used it much in practice at all except for trying it out in specific areas on certain maps. I think from what I've seen the majority of players have gone back to the M4A4, and only using the AUG how I mentioned. It's a lot easier for T's now to abuse the aim duels from long distance since everyone has realised the SG is overpowered in a lot of situations, so that should also be nerfed soon I think.

I don't think the AUG nerf has negatively impacted us more than it has any other team, at least from what I can see in practice. If you look at it that way it's obvious that we played better CS during that time frame when it was popular, but we played better CS in general because of other reasons than just us using the AUG more often. Everyone was (and still is) more comfortable and confident in their roles, and we just focused on our teamwork and fundamentals which I think pushed us further than before during this first half of the year.

This event is regarded as the most competitive one aside from the Majors, with this year's edition probably more competitive than ever. Where did you set the bar for yourselves going into Cologne? Are you aiming at a specific placing or are there goals you want to reach more related to how you play and issues you want to see fixed?

We want to make it to the playoffs at least, so we will be focusing on one game at a time until then. I haven't played on this stage yet and it's been a personal goal to make it there, and I think it's one of the best events of the year so it would be awesome to play in front of that crowd with the rest of the boys. We want to have a good showing but also not put too much pressure on ourselves either. I think we are somewhat of the underdogs going into this tournament because we dropped a bit in the rankings.

Earning a high ranking saw Renegades invited to quite a few events this year, allowing you to skip online qualifiers. In addition to that, the number of online matches overall went down due to changes in ECS and EPL formats. Do you enjoy being in this position where you almost exclusively play offline games? Did you notice any drawback from not having much online CS to play, in terms of keeping your match fitness up for example?

We used to play a lot of online qualifiers, and some of them were very mentally draining as they would last for 12 or 14 hours because of all the best of three matches, so it's not really something I miss. It's much easier being able to plan our schedule ahead of time so we can include a proper bootcamp before multiple events, which also allows us to play better CS in general.

On the topic of online CS, I'd prefer it if all the matches were held offline, so we can have proper practice for a week or whatever it may be in Europe or NA before playing the offline event. Having less travel so we can prepare better and practice more efficiently is much more beneficial to us than traveling back and forth like we used to. For example, we would play an event in Europe or Asia, then be traveling back to NA to play two or four maps of online CS the following day in NA while jet lagged. But it seems with the way it's heading this year, everything is being held on LAN, so that's definitely a good thing.

Your form this year has been very impressive, averaging a 1.18 Big Event rating (8th best) over 38 maps played. Because of that, an interesting talking point in the public domain has been the possibility of you earning a spot in the Top 20 players of the year, which would be your first individual accolade, as well as the first one for anyone from your region. Has becoming a Top20 player been something you thought about, either long term or in light of your recent form? Are you someone that can get inspired by such achievements?

I don't really think about that stuff too much because I want to stay level headed. I'm just focused on doing the most I can do inside and outside of the game to improve myself and to help my team win, while still having fun. It would be a nice individual achievement to show that the hard work has paid off, but winning a big tournament this year would be much more memorable.