blameF on playing Pro League online: "Anything can happen; it's a bit of a wildcard"

In his latest ESL Pro League Season 11 interview, James "⁠BanKs⁠" Banks sat down with Benjamin "⁠blameF⁠" Bremer to talk about the event being switched to an online format, Complexity's second chance in the Europe Minor, the logistics of leading the team, and more.

Complexity will kick off Group B of ESL Pro League Season 11 Europe on Tuesday against a declining FORZE side that is looking to get back to winning ways after an extensive period of uninspiring results. The group, which also features the heavy-hitters of Natus Vincere and fnatic, will hold two spots for the next stage of the tournament.

With Pro League being moved to an online format as a result of the coronavirus, Complexity, who have players from three different countries, found themselves in search of a place to practice. Combined with no place to bootcamp effectively and the event being moved online, blameF explained that "it's such a different vibe, anything can happen" in regards to their group. "Now that it's online it's a bit of a wildcard," he added.

blameF continued to recognise Complexity's inconsistencies when playing online, with the Danish in-game leader commending the squad's offline capabilities while acknowledging their unreliable online form. "I would hope that we would be able to play just fine online, but we've definitely seen in the past within the team how bad we can play when it is online," he said.

Despite initially failing in the qualifying process for the Europe Minor on three separate occasions, Complexity finally secured a spot at the regional the event after making their way through the closed bracket without dropping a map, but the process was a difficult one. After finding out the team were replacing MAD Lions in unforeseen circumstances, the European squad hopped straight on a flight, with blameF describing the unexpected opportunity as "a dream".

With all the chaos from flying last-minute to Europe for the Minor qualifier and travel restrictions across the continent because of the coronavirus, Complexity have struggled to find time to practise for their EPL group. "We only started practising again yesterday, there were four days when we just traveled from country to country, so not a lot of practice," blameF explained. "But we'll make it work with what we've got".

BanKs also brought focus to the team's practice in North America and how different it is from playing in Europe, saying: "If you spend two weeks practising in America, you will play the same teams over and over again, it is not beneficial." This is a sentiment that has been shared by teams such as Liquid in the past.

Some more open-ended questions allowed for great insight into the functionality of the team as BanKs asked about how the team works. "We have so many different personalities that I have to handle each person in a different way," blameF disclosed. "For example, Owen (oBo) is 16 years old and I’ve never met someone who takes criticism as well as he does". The Dane was full of praise for his teammates despite describing some difficulties they have faced, but concluded his answer by saying that "it's about finding out how to approach each player".