d4rty: "Without Axed and cynic, I don't think we'd be able to do any of this"

The young American believes that BOSS' lack of a bootcamp served to motivate the team.

BOSS arrived in Monterrey, Mexico as the sole Americas RMR attendee without organizational backing and the only team, according to Matthew "⁠d4rty⁠" Paplawskas, that didn't have the opportunity to bootcamp before the event.

Despite this, and with the odds being stacked against them in their opening match against MIBR, BOSS claimed a 13-9 victory against the Brazilians on Ancient, and are now in the 1-0 group heading into round two.

Following the victory, HLTV spoke to d4rty about the upset win, Josh "⁠PwnAlone⁠" Pigue's strong debut with the team on LAN despite the unfortunate circumstances surrounding his addition, and how the team hope to honor David "⁠cynic⁠" Polster with their performance, among other topics.

If you do not see the SoundCloud embed above, you can listen to the full interview here.

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A big upset from you guys to start the RMR. How are you feeling after that one?

Honestly, I could speak for the whole team, we're feeling great. We knew it was gonna be a hard match but we kinda just played our game. We've been practicing for this event for over three weeks with PwnAlone. It feels amazing, it feels great, very happy.

You're the only unsalaried team here at the RMR. Coming into this with that in mind, how much does that motivate you and what has that pressure been like?

We're the only team here that didn't come straight from a bootcamp, so with that in mind we knew it was gonna be a lot harder for us for sure. I feel like it definitely motivated us more to be honest, I don't know.

It was a big matchup, and I don't think many people had you going through over MIBR. For you to get this early win with such an unforgiving format, how does that set you up in your mind for the rest of the event?

Honestly, we're just gonna keep playing our game. That game we played super well. I do think they weren't playing their best, however, I think we beat them. At the end of the day we're just gonna keep practicing, keep doing what we're doing. Maybe we'll celebrate for a little bit for a couple of hours, but we're gonna head back in the server and make sure we got our shit together. We're trying to make the Major, let's go!

When I walked over for the post-game video there was a lot of shouting, and you were being really vocal in-game. What was actually playing like, and what is the dynamic on the server given that you guys didn't have a bootcamp?

I think one of the big things that we definitely try to keep up is our comms. I feel like once we get our comms super low I feel like that's when we play our worst. Coming into this match I definitely just felt like, make sure we gotta comm, do our thing. I don't know, I'm just so excited, I don't know what to say.

I'm not sure who, but someone shouted 'Come to Brazil' right after the game. There was a lot of shouting, and boltz responded with a tweet with the middle-finger emoji. Any thoughts on that?

Nah, we're just gonna play our game man. We don't care what anyone says about us, we're the only unsalaried team here, only no org team here. We're here to play, we're here to show our potential. We don't mind anything.

Coming into this event you mentioned you had PwnAlone, practicing with him for the past three weeks. What has it been like working with him and having a player of his experience and years to work with during an event of this scale?

It's been great. Ever since we got PwnAlone, obviously very unfortunate circumstances, but ever since he's brought a lot to the team, you said with experience and stuff like that. It's been great honestly. We've had little ups-and-downs, but I think for the most part we're still practicing every day, grinding super hard. We have EPL coming up, but besides that this is our only big event really, so we're just training super hard for this event.

As you said, there were some really unfortunate circumstances with cynic. I saw PwnAlone's tweet before the event where he said he had that in mind coming into it. What has it been like for you having played with cynic a bit?

Honestly, we're doing it for him man. It's really all I gotta say. Obviously, it's a horrible situation, but we're doing it for cynic, for David. He came into the team, he brought a lot of stuff with him from Nouns. I don't think we would be here without him, I'm gonna be honest. He taught us so much, same with Axed. Without Axed and cynic, I don't think we'd be able to do any of this, we've improved tremendously with them. We're doing it for David.

Lastly, I wanted to touch on your individual form. In terms of your individual level and potential in North America, as we're seeing some of this new guard of talent come in, where do you stand in that?

At the moment, right now, I feel like I'm playing pretty well. Obviously, I'm more of like an anchor player, so I don't really care about stats, they're not my priority at all. I'm just trying to hold my site, be the rock, be the anchor, comm, and do my thing. I'm feeling pretty confident for sure. After the Poland bootcamp with Wildcard, I feel like that's definitely where I got a lot better, had a lot of improvement. I'm just trying to keep my same form that I was in Europe.

Touching on the Wildcard situation, there was a bit of drama with the way that iteration of the team ended. SLIGHT was originally on your team, but then he stayed and you guys ended up without an organization. Can you tell me about your scenario from your side?

It is what it is, I see where they came from for a business standpoint. No bad blood to those guys, they're all super cool dudes. He's like my best friend, SLIGHT, so no bad blood at all. It wasn't their choice, shit happens.

Do you feel even a little bit of satisfaction that you guys won and right now Wildcard are struggling pretty immensely in their game?

Nah, to be honest. Like I said, SLIGHT is one of my best friends, I lived with the guy for a month and a half, two months, when we were on Wildcard. I'm rooting for them as much as hopefully they're rooting for us.