Liazz: "If anyone f*cks up a strat, dexter is going to shit on them, and we needed that"

Liazz says dexter rules the team with an iron fist.

FlyQuest had a rough start under new captain Christopher "⁠dexter⁠" Nong and missed out on a Major appearance, but have shown solid improvement since then.

The Aussies missed out on the IEM Chengdu top six by the skin of their teeth in a much-improved showing and followed that up by securing a playoff berth at EPL. They showed no signs of stopping, too, as they outlasted BetBoom in a three-map affair to make the Round of 12 in Malta.

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FlyQuest send BetBoom home from EPL

After their victory, Jay "⁠Liazz⁠" Tregillgas spoke to HLTV about dexter's leadership, the team's improvement, and the general state of the Australian scene.

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First of all, congrats on the win. How did it feel from your perspective?

Really fucking good. First playoffs with the boys and the first playoff win. It doesn't feel like there are many nerves, everything feels good.

During the series, you lost your 100% win rate on Vertigo, but you bounced back on the other two maps. Do you feel like your map pool is deep even when you can't rely on Vertigo?

We talked about it in the boot camp and did a lot of work on each map coming into this. Maybe there were one or two that were dicey, but we put a lot of work into them during the boot camp, and we feel pretty comfortable with our map pool. But again, it's hard for us to know because we're only playing in Australia, and we're winning on every map pretty much. So when we come to Europe, we really have to test it, but everything feels good right now.

Next up is Liquid for you guys tomorrow. How do you feel about that one?

I don't know. We've practiced them a little bit. They're a very fucking scary team if they're all firing. They've been running into some issues lately, so hopefully they keep doing that against us. But yeah, they have five unbelievable individuals. It's not going to be an easy game, but we're pretty confident in ourselves as well and we're just going to take it as it comes.

More on a general note, the team has been rising in form lately. You almost made the playoffs in Chengdu, now here you made the top 12. What would you attribute this improvement to?

With dexter coming into the team and implementing a system, it took a little bit of time because it made a few of us a little bit uncomfortable. People were forced into things that maybe weren't natural to them, but with every game, we're getting more experience, and everyone's feeling more comfortable.

Now we're at a point in the system where people aren't just thinking about what they're doing constantly. They can just switch off, aim, and still work well within the system, so everyone's just getting more comfortable. And with so many matches here at Pro League, we're getting so much game time, which has been super valuable.

Talking about dexter's system, he came to Australia from an EU team. How much of a different style did he bring compared to what you were used to?

Honestly, I don't think there's a crazy difference in styles, but the one thing dexter has is that he is an asshole. If anyone fucks up a strat, he's going to shit on them, and the next day the person's going to come to practice shaking, and they won't want to miss any nades.

We were a bit of a boys' club before, but with Chris, he rules with an iron fist. I think we needed that, and it's really good for us. Plus, he relieved INS from IGL duties, and he's just a fucking god now, so it's nice having that.

I wanted to ask you about INS because I think he came into this series with a 1.34 average rating at EPL. How much of a boost is that for the team?

It's huge. On every map, you can just fucking plonk INS down somewhere and you know that he's good for two or three. We've always known that he's a fucking beast fragger, but recently he's also been making a lot more calls on the CT side for us. We'll have dexter control one side of the map, and INS the other, and the guy's just reading the game unbelievably well as well. He's a full package. It's really nice and it makes my life easy as the shitty-side anchor.

Asia has been on a bit of a resurgence lately. There are two teams from the region here in the playoffs. Do you feel that when you return to Australia to practice, or is it still very rough?

We struggle to find scrims night to night, we'll get two or three scrims max, but I think the level is slowly rising. I think that with more time and us coming back with overseas experience, it raised the level of everyone back there. It is a small scene, one that is hard to grow and I don't really know what we can do to help it grow. But it's slowly getting better, which is a good sign.

This core reached the top 20 for the first time in the HLTV ranking yesterday. Where do you think you guys can get to in the next few months?

Well, I think the goal of this team was just to make the playoffs. I think that we're pretty realistic with our expectations. Top 20 is something that we feel pretty good about. We don't feel like we don't deserve to be here. But now that we've hit this goal, we have to make new ones. Maybe looking at something like the top 15 would be nice. But it's step by step, brick by brick. We don't have unreal expectations, and we're going to try our best to do well at this tournament.