TaZ: "Stewie is able to show the guys that you don't need to stress that much"

TaZ feels that G2 are learning valuable lessons during their IEM Dallas run, even without HooXi amongst their number.

G2 came into IEM Dallas with little pressure on their shoulders, as the team were set to play without their IGL Rasmus "⁠HooXi⁠" Nielsen due to a personal scheduling conflict. Storied American Jake "⁠Stewie2K⁠" Yip stepped up to the plate to fill in for the European side, leading to Nikola "⁠NiKo⁠" Kovač taking up the calling duties.

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HooXi to miss IEM Dallas

Despite not sporting their full roster and fielding a stand-in with little recent tier-one play under his belt, G2 have managed to bag themselves a playoff berth with series victories over world No. 1 MOUZ and the upwardly-trending Liquid.

Wiktor "⁠TaZ⁠" Wojtas spoke to HLTV ahead of his team's playoff campaign to give his thoughts on their run so far, their upcoming quarter-final bout with FaZe, Stewie2K's contributions in Dallas, and G2's up-and-down season overall.

If you cannot see the SoundCloud embed above, you can listen to the interview here.

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That was a nuts game, how are you feeling after that win having secured a place in the quarterfinals?

I mean, that was a crazy game and I'm just super happy the way we were calm to the end. We were able to have good comms, and some decisions, some calls, mid-round especially from Stewie, which for some could be surprising, right? But some calls were really good, and we were just able to execute.

There were quite a few situations in this series where you were behind, obviously, the Inferno deficit was pretty huge and you were behind a bit on Nuke toward the end. Who was helping to keep the team calm, was it you, NiKo, or a whole team effort?

That was one of the things that we discussed yesterday and today before the game, to be good at calming down and just giving ourselves time to play the game. At some point at 8-2 [on Inferno], it just felt like we were rushing things. That's basically why the timeout came, to just give ourselves some breathing space and stop pushing the tempo hard. It kinda felt that we didn't really take any aim duels which were in our favor, because we were getting flashed and running in. I think that it gave us a lot of understanding that, okay, we stop rushing things, and now we take it our way. I don't know if they won any round on Inferno after that.

After the 8-2 scoreline I think you guys swept.

After that, the way the guys played, Ilya's clutch play on site, I mean, the guys played insane.

You also mentioned that Stewie has been surprisingly contributing to the team. I'm curious how that has worked out because obviously he's been away from the game for a while, and the meta has changed a lot. How has he been catching up to the meta, and how has he been contributing?

I feel like Stewie fits in really well in the role that Rasmus also has in our team, which is making space, going in, sacrificing himself, giving us round wins with two entries. So what he is doing is really good, because we kind of understand how to play after that, right? When I said it was surprising for me, I never doubted his pedigree as a Major champion and as a guy who understands the game, but he was out of it for two years from tier-one competition.

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NiKo on practice with Stewie2K: "He was playing from 3-10 AM"

It kinda feels that every game we play, he understands more and more of what he needs to do, what is expected, and actually what he can do, and he can do everything. There's no limitation. There was one moment that I wanted to take a pause when I saw that he bought Scout and Kevlar, and I was like, bro this money, our economy will be hurt. There was no time to click the timeout, but then I see the round after that we didn't have some crucial nades, and one of the guys was playing with MP9s, and I was like (breathes in) it's fine.

You guys have a quarterfinal against FaZe. The last time you played was at the Major, but obviously things are a bit different because you have Stewie; how do you think you'll fare in this matchup?

We are just taking it game after game. We had to play against MOUZ, we were able to come out on top. We had to play against Liquid, and we were able to grind it out. So I just feel that every game we play will be a lot of grind, especially if we play against FaZe, both teams are championship-caliber teams, so I guess whoever will be better on the day with the aiming and reads will win.

You have the BLAST Spring Finals after this as well. What is practice looking like for that, especially since HooXi isn't here with you guys right now? How much time will you have to work with him and fix things up before London?

Rasmus was with us during the practice with Stewie, so whenever we practiced Dust2, or some other secret map, he was good with it. I feel like we needed some experience and just hitting the ground on these maps we want to play. I feel like we are in a good spot because we already went through some practice on it not only before the event, but also during the event.

G2 has had some mixed results this season, it hasn't all been bad but it hasn't all been great either. Where do you think the focus is going to be for the team once you hit the player break? Where do you need to improve things if you want more consistent results?

It's a question about our teaching. Trying to answer this question is really hard. Let's say it like this: there is plenty of space to be better. Definitely what we can see here, we have really good mid-round calls, and this is something that we missed a little bit before, so we need to be better at this. We are getting better with our mentality, and this is also something which Stewie... I'm really happy for Jake that he is able to show to the guys that you don't need to stress that much during the game. You just need to chill, you need to relax and focus more on important information, which is basically what we are talking about all the time.

These are the two things that I will give you here, but we know what we need to work on. It's just sometimes, if you go back to important events for us, you see Overpass against MOUZ when xertioN gets a good timing and suddenly our whole setup falls apart, against NAVI jL comes up with a crazy round and then we are not able to come back. These are some of the rounds that stopped us going forward. I think that this event can give us a lot of good things to learn from.

I feel like a lot of teams approach events with stand-ins as almost lower-pressure, more laid-back events. From what you just told me it seems like this is a really valuable teaching opportunity, and you're getting a lot out of having Stewie.

I think it's very important to learn from every scenario, especially with Jake understanding the game on a different level and coming up with his ideas. I think that listening to other perspectives will always benefit you. It's just a matter of what you want to add, and what you just feel like is not needed.