JBa: "Playing on stage was more nerve-wracking. I could hear the crowd clear as day"

"I actually feel pretty comfortable playing in front of a crowd," the young rifler adds.

Wildcard already surpassed expectations when they qualified for the Opening Stage after a 3-0 campaign at the Americas RMR that included wins against Liquid, paiN, and 9z.

The team led by Peter "⁠stanislaw⁠" Jarguz thus came into the first stage without pressure and was able to put together another surprise after beating Passion UA in the deciding match to progress to the Elimination Stage.

"I learned that I'm the only American in the Top 16, so that's crazy," Josh "⁠JBa⁠" Barutt told HLTV after the win against Rodion "⁠fear⁠" Smyk and company.

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

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Congrats, you're through to the next stage of the Major. Intense game to get through in the end. What's going through your mind right now?

I'm speechless. I learned that I'm the only American in the Top 16, so that's crazy. But I'm just super proud of our team and myself for believing and always keeping a positive attitude.

It's a pretty big result, especially with stanislaw coming here and making it to the Major again, and then you guys making the Top 16. Coming in without a ton of experience on big LAN stages, what's that been like playing in front of a crowd here?

I actually feel pretty comfortable playing in front of a crowd. I noticed my performance dipped when playing the European teams because I haven't gotten much time in Europe or experience in Europe yet. It's a given that I'm not going to play 100% against these new styles of teams, but overall, I feel pretty comfortable and excited for the future.

Coming into the series, you guys floated Mirage again like you did against fnatic and ended up playing it. Do you know anything that went into that decision? I know their Anubis is strong, but it seems like you were testing out Mirage here and there, and it didn't work out for you this time.

We just saw that they've been beating every single team on Anubis, so why not? Our Anubis is not where we want it to be right now, which is fine, but our Mirage is a gamble. We either hit our shots or we don't, and that's kind of what the map is for us right now.

When we talked to Sonic after the RMR, something he mentioned was that you guys got to the practice room, and they made the joke that it looks like you're playing from home. How do you feel about that now after you said you're adjusting well to the stage and had a few really close matches under your belt?

He said that because we were playing in a hotel room. It really did feel like I was playing at home in the RMR, not on the stage, where it was more nerve-wracking. I could hear the crowd clear as day. The comebacks, everything. A lot of crowd cheating happened in the FURIA game, which is new to me. That's never happened to me before, so it was cool to see and also annoying.

It is a really new experience. Even in this game, I think there was a round where you guys started nobody A, they actually rushed into A, and the whole crowd started yelling. Did you guys catch on to that because of that?

We were about to push B, and I just heard the crowd screaming. I heard a flash over A, and I'm like, 'They're just out A already.'

So you made that call?

Yeah.

Something else stanislaw mentioned when you guys qualified 3-0 from the RMR was that he taught you a lot and that you didn't handle your first LANs well. Can you expand on that at all from your perspective?

I'd say nerves played a little bit of a part. I'm not too much of a social person, I like to sit away in my room and play games, so playing in front of people is a new thing. The biggest thing for me was playing with the setup. I'm not comfortable playing with a monitor stand at home. For the past 10 years. I played with a monitor arm and had the monitor really close to my face and my keyboard right under me. When I was on LAN, I just had to change my whole setup, and I just didn't feel comfortable.

How about now?

Now that we've played a couple of LANs, I actually changed back to a stand at home. Because it's a given that we're going to be at more LANs, and they don't have monitor arms at bootcamps either. I just had to switch at one point, so I just tried it and have been getting more used to it.

When you started the event, you had a couple of rough games. You were down 3-16 in the game against fnatic, and then you turned around that performance and came back. You built up a bit more since then, and you looked more comfortable individually, and you said you're struggling against the European teams a bit. What's that adjustment been like for you? Because going into this next stage, there's going to be a lot of big top European teams.

Versus fnatic, they're a tier-two EU team. They went 0-3, they're not the greatest EU team, but against VP and Passion UA. I grew up watching electroNic, and they're all Major winners, so they're very good and knowledgeable about the game. And against Passion UA, they're just crazy aimers, young players. Going from fnatic to these teams, it's like a whole two-level step. I had to aim better, everyone's faster, everyone knows more, and I just have to be more aware.

How about going from these teams into the top eight European teams that are coming up like G2, Navi, and Spirit? How do you feel about going into this more pressured stage of the Major?

I wouldn't say it's more pressure for us because the majority of people put us 0-3 in this stage. To make it here is crazy, but for me, playing against these top teams, I did a little bit in Pro League. I played Spirit, I didn't play well at all, but I think I'm more ready this time than I was in Pro League. So I'm excited to play against them with no pressure.