Lucky on IGL change: "It's going to give Maka more freedom to play at his full potential"

Lucky believes 3DMAX have shown they are on the right path after their performances in Riyadh.

3DMAX enacted a significant change to their team ahead of their Esports World Cup campaign, conferring the in-game leadership duties to Filip "⁠Graviti⁠" Brankovic, and it was a change that immediately bore fruit.

The French squad began their efforts by eliminating reigning champions Natus Vincere before pushing The MongolZ all the way in a three-map series. Despite their elimination, 3DMAX gave a good account of themselves considering they were sporting a freshly-minted IGL.

"Pretty happy considering it's the first event for Graviti as an in-game leader," Lucas "⁠Lucky⁠" Chastang told HLTV when reflecting on his feelings about his team's performance. "We had a better showing against The MongolZ and we beat NAVI, which I think was a first time for us."

Lucky spoke with HLTV after his team's elimination in Riyadh to discuss the reasoning behind 3DMAX's structural change, reflect on the team's first showing under Graviti's leadership, and what he expects from the team moving forward.

Listen to the interview here.

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Reflections on that match?

Happy that we made it closer than the last times, but still frustrated because I feel like we had the resources to win. In the end we made some mistakes that cost us the game.

What kind of mistakes, individual, or team-wide?

I think both. I think it's a mix of a lot of things, I didn't play well on the CT side and that put us in a rough spot. It's hard to say right now, but a mix of both.

Are you still pleased overall with your performance as a team this tournament? You beat NAVI, you took The MongolZ to three maps.

Yeah pretty happy considering it's the first event for Graviti as an in-game leader, so that's a positive for us obviously. We had a better showing against The MongolZ and we beat NAVI, which I think was a first time for us, so pretty happy.

Does that give you confidence that this decision with Graviti in the right one, and has you moving in the right direction?

Yeah. I think it's going to give Maka more freedom to play at his full potential and have more impact, and I think Graviti is going to strive more too, I think he enjoys this role as well.

Was that the main thinking behind Graviti taking over as the IGL, to free up Maka?

Yeah, it's part of it. I think Graviti needed a change, too, and as a team we needed to make a change because we felt like we had not been improving for some time. We decided that we didn't want to change a player, so we made a change of role instead.

What was the reasoning for not wanting to change a player? Did you not see someone out there who was a good fit?

Yeah, I think we knew that everyone in the team is really good and has really high potential, and it was not the time for us to make a change.

3DMAX have been a team that are quite renowned for their playstyle, you have a specific style of play. Are you going to stick with that with Graviti?

Yeah probably, it's probably in Graviti's DNA, he's very aggressive. That's what is good for us, everyone in the team is comfortable with this, so I think it's just worse to pick up a playstyle that doesn't fit us.

Looking forwards for 3DMAX, have you set expectations in terms of your improvement with Graviti as an IGL?

We definitely want to make more playoffs, and make more appearances in those big tournaments. Get some playoff wins as well, and just be more consistent overall.

What kind of timeline are you looking at to hit your best level?

It's hard to say. I think in the coming months. CS is very fast, you know? You have to get good really quickly, so we just expect to do well in the next tournaments, right now.