OverDrive: "Neo was the best in 1.6"

We conclude our coverage of the 2012 ProGamerSeries (PGS) event in Oporto with an interview with Alexey "OverDrive" Birukov following his team's defeat at the hands of Anexis.

place2play.ru attended the Portuguese event with Filip "Neo" Kubski as a stand-in for Sergey "hally" Shavaeva, finishing in fourth place in the tournament following defeats to Natus Vincere and Anexis in the play-offs.

Unlike his Russian team-mates, Birukov will not be joining RuSh3D's CS:GO division, with his place being taken by former GRAND and Virtus.pro member Deniz "seized" Kostin.

In this interview, Birukov talks about his team's performances in Portugal, his opinion about Kubski and also CS:GO, among other topics.

Your team had the chance to beat Anexis but wasted several match points. What happened?

I do not know, the first map was too easy and we thought that since de_inferno is our strongest map, it was going to be easy, too. It is just CS, when you do silly stuff and you are not focused, the opponent punishes you. Overconfident? No, we knew that they were good. On train we started to play harder, but we still made a lot of silly mistakes.

You beat Na´Vi two weeks ago at TECHLABS but now lost to them. What happened? Is your team a bit weaker now, with Neo as a stand-in, or were Na´Vi better prepared this time around?

Na´Vi are not as good as they were a year ago. At TECHLABS we were underdogs, we had two players who had never played against top teams, so no one expected us to win. That is why we won those games against ESC and Na´Vi. Now, the situation was different, they were prepared and knew we could win, so the game was very tough.

Neo was very disappointed with his performance against Na´Vi. What is your opinion about the way he played for your team?

Neo is in my opinion, the best player in CS 1.6, he has won a lot of big events and told us a lot of things about CS and about our mistakes. He also feels comfortable playing with us. Everyone thinks it was a big problem to communicate in this team, but it was not. He understands Russian and all the spots on the maps, so when we talked, he understood everything.  And when he did not understand, he asked and I translated, but that only happened a few times. He is a very experienced player, he understood what was going on and where he had to be, so there were no communication problems, even though Dosia, Fox and ROMJke do not speak English at all.

Did you change your strategies to adapt to Neo’s playing style?

Our main strategy for years, even when we were in tp.uSports and forZe, has been killing and running. At TECHLABS we were lucky and we were hitting our shots, so we won it. With Neo, we only discussed simple things, like 'we kill here and go there', not things like smokes or flashes.

Next week, your team will be attending DreamHack Bucharest. Will hally return to the team instead of Neo?

Neo will have an event in Poland soon where he will be playing CS:GO, while hally still has some passport problems. When we fly back to Moscow we will decide whether we will be going or not, but I will not be able to go, so we will need two stand-ins. It could be B1ad3 from KerchNET and hooch from Virtus.pro. But there is also the possibility that we will not attend the event at all, but I will do everything for us to go.

Last week, RuSh3D announced their CS:GO team with four of your team’s players. Is it a good opportunity for these players?

When we were coming back from TECHLABS by train, the head manager of RuSh3D was with us, and he asked if it was okay to take the players, because for me Counter-Strike was all about having fun, I never wanted to be a professional player or practice a lot. For them, it is part of their lives and it is their job. So I agreed to make this line-up so that they can try playing CS:GO. I know that this line-up will stay like this for at least three months, to see if things work out. Then they will decide their future. We will attend any future 1.6 events with this line-up, but with hally instead of Neo.

Why won’t you switch to CS:GO? Don’t you like the game?

As I said, CS is not a job for me, but it is part of my life, that is why I attended almost all events during these 10 years. This is the last year of CS 1.6, which is my favourite game. Like all other players, I do not like CS:GO at all, it is like CS:Source 2, I still hope there will be more changes to make it look more similar to 1.6, but I think Valve has their own opinions and do not want  to listen to the professional players. I think it is a way to attract younger players and I do not think all the players from Na’Vi, from Russia or Poland are going to play hard like they did in 1.6, because they do not like this game, and if you do not like the game, you cannot be a top player. I know that f0rest and GeT_RiGhT are playing well, but maybe they have found something in this game, so that is why they like it.

Will you be stay involved with the team, as a manager or a coach?

I do not want to be a part of esports as a manager or something else. If there is a 1.6 event, of course I will be there, if Dosia, Fox and all my friends want to go, but as far as CS:GO is concerned, I will try to play it a bit, but I do not think I will be able to play it.

Which events will RuSh3D attend?

They are planning to attend DreamHack Winter, and as many events as possible in late Autumn and early Winter, but if they cannot go to DreamHack and there are other 1.6 events, we will go there with our core line-up.