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Slingshot spoke with Cloud9’s Will “RUSH” Wierzba at ESL One New York about: adjusting to the new team, reaching the semifinals, and hopes for North America.

What did you learn from your 3rd LAN event with Cloud9?

I think the biggest thing I got is that the team still has a lot to learn like teamwork and that sort of thing. We clearly have the individual skill to beat the top teams and we proved it with a 2-0 win over Na`Vi. But I think when facing FaZe, a team that has good individual skills like us, Cloud9 was completely overwhelmed. So we have to make sure to improve things in the game, not just individual skills, because they won’t get you any further.

In such intense matches, do you feel extremely disappointed with the bad results? Or conversely, just a little bit of luck, do you think you and your teammates could have done better?

I think it’s a bit disappointing that we played so poorly as the home team. Because, in my personal opinion, it’s frustrating to perform so badly in front of a crowd at a LAN match. But having to admit that it’s an American audience and this is one of the biggest events of the year in America, it’s really disappointing. But I think everyone accepted their fate in that match when Cloud9 was completely underdog. We sometimes outplay them but still lose those rounds, because FaZe shoots phenomenally. What more can we do? If at that time you still sit and ask the question “what can we do?” Surely you won’t be able to do anything else.

How have you felt since joining Cloud9?

Of course it’s great. I’ve talked about this before, but it’s nice to finally have a full 5-member set. I didn’t have 5 people for a long time at OpTic and it’s good that the team is stable and everyone is growing together; instead of having to change a member every month, so this is great. And the organization is also good, they sent me the jersey and the chair just 2 days after joining, I feel really excited to receive these items right away because it says a lot about me. organization’s concern for team members. The fans are also very good, they are always enthusiastically cheering for me every time I play. So I don’t think I’ve lost my fans in OpTic. Sometimes, OpTic fans are quite harsh when you leave the team, but they are really forgiving of leaving. So I’m glad I still have their support. It was a very smooth change.

When we talked in Dallas, I felt the search for the 5th member hit him hard in the psyche. Do you feel relieved when you finally have 5 members?

Yeah, it’s such a relief when you have 5 people because you can really grow together and that’s great. I think with CS, when you change members, you won’t improve at all. That’s when you go back to zero. If you change a player and he’s not an IGL, it doesn’t matter much. But if IGL were to be replaced, that would be huge and that’s what we’re doing. At OpTic, we change the IGL every few months. So we had to change the whole system. Actually, everything is the same in Cloud9. We changed 2 people, and now Tarik takes the IGL position. So it was a little different and we started from scratch. Like you said, now that we have 5 members, we just need to work together and improve every day.

I’ve been playing with Tarik for about a year now. What do you see from him in the new IGL position?

I find his strong point is that Tarik is not easily alarmed, when things don’t go as planned. He always makes sure he has a positive attitude, even when people argue. Tarik would calm us down, and always have a plan in mind. Or similar. That’s something that not all IGL can do, like when things don’t go as planned, Tarik always keeps a cool head, which is very helpful.

Speaking of Dallas again, we talked about personalities and why so many NA players aren’t IGL. So what made Tarik want to take the IGL position?

At the end of the period with OpTic, we had no other IGL options. At that time, Tarik said “Okay, let me up.” Then he played that position and really enjoyed the role. We did well at ESL One Cologne thanks to his ‘calling’ ability, and he thought he was gifted and could do better with ImAPet’s help. But we left, and now we’re playing under Cloud9. Tarik thought about it, “I can do it with Valens’ help.” So Tarik tried again, and I think everything is working fine. I think he’s getting better and better.

The story “When will NA rise up” has been around for years, but to have the appearance of two NA teams in the semi-finals at an event like this. Both teams beat strong teams and won best-of-threes, do you think NA can finally rise up to maintain the growth of CS in this region?

Yeah, I think it’s good that both teams made it to the semi-finals. It would be great if they both made it to the final. I don’t think that will happen at the big event. But the fact that Cloud9 reached the semi-finals and Liquid reached the final was huge, defeating Virtus.pro, Astralis and SK. It was a big win for Liquid. I think when we play better and Liquid get better with Twistzz, both teams will be seen as world heavyweights.

This is the second year we’ve dropped from 3 Majors to 2 Majors per year. Which do you like more?

I think three is quite a lot, but I don’t really mind because I’m a player. But as a follower, having up to 3 Majors a year means these events won’t be as much of a hit when they happen. Because 2 events per year, i.e. every 6 months. But 3 per year means every 4 months, which is a bit short because you also have big tournaments in that time period. I think as a follower, I’d prefer two Majors per year, but I’d love to have something like Dota 2’s The International. Valve-sponsored event that’s also crowdfunded. , support), which is great. But Valve doesn’t have this for CS yet, so we’ll have to wait and see if they plan to do so in the future.

What’s the biggest thing you need to improve/fix in order to get along?

I believe it will be about teamwork rather than relying on individual skills. As we have more strategies, more mid-round and post-bomb situations; We still haven’t fully mastered those things. As we start to go deeper, you will see tremendous improvement in us. Because right now, we’re still basing our gameplay on raw site plays and using individual skill to deploy. Once we get through this phase, we’ll be a much stronger team.