EPT
So I’m here at ESWC with kRYSTAL, from PENTA Sports who unfortunately went out 1-2 in the group stage, with losses to Epsilon and Pride Gaming. Can you walk me through the group, how you prepared for it, and how it unfold?
We tried to prepare the best way we could, watching some demos, see if we could find out some stuff about our opponents. But, on LAN, anything can happen. The first match already started not quite in our favor, but we manage to come back and win 16-10 I think. Against Epsilon, we played just really bad team wise, I don’t know what went wrong to be honest, we just played really bad. Against Pride, I also don’t really know what happened as well [laughs]. We started good again, we played Dust 2 and won 16-7 I think. We felt comfortable, and I think we lost the game on Mirage. I mean, Cobble wasn’t even necessary, after Dust 2. We also started Mirage really good, but… I don’t know, it was not our tournament I guess.
Coming back to Pride, they weren’t at all the favorites coming into that tournament. But they came here and manage to get out of groups. Then they go against Gambit and they manage to make this a very close affair, with the last map going to overtime. Were you surprised by their level?
I’m actually surprised, in general by this tournament. Rogue went out early, Heroic went out. This tournament has really been the tournament of surprises. I mean, Fnatic Academy, they beat Ence, Rogue, and Heroic. So I don’t really know what I can say about this tournament. It appears that all the good teams somehow went out. I don’t know why. But it’s also nice to see other teams taking a step up. So yeah, I’m of course happy for the other teams that managed to step up, but for us of course, it’s… unpleasant I guess.
How do you prepare for such a tournament? There are many teams, and especially teams from underrepresented areas, that you might not have played against or really have an idea about what their level really is.
We tried more to prepare on ourselves before the tournament. We wanted to make sure that our executes were fine. And considering, like you said, that we didn’t know much about the other teams, we just tried to look a little bit at what they do, but not completely anti-strat them. So the focus was more on us.
Coming back to PENTA, you’ve been using weber as a stand-in for this tournament, and he’s already been a stand-in for PENTA many times. Can we expect to see him on the team one day?
Right now I don’t really know what will happen. Of course we’re all disappointed. We were trying out a lot of players, lately, like HS from… I don’t know which country (laughs).
He’s estonian!
Yeah the estonian guy. For me, especially, it feels really bad that we swap players all the time. tabseN went to NRG, loWel to mousesports. We kinda have to deal with this as a team but it’s never easy to find a replacement. So we have to see which player fits in the best. From the few that we tested, weber was I think the best, with HS. But weber had more experience so we took him to this event, and yeah we will see what happens. We don’t really know.
About that, how do you explain the high number of stand-ins that PENTA had to use? It seems you’re always four and you have to use someone from another team. How do you explain that? How can you get to a lineup where you have your five players and move forward as five?
This is actually something I’d really want to have. But right now it’s… I don’t know.
It’s all about the traitors, isn’t it?
No, I mean... I sometimes say it like this but I don’t mean it in an offensive way. They did back then what was the best for them. And that’s the same for loWel, I’m happy for him that he has that chance, and he’s playing really well right now. But I don’t know, it’s really hard right now because, like you said, we’re testing players all the time. It was Kairi, then we tested a lot of other players, half of which we didn't play official with. Due to the changes with tabseN and loWel, first tabseN, we have to replace one player, which we did with stfN. And now loWel is gone so we have to replace him. It’s really hard to build a team like this: one player always leaves or something happens.
Talking about the ESL Pro League, you qualified for Season 4 after getting down to Premier after Season 2, what were your expectations?
Our goal of course was to stay in the Pro League for now. Of course the playoffs would be a dream but it wasn’t really a goal for us, our main goal was to stay in, considering all the lineup changes I just explained. I mean there were really a lot of matches that we could have won. This just showed us that if we put effort into our game and what we did — of course loWel was still with us then — then we have a chance against the other teams. I mean we won against Virtus.pro, Heroic… I don’t know who else we won against, but we also lost three or four games, that were 16-14 or overtime games. We lost against Na’Vi, on Cobble, G2 with a 16-14, FaZe with an overtime loss. Heroic 16-14. And if for example we would have won these games, we wouldn’t be in the relegation process.
I want to come back on that specific part, the relegation match you played against Virtus.pro. You won that match and qualified for Pro League. Then VP got another chance in a match that was decided by a fan vote. There’s been a lot of criticism towards that process, that ESL wanted to have Virtus.pro back in the league. Did you have some thoughts on that, especially during the relegation match itself?
My honest opinion is that it’s kind of understandable I guess from the point of view of ESL, that they want to have the big teams in because of the viewers and stuff. But for all the other teams it seems kind of unfair, because our team doesn’t get a second nor third chance like Virtus.pro had, so yeah, it’s unfair, I just have to say, for other teams. Also for the minor invites, when there was that protest on HLTV, it is the same. Like yesterday, or two days ago they released the news for the NA minor. And I think they only invited teams for the minor qualifier, not the minor directly. I think it would have been better for the European minor, but they didn’t.
And it seems to defeat the purpose of the minor, which is to find local teams and have them qualify for the Major offline qualifier.
On that topic our coach said that if all the good teams had to go through the whole process, they would most likely reach the minors. All these teams get invited and then they play there and it’s easier for them but they don’t have to go through all the stuff lower teams, or right now we, have to go through. So for us it’s like, ten times harder than other teams. Just like that Virtus.pro example, they had three chances. They were in the ProLeague, but they scored last place. Then they got into the relegation match, against us, and they lost. Then they get another chance. If we had these chances all the time then of course we would be on more tournaments of course. For me it’s just unfair, but like I said, for ESL it’s understandable. But I think that’s not the point of the minor qualifiers.
So what’s next for PENTA now, after ESWC?
We really don’t know [laughs]. We are really disappointed by ourselves, that we played that bad. Like I said I don’t know if Brandon [E/N: weber] will stay with us, what will happen… I really don’t know. But of course our goal is that we stay in the Proleague, because we have the relegation match, so this will be our next goal… our only goal! [laughs]
You’ve been playing also in a lot of german leagues, like 99damage, ESL Meisterschaft.
Yeah, but that’s not a goal I want to have [laughs].
Do you think it actually hinders the progress of the team to play in these?
I don’t know, I mean some leagues we have to play I guess. But I don’t think it’s negative for us.
So let’s wrap this up. One last thing, how do you plan to stop the leaking of players, the traitors, going forward?
That’s a good question! I don’t know, for me it just feels like every time people join our team, and they get better, they get out of there as soon as they can, or as soon as another offer comes. I think it also has to do with the name itself, that mousesports is a bigger name, and organisation, than PENTA. So it’s reasonable for the players if they get an offer from them to go there, I don’t know how to stop them. We just have to play good, and start having five players, we’re always three or four, and it’s the main issue. But I don’t know how to do that since, like I said, if there is a player outstanding in our team, then he’s picked up. So it's really hard to say what could be a solution. I can just try to do my best. This weekend, my best didn’t help us, so I don’t know. It’s really hard.
Alright, any last words?
Thank you for the interview of course, thank you to PENTA for sending us here, all the sponsors, ASUS, Arctic, SteelSeries, Corsair, Noble Chairs. And... greetings to my mom!
Thank you for the interview, and good luck to PENTA in its next endeavour!
Interviewer: Ragnarork
Editor: Hayl_Storm
CSS: FO-nTTaX
Graphics: DearDave
Photos: HLTV
