Interview A-Gaming 

Meeting with Amazing-Gaming, the rising star of Ukraine, just after their quarter-final against Evil Geniuses.


Esportsfrance : Hi B1ad3, Your team made a perfect tournament till now. Are you fully satisfied with the way you played or are there some particular mistakes that you expect to put right ?
B1ad3 : Of course we are satisfied because we are now in semi-finals. We practiced a lot before this event and even during the tournament we made a lot of analysis like mousesports on de_nuke and de_dust2.

You seem to be eager to fight against them, aren’t you ? Sure. Besides, I think they don’t know very well how we play, so there is a good opportunity for us and I hope we’ll succeed. Let’s talk a little bit about your group stage. It was a pretty tough one and within it you encountered the french team Millenium. What is your feeling about this match ? We knew that Millenium finished 2nd at the ESWC.fr, so we watched some games during a big part of the time before our match. It was our first match so we were concentrated a lot. We knew that it was a strong team and we didn’t underestimate them. But in the end it was a pretty easy match so we were happy about our beginning in the tournament.

On the CT side you made quite an impressive gun round with a very agressive strategy, putting a big pressure on the scale. Was it especially prepared to counter them ?
Actually we have several strategies for the CT side gun round and it was one of them. But we chose it because we saw that Millenium used to play very fast and massive rush in the middle. So we expected such a strategy and it worked out well for us. We just wanted to hold the T-side.

It’s the first time we see you that far from Ukraine and you didn’t appear that much in international events. As a matter of fact, many people consider you as internet players. What do you think about it ? Is it a source of motivation to prove them they’re wrong or don’t you care at all ?
It’s funny because some people think we are internet players and some others think we are lan players. From my point of view we are bad on internet because we have bad computers at home so we can’t be really good online. Consequently, I think we are strong only in lans because we can show our real skill. So of course we wanted to prove to people who think we’re internet players that we can do great things in big events but like I said I don’t think we can be classified as internet players. We don’t even play in online ligues except Extreme Masters and Eurocup.

Now that you’re doing a really good result here, do you plan to make more international events than you did in the past ?
Yeah, we want to be in all international events.

Change of subject, I noticed that you are a pretty quiet team while you’re playing compared to the german squads, for instance, who are screaming all the time. So is there a psychic links between you guys or are you lips readers ? What is the trick ?
Actually we can’t communicate because there is a lot of noise around the pro zone which is annoying. But I think it’s because we are used to speak very low when we practice at home and here we can’t really speak louder. It’s like a reflex but we screamed some informations every once in a while.

A tricky question now. Who is the best player amoung the team ? Actually, I wanted to make a vote between all of you but since you’re alone it’s not going to work. It’s impossible to say because there are different styles which fit together. Some have wall skills, some others awp skills, and so on. The team is strong because of all these qualities, not just one of them. A lot of teams disband or change players on the first bad result. Do you think it’s a good thing to search for the perfect immediate connection between the players or does success come only with stability ? It’s true that player changes happen a lot but I think that stability is the main factor if you want to feel the glory someday. There are a lot of examples such as mTw, MYM, fnatic also. It’s logical actually because a team is made of 5 players. If you change one of them, it becomes another team and you will need at least half a year to be efficient again.

How do you cope with the fact that Hooch is the only Russian player in the team ? Does it make things more difficult to practice and communicate ?
In fact we all speak russian so there isnt any kind of problem to communicate. We chose him to be our fifth player because he was a good friend of ours and we used to play with him since a long time before his arrival. We needed a very skilled player with whom we already had some automatism and we’re very satisfy about our choice. In the past, we were dominated in Ukraine because one of us didn’t have enough level but things are totally fine now.

Now I need you to give me an advice because I planed to travel with my girlfriend in eastern Europe during september and we don’t know which country to visit since our time down there will be limited. So if you had to choose for me between Ukraine and Russia, what would be your pick ?
Definitely Ukraine because there are beautiful cities like Kiev or Odessa, close from the sea, which are not as big as russian towns. I don’t like Moscou for instance because it’s a megalopolis quite uniform and people are always in a hurry. On the contrary, Kiev is way smaller and there are a lot of friendly people and beautiful places especially in summer.

Thank you man, I’ll keep that in mind. Back to serious stuff. How do you explain that recently many eastern Europe teams broke through the international level ?
I think Ukraine was good, but our only chance to show our level to the world at the Asus Cups in Moscow, they were the only tournaments we could attend and there was always Virtus.Pro. From Ukraine, we were trying to show our skills on WCG, which was the only tournament for which the teams prepared very good. But now, Counter-Strike at a high level is growing up, and there are sponsors...

Do you think that the recent improvements of internet connections helped you out to achieve your aim of being an international top team ?
It sure did. I mean, since one or two years we can organize trainings with teams from other countries so it clearly gave us the chance to improve faster by fighting against better teams than us. I think it’s one of the most important elements in our ascension, which led us to do great here.

Thank you for your time buddy, the final word is all yours.
Thanks of course to our sponsors Razer and Palit and thanks to all our fans from Ukraine. They cheer us on a lot and we’ll try to do great tomorrow.

Sommaire :

Page 1 : Entretien en français
Page 2 : Interview in English