Envy’s chances of making it to the Major were slim when they started their run at the RLG Tesla Cup, and are now gone after a group stage exit at the tournament in Serbia following a single win against Luminosity sandwiched between two losses to GamerLegion.
In-game leader Bryan “Maka” Canda believed in his team’s chances of a miracle run until the end, but he and his team couldn’t turn around a bad run of form. “Mentally, we are having too many ups and downs because some players are getting too emotional with themselves,” he points out as one of the reasons why Envy has been struggling — they recently finished 13th-16th at Stake Pulse Beat III and 9th-12th at Digital Crusade DraculaN Season 7 before exiting the Tesla Cup group stage.
Still, Maka is thankful to Envy for giving them the chance to don a jersey bearing a lot of history for French CS, and hopes the team can turn it around. “I’m very happy because a lot of CS French legends played under Envy,” he says. “We don’t show that it’s like we can be a good team and respect the Envy tag, and I truly believe that it means a lot to everybody in the team, and we really play for the jersey.”
Commiserations on the loss. What did not work out for you at this event?
A lot of things. Way too many things, I would say. We clearly lacked something on our T side lately. We’ve been able to solve it through the playbook and by adding strategies and tactics. But in the end, if you keep repeating things, you can get read by the opponent, so it’s very hard to switch between what you are used to doing and having some kind of common CS that you can apply to any games, and I think we lack that CS lately on this idea.
Coming into this event, did you still have the Major hope in you or did you try to let it go?
I don’t know. It’s not something we discussed after the DraculaN. Clearly knew that we missed the opportunity on the last three events. We had like 1% hope, and I truly believed it, to be honest, as an individual, but it was something very hard to reach. So just trying to keep gaining confidence through the games and having this mindset to beat anyone on any map to just gain confidence was the key for me. Yeah.
So this campaign of the tier-two LANs was not successful for your team, with a loss here to a weakened opponent, as well. What are those big issues that you will be working on moving forward, and what comes next for your team?
There are a lot of things to work on. I think the main focus will be communication and having the right balance that we need. But in some way we kind of found it; it’s more like being implicated and having that will to win and give everything through comms. We are really lucky to have top-tier teams’ comms on YouTube; for example, karrigan posts it, or Falcons, Vitality does it. We also have other teams that we check sometimes, and we can see that you have to keep giving 100% every time at any moment, any points in the rounds, in the games, even though it’s lost rounds, et cetera, to have the best attitude possible in the game. And this is something we truly lack.
Mentally, we are having too many ups and downs because some players are getting too emotional with themselves. Not with their teammates, but with themselves, being too harsh and being too focused on the results. And when you play and you’re just focusing on either winning or losing, it’s never good because you get affected by the outcome. And I think it’s clearly something we need to work on because you have to win in the end, but it’s not something you have to focus on during the games.
Recently you’ve been signed by Envy, and it’s been a long sort of development with you guys and the organization. A storied tag and perhaps the support that comes with it, what does it mean to you?
Very grateful, to be honest. I would not expect, like ten years ago, that I would play under this banner and this tag. I’m very happy because a lot of CS French legends played under Envy. They won a Major under it. And happy that Envy trusted us to get that tag back on the CS scene. Lately, it’s not been very good for us. We don’t show that it’s like we can be a good team and respect the Envy tag, and I truly believe that it means a lot to everybody in the team, and we really play for the jersey and very happy.
