Flipsid3 Tactics endured a top-heavy Group E of the ELEAGUE last week to finish as runner-up to Natus Vincere, which swept the Ukrainian squad 2-0 (16-13, 16-2) in Friday night’s final. Still, for a Counter-Strike: Global Offensive team that’s had its fair share of struggles this year, a semifinal sweep of mousesports and even taking a map from Na’Vi during group play were welcomed signs.

Slingshot’s Chase “RedShirtKing” Wassenar had the chance to talk to Flipsid3 captain Andrey “B1ad3” Gorodensky after the semifinals to talk about his team, the roster’s growth and what comes next.

Chase “RedShirtKing” Wassenar: Hello Internet! This is Chase “RedShirtKing” Wassenar. I am a contributor at Slingshot. Welcome to the second of a series of interviews I’ll be doing here at the ELEAGUE. I am joined by Andrey “B1ad3” Gorodensky from FlipSid3 Tactics. Thank you so much for taking the time to talk to me today.

Andrey “B1ad3” Gorodensky: Thank you.

CW: Before we get to where you’re going next, I want to talk to you about WorldEdit’s incredible game against Echo Fox. As the captain of this team and someone who has played with him for a while, what’s going through your mind when you see him going on a roll like he did?

AG: Well, when people ask me, I always say the same stuff. WorldEdit is a really good player, and he’s really talented. Basically, he plays smart and dedicates a lot of time to Counter-Strike. When he is prepared, focused, and motivated, he can out AWP anyone, so he’s playing really good. So really, it’s just a matter of time. Some day, he will become more mature; he will become a professional. He will become a top player. It’s just about experience. He will gain offline experience, become more confident, smarter…For AWP, it is really important to be smart and play predictively. In that game, he played against a not very good team; not a high class team, but still good, skilled players. They made a lot of mistakes, and he just played his role. He was using his position, and Train on T side is really, really effective if the other team plays bad. They played badly, and he just used that and didn’t miss a shot. You know, for AWPers, it’s really important not to miss. In my opinion, the AWP is the easiest weapon in the game, because one shot, one kill. The movement is so fast in Counter Strike that you can just kill, go back, peek again, jump…you can do everything. The micro movement is very important, which he is practicing a lot. So, he did a really good job, and it really benefitted us. I congratulate him, since he broke records – three records – and it’s amazing. It’s like the beginning of a new WorldEdit.

CW: It really does feel like some things started to come together for you guys, and the fruition of that was what we saw against Mousesports in the semifinals. We’ve seen you guys in the past struggle to close out some games, like the group stage match against Mouseesports on Train that ended up coming back to cost you guys. Today, you had leads after the first half of both maps, but you were able to seal the deal. What was the difference maker for you guys in terms of how you were able to grow over the course of this tournament?

AG: It’s always about how we set up our mind and psychology heading in. So, we lost to Mousesports. It was the group stage, so we knew it was important, but still, we didn’t feel like it was the most important match of the tournament. So, we just lost the match on Train. It was our game, but we are not perfect. We still make some mistakes each game. It’s always different. You can do a new mistake tomorrow and another mistake after tomorrow, so we’re trying to fix all this stuff and become better in the future. We’ve only been playing with a new guy in WayLander for two months, and when you replace someone, it’s like a new team. It’s not just the previous team; you need to build a new connection between players.

CW: I was going to ask: how do you feel the team has changed since WayLander came into it? Because obviously, as you said, it’s a pretty sizeable difference even when you make a single roster move.

AG: He’s a very smart guy. It’s a pleasure to work with him because he understands really fast what you want to do. He improves very fast, and that’s impressive. He’s not the most experienced guy, but he is smart, learns fast, and he’s also a nice guy to work with in real life. So basically, with (Vladislav “bondik” Nechiporchyuk), we were arguing a lot so we couldn’t practice properly because we were arguing all the time. I think it’s because he had set his mind to leave the team already, but it was really bad, so we couldn’t improve, basically. So we were facing the wall, and when he left, the wall disappeared. So now, we are trying new stuff with new players, and it’s very cool because they bring something new all the time.

CW: And certainly now, you’re looking at all of this growth coming together, getting you guys to the Finals of Group E on TBS. What does that mean to you as a player just seeing how this team under your captainship has grown as you’ve taken these inexperienced guys and grown enough in that sense of knowledge to get to this point?

AG: This is a good feeling. You feel like…it’s satisfaction. When you build something and it works, when you prove something to somebody that he was wrong or something like that, when you compete — it means a lot. I don’t know the word in English, but you are…it’s not having an ego but something like that.

CW: It’s a sense of accomplishment.

AG: Yeah, like accomplishment. So, basically, you are leading the team, and when you see that all this stuff that you were teaching them comes through, that they are fixing mistakes, that we are building our team play and they are able to improve all the time. Sometimes you see moments where they play perfectly. “Flash here, smoke here, blah blah blah.” Sometimes, they play perfect, and when I see that, I feel that sense of accomplishment.

CW: Yeah, there are a lot of reasons to be proud of what you guys have been able to do so far, and you can see the excitement on stage. I loved seeing you guys whenever you won a round. You were screaming, and there was this sense of real joy in that. It’s something important when you’re building a team and working towards that growth to have that. Now, to wrap up, what are you guys trying to do to improve both in this tournament and beyond?

AG: We will try to focus more on our team play. We’re going to try to set up our team plan and focus more on communicating and try to out-skill our opponents. That’s basically all, because we don’t want to expose some new ideas before the major. We didn’t have a lot of time to build this new idea, so it’s only really on paper for now. So we will try to build something new.