Following their quarterfinal elimination at IEM San Jose, Counter Logic Gaming's Josh "jdm64" Marzano spoke with theScore eSports about his team's last-minute invite to IEM San Jose, their quarterfinal match against G2 Esports, and what his team needs to do stay competitive.

You were last minute additions to the event because of EnVyUs’ withdrawal. How much preparation were you able to put together for the event?

To be honest with you, I don’t think we really had too much prep for G2. I know our leader, FNS, watched a lot of demos of them so he was prepared on what to call. Other than that, we were already busy with two other tournaments going on last week.

About EnVyUs, it is actually frustrating. It actually bothers me in a way because they really deserve to be here and it just sucks that the unfortunate events in Paris that they’re just not able to come. I hope that it won’t prevent them from coming to events in the near future.

Would you say overall that the fact you’re participating in the two other events hurt your ability to prepare more?

I would say so, but we didn’t know who we were going to be playing. I think we found out a couple days before we were going to leave, so we didn’t know who we were going to be playing. So our in game leader, FNS, watched a couple demos to see how G2 plays. Other than that, we were still practicing and scrimming because we had a couple ESEA matches that we had to finish on Thursday of last week, and we got those done and made the ESEA LAN which is cool, but we weren't really focused on this tournament.

Given your lack of preparation, how do you feel about your match against G2?

It is actually a very frustrating one as we should have taken Mirage, the first map. That one was kind of frustrating. Cache felt like nothing went right for us. We weren’t playing well as a team. Mirage is a different scenario in that we were all getting the kills that we needed to get. We just made stupid mistakes towards the end that stopped us from coming out on top. If we had gotten the first map I think we would have brought it to them on Dust2 in Game 3. I know they’re favorite map is Cache, but I think we’re pretty good on Dust2 as well. I think it would have been a really fun battle.

You mentioned you were pretty close on Mirage, but they did really well on CT-side in overtime. What do you think made their defense so strong in that scenario?

I think they were just more disciplined. We had opportunities we could have taken to win a T-side round. We were up 5v3 at some point in one of the overtime rounds, and it ended up becoming like a 2v1 and then a 1v1 and then we lost the round. Those rounds right there is something we've always struggled with. Whenever we get a numbers advantage we tend to lose focus and can lose that round when we should automatically win that round when your up 5v3. Unfortunately, we didn’t win that round but if we did, I think we would have gone into double-OT, so it was just unfortunate that we didn’t get that one.

Even so, you did pretty well early on Mirage. You’re also one of the few North American teams that plays that map. Why do you think other teams avoid it?

I think we play well on it because we have always been comfortable on it. We have strategies on both T and CT-side. We have CT-setups like how to be aggressive when we’re pushing, and also there is so much you can do on T-side of that map. First is developing map control and how you can do a lot based of your defaults. I think there are a lot of North American teams that are good at it, but I think it's more of a European map. There are a lot of European teams that are amazing on it, and they are a lot better than the North American scene on that map.

You won both pistol rounds, but lost both of the following rounds. What do you think went wrong in those two rounds?

The fact that we lost both rounds following our pistol round wins is actually worse for us because it hurts our economy so bad. That, and it cuts your momentum completely. You get excited from winning pistol, thinking about how it's exactly what you needed but when you lose the very next round, it completely resets everything. We tend to, especially on Cache I’ve noticed, if we do win pistols, we randomly get eco’d or we lose to one sometime randomly on T-side. Cache is just a close map because there is so many places you can hide. Or you can just stack a site.

As an AWPer it hurts me even more because we gain economy fast from the pistol, but when you lose the next round it just starts your saving over. So it’s just one more round you have to wait before you can get an AWP.

What do you think your key takeaways are for your match against G2 are?

I know we can perform, and compete with these European teams. I know G2 are a really skilled team and I know that we should have won Mirage and that we should have made it map three. It would have been so interesting to see how map three would have went since I think we're a good Dust2 team. Also too, it would have so fun to play in front of that crowd for another map just because they are cheering so hard for the NA teams.

What is the big thing that you need focus on to remain competitive against the European teams?

Losing these kinds of maps, like Mirage, and matches where we should be getting closer or even winning makes you more hungry to get the wins in best-of-threes, and make it to the semis and finals. Losing is always frustrating. For me, as an individual, I look back and think what I could have done differently and see how I can improve my own game. Losing just makes you want to work harder because none of us like to lose.

You also mentioned you made it into the ESEA finals, what are your plans to prepare for that event?

I don’t know how the format of that event is. They might have released it, but I don't know if it best-of-ones or best-of-threes. We play TSM in the first round, which is a hard opponent. We just have to make sure we study them and stay on top of our game. We need to work on our mistakes that we made here, against G2 and see what went wrong for us. See why we didn't get to take Mirage, and focus on working on our own problems rather than trying to out-strat the other team. I think our own problems are more important as they continually happen. So I think that is what we will focus on the most.

This interview was edited and condensed for clarity

Paul Park is a writer for theScore eSports. Follow him on Twitter.

Jacob Juillet writes about Counter-Strike for theScore eSports. Follow him on Twitter.

Kelsey Moser is a staff writer for theScore eSports. You can follow her on Twitter for LPL memes and Sivir rants.