steel: "I think koosta is one of the best teammates I've probably ever had"

We spoke to the Ghost in-game leader about his team and their upcoming events.

steel has led his team through two closed qualifiers and into the grand finals in Santa Ana

With Ghost having qualified for the grand finals of the ZOTAC Cup Masters Americas Finals, our very own Danish "Nohte" Allana caught up with Joshua "steel" Nissan, the leader of Ghost, to discuss the team's victory against Sharks in the semifinals, the team's composition, and upcoming events for the team.

Let's start with the match you just played. You started on Nuke, which was Sharks' map pick, and you had a really dominant CT side. The only time you've played it before was versus Rogue online in the DreamHack Masters Stockholm qualifier. Did you work on Nuke coming into the tournament as your previous matches were a bit close?

We played Nuke when we first formed the team as practice to make sure we had practice on all the maps, but we didn't specifically practice it. It's not one of the maps we try to pick against teams, but it's a map that we're happy to have other teams pick against us. It's not something that is our main focus, but I feel like we're really comfortable and confident on it, we understand the dynamics of the map, so if a team wants to pick it against us we're happy to play it.

Speaking of maps you're comfortable picking, you guys were pretty dominant on Train. I think you've won every Train match with this roster since you joined. Is Train now a go-to pick for you guys, and why do you think you're so dominant on it?

I think Train is one of our better maps at the moment, and we did put a lot of time and effort into making it one of our stronger maps. Having said that we're happy to go and play any one of four maps right now, so if teams ban Train on us we have other picks we're happy to do, but if Train is in there then I feel like we're all comfortable on the map. We have a good approach to both CT and T side, we have slow plays, we have fast plays, and I think that we're able to grind out clutch rounds and mid rounds, 3vs3 types of situations because we understand the dynamics of the map and individually make decisions.

ALSO READ Ghost phase through Sharks, to grand finals

Let's rewind back to when this Ghost roster first formed. You, Pollo, and koosta all joined the team and three days later you guys went to ESL One Belo Horizonte. You played against FaZe and SK there, what was it like playing against rosters like that at such a premier event after just putting together your team? Did it give you guys a lot of early experience against that sort of caliber of team?

A few of my teammates never played on a stage that big, although we didn't go to the actual main stage we were still playing against top five teams in the world, teams that have been the best team in the world within the last two years. Getting that sort of experience is really valuable, and I don't think the scoreline really shows what was actually happening in the game. Yes we got dumpstered by both FaZe and SK, but we had a lot of situations, 5vs3s, 5vs2s that we just didn't convert. It was a big help because we were able to go and download those demos and actually review what happened, and now we have a lot of protocols in place that prevent those sort of situations from happening again. If we have a 5-on-3 or a 5-on-2 we know how to change up the pace on T side, we know how to slow down, we know how to speed up, we know how to group up. CT side same thing, we know how to not give up picks, we know how to stay grouped and make sure that we get trade kills. I think that those protocols we put in place after those losses is why we're doing so well right now.

You just qualified for DreamHack Stockholm through the online qualifiers, so you'll have a chance for a rematch against some of those top level teams, FaZe, mibr, Astralis, et cetera. Do you think the experience you got at Belo Horizonte will allow you to bring a higher level of play, and will you be able to surprise rosters over there?

I think that Belo Horizonte wasn't an accurate depiction of what we're capable of as a team. I think that since we're just in the infant stages of putting the team together, Wardell and Subroza didn't really know my calling style, they didn't know how I called strats, and they're also a little bit inexperienced. Yes they have seasons of Pro, but they don't have LAN experience for example, they don't have a lot of reps against top pro teams like FaZe and mibr type of thing. Maybe they play against mibr online in ESL Pro League, but they never actually played them on LAN where there's a lot of pressure, a lot of people watching and it actually counts when you lose that game and you're out of the tournament, versus online you lose a game and there's still 20 more matches.

ESL One Belo Horizonte was the first major event for Ghost's current roster

I wanted to talk a bit about the format for qualifying into these premier events...

Kill me.

I know for Stockholm you guys went through flawlessly and didn't drop a series, but you had no advantage going into the grand final, they didn't even let you pick a map before the other team's first ban. At the same time there was the whole Minor qualifier situation where Swole Patrol qualified due to round difference since only six spots were awarded. What do you think about these online qualifiers using these varied formats that aren't fully fleshed out?

I think using new formats is fine if they make sense logically. The thing about the DreamHack Masters Stockholm qualifier that I didn't like was that it was a double elimination tournament, but you could lose one series and be out in the grand finals. Logically that doesn't make sense, in most cases in double elimination tournaments the team that goes through the upper bracket will have Bo3 advantage over the team from the lower bracket, so the team from the lower bracket would have to win two Bo3s. Because that could take a lot of time and it could be potentially six maps, what a lot of organizers do is say "okay, let's do Bo5 with one map advantage to the upper bracket" because now that's potentially four maps instead of six. That still gives an advantage to the team from the upper bracket, but it keeps the time in order. To just say "oh, well, we don't have time so one Bo3", that's not fair to the team that went through the upper bracket because either of the two teams that were coming through the lower bracket we already played them once. If we play them again they know what map we wanna pick, they're gonna what our strats are, they're gonna know what was working against them and they're gonna be able to adjust and fix it. We've already shown our hand, it's like in poker when you bluff an enemy and then you show them your card and they know that you're bluffing and they know all the tells of that bluff, so now they're able to call your bluff next time. I think that's just stupid. With regards to the FACEIT Minor qualification system, I think 3-way ties needs to be addressed completely definitely, because that was just dumb. If they wanna do Swiss maybe the last three teams need to do some sort of tiebreaker Bo1 or something. If they're running this tournament over multiple days and it's for a tournament that's this big, take the time, there's no excuse. If players can't make it then it doesn't mean as much to them as they want it to be. All the teams and players that are participating I guarantee are able to play all those games and that extra Bo1 if it's the difference of making it to the Minor or not.

ALSO READ Ghost pass through Rogue to earn DreamHack Masters Stockholm berth

Last time we talked to you was at EPL S7 Relegation. Over there you guys dropped out to compLexity, so can you talk to me a bit about the result there and whether it influenced the roster change that came after with Ghost?

The result of that event did definitely influence the roster changes. I think that there were a lot of errors that I tried bringing up countless amounts of times that kept happening, and it just wasn't acceptable to be able to do that. For us to want to be at a certain level but not put the effort in, or put the drive or determination or do whatever we need to do to make sure that those mistakes don't happen, it's just not acceptable to have it still happen after weeks of saying "If you see this situation, this is bad, these are alternatives" and it still happens, it's just pathetic. What we ended up doing after EPL Relegation is we went to bootcamp, we tried to work on the problems again, we tried to put systems in place the same way we have on Ghost. We went to DreamHack, lost both pistols against Gambit, we brought the game back, we lost it in overtime or double overtime or something, and we should've been able to close out the game in several different places. We outplayed them for the most part, and all their round wins were one-verus-threes, or individual hero plays on us making fundamental errors, and at the end of the day that's not acceptable for what types of players we wanna be, and that's players that are the best, players that are gonna reach the best, and players that wanna put in the time and effort and energy to reach that.

ALSO READ steel: "the next step [is to] perform at these events coming up"

You've played with Pollo since January when you joined the GX roster, is there a specific reason you brought him along to Ghost with you, do you see something in him for future potential?

When we were on Torqued and we were playing together there were a lot of underlying issues in the team, but we couldn't address certain issues without addressing another one. So there would be overshadowing issues. As we're trying to figure out all those issues, and while Pollo might have some of those issues, I basically said when we were going over to Ghost that we'll give him a chance. "Here are you issues, if you work on them you can be an asset, so here's your chance", and so far he's been doing okay, he's been getting better. He played really well on Nuke, so for the moment there's no reason to say anything about it. We gave him a chance and he's doing his best to make sure he earns his keep.

When you brought on Pollo and koosta to Ghost, was it your choice of what players stayed on Ghost to join you on that lineup, and if so what prompted you to pick Wardell and Subroza?

Ghost wanted to rebuild around Wardell, and I think koosta is one of the best teammates I've probably ever had. Despite what people might think on reddit or whatever, he's so fucking nasty at the game, like he's actually just disgustingly good, even with a rifle. People are like "well he's an AWPer", dude trust me he can rifle. When the option was to decide what's going on, we already knew at this point that we would bench Kev — AZK — and he didn't want to continue if he was benched. swag didn't want to play without AZK so he left, so we just took the three of us and then Wardell was on Ghost, Subroza was already on Ghost, so we thought "yeah, let's do this." Us three plus them two and let's put this together and see how it goes. We tried in scrims and everything was looking good so we proceeded negotiations and practicing on the sidelines.

steel thinks Pollo has been steadily improving better so far

koosta and Wardell are both known as main AWPers, have you designed strats around them double AWPing or do you let them sort of decide when to switch it up?

We try to get Wardell an AWP at basically every opportunity. With regards to koosta we'll let him do whatever he wants, if he wants to rifle he'll rifle, if he wants to AWP he'll AWP, if he doesn't want to AWP but I think double AWP is necessary, then I'll AWP. With koosta it's literally we let him do what he wants, we can leave him to solo bombsites, I can do grenades for him, like smokes and flashes so he can push an area, take control, and just, y'know, kill everyone. So that's a lot of what our play is around, and then Wardell is encouraged to go and take his AWP and take aggressive angles by pushing and making it a 5vs4 early on and lock things down. I think the dynamic that we have right now is pretty good.

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Speaking of Kev, you didn't play with him for a long time and then you got the chance to play with him again on GX and Torqued. What was it like playing with him after such a long time, and do you think he still has the potential to blossom as a player?

Without being in his head it's hard to say what it is, what I can see and what I can observe and what it feels like is that he's set in a specific playstyle that used to work, and it feels like he's lost confidence. I played with him in CS: Source, so I played with him like... seven years ago, and then I played with him again on iBUYPOWER which was at this point four years ago. When I can see the contrast between his playstyle then and his playstyle now, it looks like he doesn't really know what's happening on the map, he doesn't have that awareness, but he also doesn't have the confidence to just go straight up just peek and kill people, and that's what he was strong at, his strength was aiming. For him to not want to go and take those aim duels, but to be in those positions where he needs to, it just wasn't working. I tried to encourage him to do it, I tried to put him in positions, we tried to give him setups and ideas of things that he could do, but when push comes to shove, especially on CT side, everyone just needs to make their own decisions. People will say things about in-game leaders, "oh this guy is a good IGL on T side, but on CT side he's not an IGL", it's like... there's only so much you can do as an in-game leader on CT side. If a guy won't realize that there's four people on the other side of the map and just take the initiative to push his spot, and know where to look when he's pushing, and know how far to push, and know where to look, should he flank or should he contain — that's on the individual. Nobody can help them, and I think that that's where the disconnect happened. I just don't know what it is inside his head that's preventing him from doing this, but I know that he used to be able to do it. In Source he would just run down places and just AWP this guy and AWP that guy and ace, and here it's like I wanted him to do that still but it just wasn't happening for whatever reason.

In the grand finals you're up against FURIA now, I don't know if you've watched any of their games during this tournament, but what do you think of them as a team and what do you think your chances are against them?

I only saw them play one time and that was like, a little bit last night against eUnited, and a little bit against compLexity as well. I haven't had a lot of opportunities to watch them, there was no real reason for me to watch them before this event. As an opponent of mine I don't have anything prepared, we're just going to go and play our game. I know that they have individually skilled players. I saw a lot of skillful plays by them, so I don't fully know what to expect but I'm hoping that as long as we play our game and we're fundamentally sound, making the right decisions, making comms, and keeping the energy up there's no reason we won't be able to defeat them.