steel: "At first I was against putting [the twins] on the team because of all the things that happened back in Immortals"

We talked to steel about his move to Luminosity, the difference between CS in Brazil and NA, and his tenure on Liquid.

steel and the twins are once again reunited in Montreal

Danish "Nohte" Allana had the chance to catch up with Lucas "steel" Lopes after Luminosity's overtime win over Heroic on day 1 of DreamHack Open Montreal to discuss his move to Luminosity, his time on Liquid, and much more.

The match you just played against Heroic was pretty grueling, going into overtime in the end. You started 0-6 down and ground it back to take the win, talk me through that.

Yeah in beginning, for the first five rounds, NEKIZ's mic wasn't working so we couldn't communicate with him. And then the next couple rounds HEN1's mic was not working, so in the beginning of the match we were not communicating at all. Everyone was mad because of these tech issues, and because of that maybe - I'm not sure - we started so bad. But after that we just stayed positive and became a little bit more calm, and we started to warmup and started to grind back.

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You also recently reunited with the twins again after they were dropped from NTC. What prompted you to bring them on board after the way things ended last time for you, what's changed since then?

At first I was against putting them on the team because of all the things that happened back in Immortals. They were not playing CS competitively for a long time - if I'm not mistaken, for like six months or something - so they were not in the pro scene for a long time. It's super hard to come back after that because the game is always changing, new players are always coming with new levels of skill, so in the beginning I was against it. After they joined we went to a bootcamp straight away, and in the bootcamp they proved that they were changed, and they were willing to prove themselves again in the pro scene so everyone was motivated because they were bringing that kind of energy back to the team again.

Speaking of new talent coming up, I talked to a couple of the guys from FURIA at ZOTAC and they showed a lot of potential. There's a lot of young talent coming up in Brazil, and you specifically have played with a lot of the top talent in Brazil. What fosters such a large competitive scene in Brazil that produces players like this?

I think that, as you said, we have the talent, we have the skill that the players need to have to get to the top level, but there's no sponsors, there's no tournaments in Brazil, so 80-90% of the players still have to study or work, or do something else besides Counter-Strike. Counter-Strike is not a priority, and because of this they cannot grow up in the game as much as they could.

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Let's talk about you linking up with Luminosity again, you played under them once before with FalleN and those guys. Do you feel more pressure or feel more patriotic playing under the same brand that's already won a Major, does it feel any different than before?

To be honest I don't like to think about that because if I start thinking about this, I'm going to put some pressure on me. I don't like to think about this, I just think about playing, I don't think about Luminosity's "legendary status" or the team's previous tag.

You came to Luminosity after stepping down from Liquid and have sort of rebuilt a competitive roster with the twins joining now. How was the transition for you and what prompted that change?

When I left Liquid I was thinking the only option for me was playing on a Brazilian team again. There's no reason about Liquid, the Liquid players were amazing to me, the organization was amazing to me and everything was super good. I only have good things about Liquid and their players. I just wanted to go back to a Brazilian roster because I felt that I would feel better playing under a Brazilian team again. That's the only reason, and Liquid is playing super good, they're maybe top 2 in the world right now, at least for me, they're fighting with Astralis for the top. It makes me happy because I had the chance to play with them, but I'm super happy right now.

steel enjoyed his time on Liquid, but he's happy to be back on a Brazilian lineup

You said earlier you spent the last 50 days in Brazil during your break, were you practicing and scrimming there?

Yeah, just for the last two weeks.

Gotcha. Tell me a bit about the differences between practicing and scrimming in Brazil versus playing here in North America, style-wise and how much practice you get in.

It was different because everyone was kind of feeling like it was still our vacation or break, so we were practicing but it was not the same. I felt like people were not focused 100% on the scrims. But yeah, first the level, because of the reasons that I said, people can not practice and put time and effort into Counter-Strike, so because of that they are a little bit behind on the game knowledge. For example, how to take control of the map, how to take space. Because of that I think that we were a little bit in front of them. That's the only reason because as I said, they have the talent to be super good and have an amazing scene in Brazil.

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I wanted to touch a bit on that retake right at the end of the game, 14-13 for you guys in a 4vs4. That really reminded me a lot of the old SK/Luminosity late-round retakes that they always managed to pull off, that's a big part of what made them really good when they were Major winners in my opinion. What sort of comms are happening for you guys in sort of that situation?

To be honest we don't have something planned for that kind of situation, we just communicate in the middle of the round. Everyone was talking about what they were going to do, "I'm going to smoke there", "I'm going to try to flash there", "I'm gonna try to kill that person." It's just natural for us, we're just communicating and playing and I have no words how to describe that because it's just natural chemistry for us.

You've played in North America for quite a while in a few different rosters - have you felt like the qualifiers that you play in North America have become tougher in the last two years or so, and do you think that's partially because of the Brazilian teams who've come here and added a different style to the mix?

Yeah it's a lot harder right now, NA has a lot more good teams than it used to have before back in 2015. Every qualifier is super hard because you can have teams like... for example, Cloud9 played the last qualifier for Chicago, and you can have NRG in the same qualifier, you can have Liquid, you can have compLexity, you can have Rogue, and these teams are all playing good. It's hard to say which one is tier 1 or tier 2 in North America because everything is so equal right now, everything is a lot harder right now. I don't think it has something to do with us Brazilians, I think the scene is just developing and getting better. Of course the Brazilians on MIBR helped a lot because they were super good and Major champions, so everyone who tries to scrim against them is going to have a good experience, but it's not only that.

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You guys qualified for IEM Chicago through the SA qualifier, and that'll be your first chance to play in a top-tier 16-team tournament with this roster. Will you be bootcamping for it around here or in Europe, and what are your goals for that tournament?

We're gonna stay in North America because we have Pro League to play, we're gonna have ECS, so we cannot go to Europe to bootcamp. So we're gonna stay here, and happily there is a lot of time to play, to scrim, to play tournaments, and get back to the tournament feeling that we are used to because we are not on the top level since we just got back from the vacation. Our goals... I don't like to put goals, I just like to go there and play because if you put goals maybe you can be frustrated when you lose a match, or if you are winning you're gonna put a lot of pressure on yourself because your "goal was a little bit higher than that." So I don't like to put goals, I just like to go there and play.

You and boltz have both played on the old LG roster, and boltz more recently on the SK roster. What do you think about boltz's return to that SK roster, and what sort of issues do you think they may have had for boltz to end up leaving the team?

I think it was super good for him because SK, back in that time, they were playing super good, and when boltz joined they were winning tournaments, they were being consistently good. I don't know what happened this year, I was not on the team, so only they can answer that, but I thought it was a good idea and a good addition for boltz joining the lineup, it was good for him.

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Do you think you and boltz and the rest of the Brazilian scene can continue the upward trend, and maybe we'll see two or three of the top five teams be Brazilian some day?

Yeah I think so, because there's a lot of Brazilian teams that are coming to the US to start playing in US leagues and qualifiers, like oNe, like FURIA, so I think that the path that's the better way to get on the top level is coming to North America and starting to play the qualifiers and North American leagues. I think these teams are on the right track and I think they're going to be a lot better in the next couple of years.

Luminosity now await the winner of the elimination match between Heroic vs Imperial. A loss to AGO in the winners' matchup saw the Brazilians miss out on a chance to secure an early playoffs berth, and now a rematch against Heroic may be on the cards starting around 7 PM EDT.