Earlier this year Rory ‘Dephh’ Jackson created an absolute storm of news by moving to the USA to play with North American team compLexity, he would go on to be joined by Kia ‘Surreal’ Man to give a British backbone to compLexity Gaming. After being touted as a top UK player, Rory went on to become one of the first ever Counterstrike players to secure a P-1 Athletic Visa.

I had a chat with Dephh to catch up and see ow things were faring across the pond.

First of all, thank you for taking the time out of your day to answer these questions! It’s been roughly 6 months since the official announcement that you were joining Complexity. 6 months in, how are you enjoying it across the pond? Could you tell us a little bit about where you have lived and are living now, how you’re finding it, etc?

I originally moved to Warden’s home in Houston, Texas. The house was amazing and I actually really enjoyed my stay there even though the weather is slightly unforgiving. America is general is great, the people are nice, the food is good and the general atmosphere is better than Britain for me. I’ve now moved into a gaming house in Colorado, and it’s one of the nicest places I’ve ever lived. We are expecting to see the entire team in the house within the next few weeks.

Since joining Complexity, how has your role or game style changed?

I joined the team as an entry fragger, and then as we moved players around and made some roster changes I had to try and IGL. Even though I’ve learnt a lot I am now back into my original role. I’m playing well at the moment and hope it continues, I’m now back in a comfortable role of being hyper aggressive and the first guy into bomb sites.

Outside of Complexity teammates, who from the NA have you enjoyed playing with (in things like FPL, Rank S, etc) and why?

I’ve not met anyone in NA that I dislike playing with, even the editions of more Europeans in Rank S. In general everyone is super friendly and the environments are always fun to play in.

Right now we find ourselves in a bit of a “quiet” period in terms of Major tournaments. In this so-called “down time” what is your main focus along with your Complexity teammates?

Even though it’s a “quiet period”, we are bombarded with games from ESEA and other tournaments in between. Saying that, the new lineup haven’t missed a day of prac and we continue to get better and better each day. Having APE in the team means that he can lead the practices and IGL and everyone can play the roles they are comfortable with. Our main focus is to continue practicing and hopefully it will show in our future games.

Would you say it’s fair to say that Complexity are in a transitional period at the moment? With recently bringing APE into the lineup and adapting to a new player.

APE is one of my favourite players I’ve played with, being from the UK I hadn’t heard of him before. Warden suggested him as a perfect role player, and he is that. He doesn’t want to get on reddit with a 5k, he wants to support his teammates. That’s what people on the Streams do not see, the teammates that are assisting those who are normally top fragging or have the highest ADR. Saying that, I can see this lineup being the same for the foreseeable future, right now we are just plodding on and continuing long hours of practice.

As we near the end of the year (feels stupid saying that!) what do you see as achievable goals for both yourself and Complexity in that time?

As a team we want as much experience as possible, we are playing all possible leagues and attending all possible events.

Do you see large differences in the way UK and NA teams play, practice, and in general many differences in the scene?

Practice in NA could be better, instead of practicing to practice, teams sometimes practice to win. Each team should be taking new strats into a scrim in order to continue practicing them. UK practice isn’t even worth mentioning, when I was in UK teams other teams within the UK are very reluctant to practice each other. So in order to get decent practice you’d have to play lower tier EU teams. I’ve said it before and I’ll repeat it, the main reason the UK scene is struggling is the fact the money being pumped out or in from organisations is lacking, players cannot treat this game as their job. So it’s very easy to ‘f**k it’ and give up on the idea of becoming a PRO team. The sad part of this is the results that you show and the progress you show as a team attracts larger organisations, so it’s a lose-lose situation. It’ll take a team of high-skilled players that also have a similar vision on becoming a PRO player. Another underlying issue is the fact that a lot of UK players don’t get along, and refuse to play in teams together.

I think it’s fair to say that yourself and Surreal are fan favourites in the UK. Do you still get a lot of love and energy from the UK scene?

The support from the UK is absolutely great, there are so many positive vibes coming from UK aspiring players and it’s really heartwarming to hear. It’s not all sunshine and rainbows though (without naming names).

Do you still follow the UK CS:GO scene? If so, who have you got your eyes on at the moment?

I keep an eye on it occasionally, mainly through Twitter or players I still speak to through Steam. Still seems like it’s the eternal struggle of new players, new teams, new lineups. Same old shit different day.

If you are tasked with invigorating the UK CS:GO scene, what TWO changes would you make?

Remove the toxic players that delude younger talent. Start an organisation that’s one and only drive is to progress at least one UK team.

I’d like to thank Rory for taking the time to answer my questions. You can follow him on Twitter or catch his stream.