Ke "captainMo" Liu is the primary AWPer for TyLoo, China's top CS:GO team. Despite that, they continue to struggle against international competition, which was evident in their 16-0 loss to Cloud9 at iBUYPOWER Masters 2016. However, they made up for that loss after defeating Echo Fox 2-1 to qualify for IEM Season XI Oakland.

After their games at iBUYPOWER Masters, theScore esports sat down with captainMo to talk about the growth of the team and the possibility of them switching regions.

You guys just defeated Echo Fox in what was a back-and-forth, three-map series, how did the team keep their cool throughout the series?

We made a lot of mistakes during the game. We also argued quite a lot during the game, so I think that's the reason that we were trading. We had some pauses and timeouts, karsa was telling us the other team's habits and tactics and what we needed to improve. I think we need to calm down and trust each other.

You guys were defeated 16-0 by C9 earlier in iBP and I believe it’s the first time this has happened to you guys in an official match. How is the team dealing with the loss?

The loss was a lesson to us. We actually learned a lot from it and we watched the demos, it gives us more motivation. The loss was not because of individual skill, it's the whole thing, it's the teamwork, the communication.

Us and C9 are not on the same level, we're kind of far away from them. We still have some distance from the Tier 1 teams, there are still many things that we need to learn from them.

You guys have recently acquired a one-year Schengen visa as well as a 10-year U.S. visa, which is a huge deal for you guys. You’ve taken advantage of it by boot camping in California. What were the major takeaways from that time?

I think [where] we have improved the most, first of all is the communication with the different top level teams in North America and also we're kind of fixing our own problems with in-game communication, the use of utility and our understanding of the maps. I think that we've improved a lot, but in this tournament we didn't actually show it here.

How would you compare playing against teams from Asia and against teams from Europe?

I think our individual skill and also our understanding of the strategies are enough to play against Asian teams, but after we bootcamped in America, facing the European and North American teams, those things are not enough.

When we're aiming against the top level players, we don't have any advantage. Their understanding of the maps and their experience is much higher than ours, so that's what we need to improve.

You guys missed out on the first season of ELEAGUE due to visa issues, then ELEAGUE Season 2 didn’t have any path for you guys to enter the league. Are you guys frustrated with this?

We are quite disappointed that we couldn't participate in ELEAGUE. It's not only that we couldn't participate in this really good tournament, where we could play against the top level teams, but also because of the format. If we participate, we can stay in North America for like a week or more and we can have more chances to play against the other teams. We are kind of frustrated.

Have you guys considered relocating to Europe or America to compete in the local leagues?

Right now we don't have a plan to actually move to another region, but we have planned to have more bootcamps in North America and Europe next year. And if there's a chance, we'll look to play in a league in another region.

If you guys qualify for the Major, Valve’s ruling on coaches seems to hurt the team a lot given karsa’s involvement. How are you guys preparing for that?

It's actually affecting us a lot, because, before the rule, our coach karsa was helping our in-game communication, he actually kind of played in that role, to communicate for the players. And now we need to communicate for ourselves. That's what we need to improve.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Navneet Randhawa does stuff and things at theScore esports. You can follow her on Twitter.