witmer: "Emotional stability, a work-life balance, I hadn't had that for two years and I really undervalued that"

The Monstars player talked about his experience since returning to the game this year.

witmer being a consummate professional

In our final interview of Fragadelphia 13, Danish "Nohte" Allana had the chance to catch up with Shawn "witmer" Taylor. They talked about his career, the NCS circuit, and MDL.

Talk to me a bit about your results at Frag so far, and how you feel like you guys are playing right now.

The first day there was obviously a bunch of delays, that was unfortunate. We had a bye in our group, so we only had to play one best-of-one there. Team played well, advanced through our group 2-0. Second day, we had a flawless day, we had no maps dropped. We felt like we played pretty well, but definitely something we have a lot of room to improve on. Coming into today, we started off pretty well in our upper semis against WARDELL's team, J Money Team - happy birthday neptune! We were up 9-1 or 10-1 on the second map after winning the first pretty handily, but we actually ended up losing that series. Whenever that happens you got to give credit to them. They all have a bunch of insane talent and players, but we definitely beat ourselves on that one. No excuses but I didn't get much sleep; I definitely didn't play well. Anyway, we bounced back in lowers, we played Rebirth, they have a player named ShoukR, he's been doing pretty well. We played Thunder Logic again, we rematched them on Nuke, and we won like 16-4. When we played them before it went to overtime or something, so we're improving, but the first series today we didn't.

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Let's go back to when you returned to CS:GO, you took a six month break from the game. When you came back you put out a TwitLonger that went over some of the stuff you were dealing with, tell me about that.

I'm sure at this point people are pretty tired of seeing TwitLongers, so I try not to do them anymore. *laughs* I said I retired a couple of times, and again, I've said a bunch of dumb things throughout my career. However, this time when approaching the game and returning, the whole reason for the break was to establish some sort of life balance. I'd hovered around the mid-to-lower tier pro/top MDL for two and a half years after my pro stint, with varying degrees of success individually and with teams. I figured you know, it's something I'm doing wrong. Part of being a professional player is being a consummate professional in every part of your life. Having emotional stability, a work-life balance, I hadn't had that for two years and I really undervalued that, so that's why I took a break and got it all sorted out.

When you did return, you joined up with MASSIVEimpact for a little bit, but then you eventually ended up on Monstars. Tell me about your team and some of your teammates, like Swisher.

The core of Monstars approached me, which was RIKO, tex, and aproto. We've all hovered around the same team, we've played all in different core teams with that unit before. Swisher, I actually had never heard of or anything, I had taken a break from the game so I didn't know any upcoming players. I don't really play the FPL hubs or stuff anymore, I'm just trying to focus on improving as a teammate at this point. Swisher really surprised me, he's got a really big upside. Good mind for the game with minimal experience.

At this LAN you have a stand-in, ReckMONSTER, he's 15. What is he like and how is it playing with him in-game?

Similar situation to Swisher, actually. I didn't know who he was, it was Swisher's suggestion, so I guess there's a whole enclave of these players. Very good player from what I've seen so far this LAN. A little inexperienced but you wouldn't be able to tell from his decisionmaking, just intangible stuff. Really nothing negative to say about anyone on our unit this LAN.

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This is the first Fragadelphia in California. NSG has made a lot of moves this year expanding their LAN circuit, you've been to a number of their Denver LANs, so what're your thoughts on that expansion and Fragadelphia giving California a try?

I know a lot of people were upset with Fragadelphia becoming Fragafornia for an event, but people have got to understand that when you're working with N3rd Street now, they're really trying to provide access and competitive integrity to the entire country, not just the East Coast LAN scene that Fragadelphia built from the ground up. That partnership is really offering a lot of opportunities to players all across the country of all skill levels, and I think it's a good thing. It's the better way to develop talent as opposed to say, making play as much as possible in pick-up game scenarios.

You say you're not playing much of the FPL sort of hubs anymore, is that primarily because you're focusing on yourself as a player, or is it also just an issue with how people play inside those hubs?

I've been around FPL since before Rank S, before the inception of all of it. I've seen how it evolved with different eras and tiers of players and everything. I'm not going to sit here and bad-mouth FACEIT or ESEA, I just think, fundamentally, that it's the most ass-backwards way to train for being a competitive CS player, and I really do not appreciate how they take credit for a player's success. FPL and Rank S, it has it's purpose, I definitely still play it here and there, but again for me it's about having that work-life balance. I want to have effective hours now, not just all the hours.

In terms of working effectively, in-game leaders in North America are pretty crucial to that aspect when it comes to helping developing players. What're your thoughts on the range of in-game leaders that are available in North America, and the number of them that are available to provide experience to players?

At the top line, I think we have some of the best minds in the game. My personal favorite forever has always been stanislaw, he's rock solid. He's always been able to frag well while calling. That's kind of the mold for the caller now, right? If everybody has access to all the information, they have to be able to shoot back too. My thing is that, when the primary way for "improving" as a player is through these hubs where you're playing with pick-up game scenarios but you still want to call and develop that part of your game. I feel like there's a propensity for IGLs to set themselves up because they feel pressured to present their stats like, "look I'm calling, and I can still frag!" I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing, but when it's your only outlet or your primary outlet, it can build a lot of bad habits. If that continues to happen we're only going to see the gap between the top level IGLs in NA, like nitr0, stanislaw, the same four or five names we've heard forever, steel. That gap is only going to get bigger if people are only looking at this stuff through the lens of themselves.

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With you playing this season in MDL, what're your thoughts on the other teams in MDL Season 32, and what do you think of MDL as a whole?

I've played or been around pretty much every MDL season. I think this is definitely the hardest one yet; it's the most competitive. I know people say that all the time, but this one is definitely the hardest. Pretty much anybody can win, the skill gaps are getting smaller and smaller. That being said, I feel like MDL is the right way to train things in terms of keeping a core five together, but it just sucks when, best-case scenario, your best player or your best two players, your core, they just get poached. In fact, do you know of any lineup that has qualified for Pro from MDL that didn't change a player going into their pro season? And there's been how many seasons of MDL, I think it started in Season 20, so 12 seasons? What is the point of a Mountain Dew League if you want to improve as a team, which is what you're trying to do, if you're just going to get poached individually? As these patterns develop, so are bad patterns going to develop in these people's play.