AZK: "The reason I came back was to play with swag again"

After the events in New York concluded we spoke to Keven "AZK" Lariviere to get his thoughts.

AZK and GX had a rough go of it in New York

Unfortunately you guys had a little bit of a disappointing event. What are your thoughts in general on your performances here, as a team and individually?

Well as a team I feel like the whole thing was a bit — I don't know if people took it as serious as we should have at certain times, you know? People were kinda relaxed. I don't think we practiced as much as we should. But, you know, we still put in a lot of work. It was unfortunate Sam "DaZeD" Marine left us during the middle of the season. We did what we could towards the end. I don't think we were really a team, we're just kinda pugging it around you know? We did our best but — I feel kinda bad for James "JamezIRL" MacCaulay because he helped us out a lot, and when it comes to strats I feel like we didn't implement a lot of it into our game.

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Talk about the move that saw DaZeD leave the team and Shawn "witmer" Taylor come in. How was all that decided?

It was not our decision at all. DaZeD even told us at the beginning that he wasn't sure if he wanted to commit to playing, and after playing for a few weeks he said that it was making him feel kind of like — he wasn't feeling good in his real life because he was always practicing and stuff and he didn't wanna practice that much anymore. He wanted to do other stuff in life. He was sort of over CS I could tell. So he decided to leave the team after a couple weeks maybe, maybe a month or two, I'm not exactly sure. He just wasn't into it. But he told us from the beginning that that might happen so I'm not mad at him for that. I understand where he's coming from, as you get older priorities kind of change, you don't have the same motivation as you did before. For him playing CS competitively again it wasn't making him feel good in life so I think that's why he stopped. [About witmer] actually I didn't have any say into that. Braxton "swag" Pierce kind of handled everything, and I just supported his decisions. witmer is a good friend of swag so I think that's how it happened pretty much. I didn't know witmer much personally.

So talk to me about playing CS competitively giving that fulfillment. How has it been for you coming back to this game after an enforced break, and also playing Overwatch professionally?

So what happened was I was playing Overwatch professionally for Team Liquid. I started at the beginning of 2016 in April. I did that for a while but after playing the game for a couple months I wasn't into it myself anymore. It was just really hard for me to practice that game as much as I wanted to cause I didn't really enjoy playing it whereas Counter-Strike — I can always play this game and I always have fun. It's a much harder game. And it's just, I don't know, it's hard for me to stray away from CS when I've played the game since I was like 14 maybe. Overwatch was just kind of a replacement for me while I was banned. It was something to fill in my time. I mean I had a little bit of fun at the start but I didn't like the game competitively.

AZK says playing with swag again is the main reason he returned to CS

Now you are able to play ESL events, DreamHack events, Pro League, all that stuff. Even if you are never able to play in Majors, is what is available now enough for you to keep at it?

It's always gonna be enough for me to just play CS again with my friends. And I always felt really bad for swag with what happened with the ban. When swag told me he wanted to play with me again I didn't hesitate — I felt really bad for him. The reason I came back was to play with swag again, to be honest. I'm taking it from there. I think I took it a little too relaxed this season, I think I should have worked harder personally. When the season started at the beginning I was kind of similar to DaZeD, like I wasn't sure if I was gonna commit 100% but as the weeks went on, as the months went on I knew that this is what I wanted to do and towards the end I kept practicing even more

I believe you guys changed the IGL role from witmer to you in the middle of the event — what happened there?

Kind of. I actually called like one match and it was against Rogue. I wasn't calling mid-round I was just calling freezetime. My team didn't really have anyone that liked to do the early round calling and I think I've always been ok at it, at least to set up people where they should be. I just tried to do my best with that and I let witmer and swag do most of the mid-round calls.

ALSO READ DaZeD steps down from GX; witmer to fill in

We're just at the beginning of 2018 here, so what would you say your personal goals and team goals are for the year?

For myself I'd like to play Pro again. I'm never gonna be content just playing MDL that's for sure. I'd like to get back to the level I was at initially before the ban. I don't know how long that's gonna take. I'm working at it. I don't wanna say not as hard as I should have, because I actually put in a lot of time, but I think at the start of the season I took it a little bit too relaxed.

What do you think of the current teams that are in Pro right now?

The level of play is definitely a lot higher than it used to be that's for sure. But when I'm playing against those teams I don't feel it's a level that's unreachable or anything. The teams are good, but it comes from repetition and knowing what to do in every situation. And that's exactly how I was back then. I knew what to do all the time. And that just comes from experience, playing against good teams all the time. I think I can reach that level again, but I don't know how long it's gonna take.

You yourself are French Canadian, and we had a team of promising French Canadian players coming up. What do you think of those players?

I speak three languages, but yeah. I actually don't talk to Frenchies at all. Not their team in specific, I've just always hung out with English people. I don't know why, it's just a thing. I actually don't get along that well with French Canadians that much, I don't know why it's just — I don't know, I've always played with English people. Like the guys you mentioned, I've talked to them and they're all cool people, I like them. But for me personally, I'd still rather play with English people.

You guys don't have an organization right now, aren't salaried, so are you working on the side, or doing this full-time and living off that Overwatch money?

I'm pretty much living off the Overwatch money. I made an ok amount of money playing that game. I'm pretty much doing this full-time right now, and I've been putting in a lot of hours — maybe not the most productive hours, but I've been playing a lot and I hope it's gonna pay off.

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GX's next guaranteed action will be in ESEA MDL Season 27, which is set to start on January 21st. Between now and then there will also be the qualifiers for Chicago CS:GO Open and IEM Katowice, and it is likely the squad will turn up there as well.