North managed to deny OpTic's comeback on Inferno, the first match of IEM Sydney 2017, but the North American side didn't struggle in their second match, against ViCi, picking up their first win on Train.



RUSH stated that the team's future will be decided after this event

In an interview with William "⁠RUSH⁠" Wierzba, we found out about their roster, playing Cloud9, and the problems against North.

Let's start with cs_summit, you finished 3rd which was pretty high for the expectations that were put on you. What were your expectations and how did you feel after the event?

Our expectations weren't that high, but obviously, we wanted to have a good showing at the same time. We had good preparation with jasonR, we practiced a lot. Our honest goal was to make top four and we got even further than that, placing third. We were pretty happy with what we got, we exceeded our expectations.

You had a lot of trouble with Cloud9 in the past in BO3's on LAN, but you beat them at cs_summit to place third. Was there anything special for you, was it a big thing for your team?

For Cloud9 I think we've beaten them on LAN more than they've beaten us. They did slam us at ESL Pro League S4 in Brazil, at DreamHack Winter, but we beat them at ECS S2 and now at cs_summit, but they beat us in a BO3 before that. We were pretty crushed when they 2-0'd us earlier in the tournament, but we went in with a fresh mindset for the second BO3 because we knew we can beat them.

Again, you had a change in your roster, this is your third player this year with Hiko, jasonR and now hazed now coming in as a stand-in. Did you prepare specially with him, do anything in that regard coming into the event?

Whoever we are going to the event we practice with before the tournament. Before cs_summit we practiced with jasonR, before this we didn't have much time, granted, but we practiced with hazed, put a lot of time into the maps, with him as an IGL.

You opened the tournament against North, it was a bad start for you, k0nfig was on a tear in the first half with the AWP, what was the struggle for you?

k0nfig is the type of player that when he gets rolling and he gets confidence he doesn't stop, he'll peek everything and he will destroy you. He got rolling pretty quick, but in the later part of the half we started shutting him down and we got five rounds on the board, which was pretty important. But they also won two pistols, both CT and T, and on our CT pistol we all peeked one-by-one in a 3v1—that was the most poorly play round we've played in a while.

In terms of coming back, we had a good CT side, we were 13-6 down I think and I attribute it to our communication. Ever since we got hazed and jasonR our communication has vastly improved on CT. We were always known as a team that has bad CT sides and good T sides and now lately we've been having good CT sides, so it's a good turn of events for us on CT.

In the end you made a comeback, but they closed it out, was there anything in those final rounds that you remember you should've done differently?

A couple things, obviously this is in overtime, but we lost both pistol rounds as I said, that really affected the game itself. When we were up 15-14 we had 2 A and 3 B, I was in mid and I should've been in site. They bursted out A halls, hazed was pit alone and they easily killed me lane when I should've been site, crossfiring with hazed. That was a big round to lose.

Against ViCi, it looked pretty straightforward except the middle part, where they got a bit of momentum. Did it catch you off guard a bit and did you notice anything special about their, Asian style of CS?

Obviously, Asian teams have really good aim so we knew they are going to win their aim battles a lot. We didn't really underestimate them, I think we played them pretty normally, but I do think we became a little bit arrogant in the first half, like when they eco'd us. We double pushed inner, we shouldn't do that, it was a huge mistake, and they got five rounds from that point. When we got on the T side we kinda tightened up the screws a bit.

Did you notice anything special, if you had to pick one thing ViCI does differently than teams you normally meet?

I guess the way they play is different, aim heavy, they go for aim battles alone, they go ivy on Train alone, ladder and T-mid looking for aim battles alone. It's not typically what a team does, usually you wanna have a team right behind you to trade you, but they seem to go for solo duels, which isn't necessarily bad, but isn't consistent enough.

Moving forward, after all these different players in the team, do you have a clear player in sight which is going to be stepping in, is jasonR going to be coming back—what is the plan for now?

Nothing is set in stone, basically, our future is going to be decided after this tournament. It's not based upon results or anything like that, we just need to talk as a team about what we want to do. For me, personally, I want to keep hazed as a coach but you never know what will happen. jasonR did his role very well, so as I said, it remains to be seen what we are going to do.