Veloce Esports had a strong season in the European Rocket League Championship Series (RLCS), finishing 5-2 in matches—only a couple of game wins behind first place. They came into the weekend as the region’s third seed, but ultimately struggled in their first series, falling 3-1 to South American team Lowkey Esports.

On Saturday, Veloce will have another chance to stay alive in the tournament by facing eUnited, who beat Renegades but lost to Renault Vitality. Will they make it through?

We’ll have to wait and see, but during Day 1, we had a chance to talk to the team—Sandro “FreaKii” Holzwarth, Jack “FlamE” Pearton, and Andy “Kassio” Landais—as well as coach David “Miztik” Lawrie. We asked a few questions during a roundtable interview, and started off by asking Miztik—the former FlipSid3 Tactics captain—about his future competitive plans.

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Rocketeers: Miztik, do you miss playing competitively sometimes?

Miztik: I miss it more than ever. Now that I’m coaching, I miss it even more.

Rocketeers: Do you think you’ll return to the competitive stage at some point?

Miztik: Yes, I feel like I’m not done yet. I’m good enough to compete.

Rocketeers: Do you play with the team sometimes?

Miztik: No, not really. My ELO is too high for them.

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And much like with ViolentPanda from Dignitas, we asked the entire Veloce Esports team (including Miztik) to choose which players they’d pick from their home country to compete alongside them in next year’s Olympics-sponsored Intel World Open tournament.

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Rocketeers: Next year, there’s an Olympics-tied event in Tokyo. Quickfire: Which two players from your country would you pick to play in that tournament?

Freakii: Tigreee and Godsmilla.

FlamE: I’d pick probably Speed and EyeIgnite.

Kassio: I’d pick Kaydop and Chausette.

Miztik: I’d pick Scrub Killa and Markydooda for the memes.

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Earlier in the day, South American champions The Three Sins said that they’d learned a lot about the EU play style by scrimming with Veloce. Unfortunately for the SAM team, they fell 3-0 to Dignitas in the first match of Day 1. FreaKii and Miztik spoke about where things might’ve gone wrong for the team.

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Rocketeers: The Three Sins mentioned that they learned to adapt a lot to the EU play style from playing against you in scrims. What do you think they learned from you?

FreaKii: We scrimmed them, yeah—and the way they played against Dignitas onstage was not the way they played in scrims. That’s what I can say.

Miztik: From a coaching perspective, they seemed to be two different teams in scrims than they are being here. They looked super nervous against Dignitas, and they didn’t really execute any of the game plans that they were playing against us that were working. I feel like if they take what they did in scrims and translate that into the game, then they’re gonna be a real good force. But I think if they can’t manage to pull that off, then they should change how they scrim.

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Additional reporting by Andrew Hayward

Photo courtesy of Psyonix