Last saturday I had the chance to sit with Richard “PiPou” Buscemi, Samsung Morning Stars coach, after their Angry Cup victory a week ago now.

As a reminder, Samsung Morning Stars announced its roster in October, with the following players :

They are managed by :

Here are the 10 teams who played this competition, all of them except Kungarna are currently in Contenders Europe :

Angry Titans

Bazooka Puppiez

British Hurricane

Kungarna

Orgless and Hungry

Samsung MorningStars

Shu’s Money Crew

We have org

Winstrike team

Young and Beautiful

The creation of the team

How did you build the team ?

“I did a first trials phase where I watched only the players’ attitude and their hero pool flexibility. After that I started a phase 2 where I focused on mechanics and synergy. I wanted very calm players, tilt-proof, without ego and eager to admit their mistakes and step up thanks to them. I wanted players who could talk to each other. For this part of the trials I did things very strictly. An Excel document where each player will play with every other player in all the possible situations. They would get the same amount of games played, with and against the same players, on the same map pool. I had good statistics in hand, but I did not choose only with that, they were helpful though. In the end I had 12 players, the goal was to know which ones had the best synergy in communication, attitude, understanding and of course in game. That’s how I created the roster.”

Can you tell me who were part of the remaining 12 that were not retained?

“There were Chubz, Hqrdest, Danye, Phatt, GetAmazed and Hayko. I warned everyone I would be the most impartial I could, that I wanted to create a winning roster. They were all very talented but I had to make some choices to build the current team, it was difficult but I think I took the right decision.”

You as a team are quite new, did you find your marks after more than a month together ?

“At first it was a little bit difficult, it was messy because they had never played together. Leaf helped a lot, he gave his tips on tanks compositions. I gave them mine on dive comps, but above all I taught them how to give 100% of themselves and how to focus. I gave them a line of work instead of tactics in the early stages. I made them play that they can get some synergy.“

Is there one player that step up and became the leader in the team ?

“Strictly speaking, there is no real leader in this lineup, except when it comes to tank comps, in which case Leaf talks about 70% of the time and Dridro too now he understood the game plans correctly. They are the ones who speak up the most. Globally there really are 6 people speaking. We still have the same game plans and it’s now kind of automatic for the players: if they know what comps the opponents are playing, they know exactly what to do, they don’t need a leader to tell them so. I’d say Mowzassa, Leaf and Dridro are the main voices, but they are not the big leaders of the pack, they are part of it.”

Since you speak of him, did Leaf helped at first, being a bit like the “Contenders champion tank specialist” with Eagle Gaming?

“I won’t tell he’s the captain because several players have this role without wanting it but he is European Champion indeed, he knows exactly how to play tanks, he almost acted as an assistant coach to be honest, he participated in VODs reviews, in the explanations on how to play tank. He’s legit for all the players. When he speaks, we listen. He’s able to explain things very calmly, in a very educational style, this is so helpful for us.”

Was it your choice to be alone in the coaching position ?

“I’ve been offered one or two assistant coaches but I declined, I don’t need them at the moment. We started from scratch, the first step is to play together. I didn’t want to coach this team with theories. I just want them to play together. If they have the choice between slaying an opponent and saving a teammate from dying, I want them to choose the second option. For the time being, I want them to start with this. When it becomes natural, we’ll do more specific things.”

How do you organize your time? Do you do a lot of VOD Review?

“I don’t impose VOD review, we don’t watch our replays all together. Because my players watch it by themselves and I don’t need to ask them to, they analyze mistakes and talk with each other. They are able to see if one action or an other is bad and they adapt the game plan as a result. We have a Discord channel where after each practice everyone shows his ideas, clips moments to expose his point of view or just shows something in particular. When I notice a big mistake, I take 5 minutes of their time to discuss it and then we move on. I sometimes have the feeling that I coach my players more on the human side, whether it is for communication, for their in game dedication, their energy. I feel that I leave the tactical behind but it’s only because they do it themselves. That’s an other reason why I don’t need an assistant coach at the moment.”

Is it a kind of a collective, where everyone can express themselves?

“Definitely, and the good thing about them talking all together is that it’s not really messy, everyone listens to everyone and plays for and with everyone. Everybody knows what he has to do but it doesn’t stop them from suggesting ideas or strats. I used to be very meticulous with game plans, kind of Korean style. It works with some players but Féfé taught me something : when you play tank for example you don’t need to be so strict, as long as you know what you have to do you just need to put some intensity in the comms to set up the rhythm of the game. When you play dive you’ll have to be more careful but now I let my players choose and make their own decisions. If you curb them too much they become robots and if something unusual happens they are lost.”

Was the barrier language a problem at the start ? Did you overcome it ?

“As it stands I am pretty happy, I had the worst english of the group and we speak english almost all the time (except when we speak French Dridro, Leaf and me). It came along fast and well, we had the chance to participate in an event, the Lucca Comics & Games, and it was very helpful. We did not practice for 5 days but we spent lots of time together, creating bonds. Now everyone is getting along pretty well.”

The groupstage

The Angry Cup was your first official as a team, I believe it was a success !

“For us it was a pre-Contenders training. I did not approach this tournament as if I wanted to win it at every cost. I wanted to know if my players were capable, in match conditions, to play as the play in practice. I wanted to know if there were some players inclined to stress a bit, if there was over-communication, not enough communication… I wanted them to play their own game cleanly, and it allowed us to correct many little mistakes we didn’t do in practice.”

Your first game was against Bazooka Puppiez and ended in a 4–0, you seemed to be comfortable strategically speaking. Can you tell me more about how you experienced this game?

“My players did exactly what I was expecting from them, they just copied what they were able to do in practice, I was proud of them. To quote Féfé’s words, they settled their pace and played at their maximum level of intensity. They made few mistakes and punished a lot those from Bazooka Puppiez.”

Then you came across Shu’s Money Crew, another case! The confrontation ended in a tie, 2–2. What gave you trouble against this team?

“I tried at first to involve the 8 players and that didn’t went well, I had to make some changes for Contenders. They made a lot of mistakes on maps they shouldn’t have et they were not strong enough to win despite the mistakes.”

You followed up against We Have Org with a good score of 3–0, since there was a tie on Hanamura. Do you have any particular comments about this game?

“We understood that playing tanks to attack on Hanamura against Doomfist, Sombra, Ana and Zen, without playing Zarya, we get destroyed. So we’ll never play Brigitte and Roadhog against this composition !” *laughs*

Speaking of Doomfist/Sombra, you held the first point of Hollywood, it was pretty impressive! How did it go?

“If I remember correctly, they had almost captured the point and we managed to recap out of nowhere at the last second and they couldn’t retake it from us. At first the team had no Sombra player in itself, that was a big issue. I put Caspere on the pick almost every time, he stepped up quickly with the character, he gave a lot of his person to achieve this. Having a good Sombra changes everything in the team. Moreover, Leaf already played a lot of Doomfist, he just needed to replay it to be on point with it. Mechanically speaking, Leaf and Caspere are very neat.”

The next game was pretty close against Winstrike, what put you in trouble?

“Mei on Busan. During practice we used to win but there we didn’t manage to play the right way. We let them flood us, we had no solution.”

The finals

How did you organize your training between the group phase and the final, knowing who you were going to play against?

“During practice it went well for us, we had a 72% winrate against them. I had no particular nervousness, I knew that if we played as we always did, we might win. We didn’t analyze that much what they were doing, we just knew they played a lot of tanks. A lot of people think we only play tanks too, but we play much more compositions in the end.”

Illios was pretty tight, how did you get the better of your opponents?

“It was the same thing for every close map, it’s a matter of intensity in my opinion. The team who made the fewest mistakes won.”

You did a very good defense on Route 66, what was revealing?

“Our strategy is to play our compositions and if the opponents play tanks, we switch to tanks and we win. That’s what happened on Route 66. We started with a Sombra/Doomfist defense on the first point. Angry Titans tried an anti-tank attack comp with Pharah, Hammond… They switched next on a peel comp with McCree, we answered with a tanks comp with Zenyatta, which made them play tank as well. We had an ultimate advantage, we kept it and we won.”

What did you think of this event?

“I think I have the same opinion than every other competing team, it’s a great opportunity for everyone because there is so few tournaments outside Contenders and it allows us to train in real match conditions. Even if there is nothing to win, playing official games against good teams is always interesting. If they want to do it again, I’ll be the first to accept ! Same on the spectator side, it gives content to watch, it allows the T2 to live.”

Heading for Contenders

Following your results, I imagine you feel confident for the coming season?

“It was a great performance but when you look at some matches it was very close, it could have gone one way or another. Contenders are a really strong competition, you cannot rest on your past achievements. As the competition moves forward, the teams learn, fix things, and everyone makes progress. Every week you have to play some games so you are in permanent tryhard mode. As a result you cannot predict what’s going to happen at the end, for example nobody expected Eagle Gaming to win the last season, we were at the bottom when it began. We won this title for Samsung but now we move on. To make it short, we are confident but nothing is certain in advance !”

Thank you all for your time, what do you have to say for those who support you?