moses: "Getting banned was perhaps the best thing that could have happened to DaZeD"

As part of our launch, we at Dust2.us had the chance to talk with Jason "moses" O'Toole about the North American scene.

moses has been casting with Anders recently

Going into the Major season, there is always much to talk about, and moses had quite a lot to say about some of the top teams in the region. The American caster also commented on Sam "DaZeD" Marine stepping down from competitive play, the CPL format, and more.

I’ll start with the Americas Minor since that’s happening right now. What are your thoughts on the teams attending, and who do you think will grab spots to the Major Qualifier?

Let's be real, I can say nice things about teams that have no expectations all day and we can get to a couple of those later. But for me the Minor is all about two things 1) Liquid showing just how far the gap is between them and other NA teams not named Cloud9... 2) this Minor cycle feels like it should be the last one for this CLG roster if they can't make it to the Major Qualifier... and 3) how do the imported players look and can any of them save the flailing squads they are attached to? CeRq has looked great on NRG and I think it's safe to say they've let him down more than the other way around. There's a trio on Misfits I wish we were seeing more return from: devoduvek, AmaNEk, and SicK. The French guys have shown some impressive levels, perhaps enough to make you hope with a bit more time they can show another level. SicK in my mind, unfortunately, will continue to be in the shadow of autimatic's success as his long lost TSM sidekick who hasn't yet shown he can be just as good. I can't really have an opinion of compLexity's new roster and Rise Nation just because I haven't seen them play or if I have it's such an isolated occurrence that I couldn't possibly draw any reliable conclusions. For instance, Rise Nation has certainly piqued my interest with some good - or at the very least improving - results and performances. But I've only seen them play a couple online games and I couldn't even remember what competition it was for. They seem to have a decent amount of respect given to them by opponents and look like they could challenge at least the bottom half of NA's Pro League which strikes me as very weak. And for you Brazilian readers: I haven't forgotten about your teams. But let's be honest, TeamOne definitely isn't ready and we've always argued over Luminosity. I keep trying to tell you that they aren't as good as you think. You keep telling me I'm wrong. Let's skip a few steps and pretend we've gone through all that again. Just accept that I'm right on this one. Be happy with IMT and SK for now because if the blueprint for Brazilian improvement is anything to go by then LG will be in a Major Grand Final by the end of 2018.

Obviously Liquid is at the Minor, and they’ve been the main talking point in NA recently with their making two finals in a row. Do you think their level is sustainable, or will they drop off?

To me it feels like they've been at this level since AT LEAST DreamHack Malmö, and the bias in me wants to say since ESL One Cologne. I think July they still showed really impressive game play in losses, unable to get the whole package together that would allow them to close out matches and certainly disappointing in the PGL Qualifier. I'm part of the camp that believes EliGE to be the best player in North America, and Twistzz is an autimatic-level revelation. But what pushed them over the top is the tactical and strategic approach to the game because that is what provides stability to any team. zews has these guys playing great CS, really solid fundamentals. Definitely in North America they are the best team in post-plant situations on both sides of the map. To me one of the most impressive things I see out of this TL squad is their utility usage. I mean, fuck North America, this team is one of the best in the world at using utility spontaneously when a bombsite is under attack... I would put them right up there with Astralis on that one. Liquid has, in my eyes at least, proved that these aren't questions we need to be asking about them. It seems like everyone aside from analysts and their opponents are still questioning whether this is real life, whether there's actually an NA team that can compete with the world on a consistent basis. They've finally broken the meme. And I'll tell you what, Cloud9 aren't far away from doing the same exact thing.

Cloud9 has also had some big placings, top 4 at EL Premier and winning DH Denver being two of them, what do you think of their level at the moment?

Impressive for sure, especially that top 4 at EL premier losing to an Astralis team that they should have beat 2-0. I think Denver it's obviously great to have a trophy so early in the lineup and as well the nature of those wins were awesome for a new lineup as well. The final was a close game and a blowout versus BIG, and the semifinals were grinding close games against a strong mousesports side that has an equal amount of talented motherfuckers. It's been a really nice surprise for me the job tarik has done leading the new squad. I can't remember when I came to the realization, it was probably EL Premier but I'm not sure, but watching their games I really started to see way more tactical play than I expected this squad to have. And obviously got half turned on when I saw them lay a smack down on G2 and almost do the same to Astralis. There's certainly some promise there that NA could have two teams able to fight for titles which is cool to see. To sober up a little bit about this, I think there's a pretty dangerous pitfall somewhere in the future of C9. All things considered they've had a pretty nice, comfortable run in the early stages of the lineup. But what happens if they go through a month or two months (like SK and Astralis have both gone through recently) of disappointing results. How long until they start saying "we should go back to Stewie as IGL?" Will that even happen? Will tarik want to be the one to switch back? I don't know, it may not even matter because it may not happen, but I think that could be a dangerous scenario. Switching IGL's back and forth always gets hectic and sloppy.

tarik has impressed moses with his leading

Both of these teams will be at IEM Oakland in a few weeks, what are your expectations for them at the event?

Both of these teams have gotten themselves to the point where I kind of "expect" them to make it out of groups, but we all know these days that's not exactly a walk in the park. In all honesty I expect one of them to make it into the top 4 and beyond that I can only hope they are competing for the trophy. Oakland, like last year, has two groups of 6 playing round robin BO1's. Just looking at the groups it seems like C9 should be making it out of groups while Liquid has been placed in the "group of death". That seems to be their thing, the poor bastards.

It was recently announced that DaZeD was stepping back from playing competitively. You obviously defended his choice on Twitter, but how do you think his experiment in GX went as a whole?

ahah, I guess the only way to describe it is.. not good? Listen I defended him on Twitter because it was so triggering seeing comments in the Reddit thread that were upvoted saying shit like "I can't believe he quit on us after we're the ones that got him unbanned in the first place!!" (obviously paraphrased). And there were other comments throughout that were posted by people that are far less mentally ill but a similar sentiment seemed to prevail throughout the thread. And I find that mindset abhorrent because fuck people who think posting their outrage or emotions on a forum or Twitter deserve some kind of weird power over the actions of others. But listen I'm typing this on an airplane and I've had a couple drinks so let's get into some real talk about the situation. I don't blame DaZeD whatsoever for any of this. I blame the ridiculous expectations parts of the community placed on him and his team to be some Christ-like figure rolling the stone back from the cave and almost over night being a dominant team in the region on the fast track to competing internationally. That's not only insulting to other teams and players who have put in so much work over the past years but also just shows a level of ignorance as to how competitive Counter-Strike works. And if you are one of those people who actually believed that then this is why you will never be a professional player: you severely lack an understanding of what it takes to be part of a team that can compete on that level. But here's the best fucking part about the whole situation. That level of worship the community bestowed upon DaZeD-Christ is the exact reason why his return to professional CS could never be successful. Getting banned was perhaps the best thing that could have happened to DaZeD. He got banned at a time when he was the best in-game leader on the best North American team right after they finally were just barely showing they could beat European squads. And he got banned at a time when he had just formed the NA dream team lineup, before they had to ever play in a tournament. And when new players to CS:GO ask about that lineup they get told stories of such fantasy, about how that lineup definitely would have beat the Europeans and about how they would have put NA on the map and all the other things that aren't based in any fact. But that just continued to grow the legend of DaZeD. And guess what, he built a brand as a streamer around it. He was the exiled champion of North America. And it was so successful because so many people bought in and loved to watch him rage at and berate new Rank S players and inexperienced players, all because he was the guy who would have definitely led the best team in North America to never play a tournament to a Major trophy. It was so successful that he gets to sign lucrative sponsorship deals with case opening sites so yeah, why would he ever go back to competition? I don't blame him at all. I respect the player DaZeD was, but it's not an easy thing to make a comeback after years. Keeping your mental focus at a level to improve individually and as a team is not an easy thing to do.. and I say that as a player who has experienced it and attempted a comeback after years of being away. I find steel a much more compelling story than all the rest of the ex-iBP players combined. There's a guy that loves the competition and seems straight driven just to prove people wrong. Or he does it just so that he can tell them to fuck themselves. I can't tell but I like it.

You’ve been casting with Anders for a good while now, so how does it feel to be doing more casting than analysis? Do you prefer one or the other?

Not necessarily, but it comes and goes. At the moment I'm really enjoying casting, especially after doing the desk for so long. But I did find myself at EPICENTER really missing being on the desk with Janko and SPUNJ and Alex. We've all been through some shit together in terms of how hard the analysts get fucked at events with awful conditions or scheduling (not that EPICENTER had awful conditions, just a couple long days). And I did find myself missing to a certain degree the comraderie of the desk, missing that feeling that you were just in the trenches for a 15 hour day while jet lagged.

moses enjoys the brotherhood on the analyst desk

Currently, the “stream team” Mythic and Argentinians Gale Force are on top of the leaderboard for MDL. Have you been following the Mountain Dew League at all, and do you have thoughts about any of the teams in it?

Actually no I haven't been able to follow any of it in any detail due to travel/events. Although I did see that Gale Force was the team that beat GX the night before DaZeD stepped back. I saw that tweet from MarkE "sniping" DaZeD. I thought that was pretty fucking baller to be honest.

The North American scene hasn’t seen large open LANs in quite a long time, not since the big CPLs in 2001-2006, some of which you played in with you brother. Did you like this format of tournament and should they have a comeback in 2018?

CPL's were great, I loved them. Some of my favorite memories in life are from those old CPL's. That being said, I think they are a thing that is best kept in the past. It's always a great fantasy to have some kind of a fully open qualification system on LAN, which could help discover and give opportunities to new teams and players. And it occasionally did. But those tournaments were 128+ team brackets including a BYOC area for all players. That's gotta be such a logistical and financial nightmare in today's landscape. I'm not even sold on the idea that you would be able to get 32 teams (160 players) to travel to an event like that, especially considering many would have to pay their own way with very little chance of winning any prize money. Not to sound like an old guy, but it was a different time during CPL's where there were far more teams/players competing for pride. Or maybe I'm just getting cynical as I get older.

After leaving Cloud9, n0thing has done some casting for EPL, but has yet to join any team. Do you see any teams in which he would fit?

Yeah. If we're speaking strictly of NA teams, any team not named Cloud9 or Liquid. He would be an improvement to each and every one of them. The guy has still got a lot of talent as we saw just a few months back in Cologne, he's got more experience than anyone in the region. Jordan is probably one of the most likeable guys I have met in the CS scene as a whole, and he's incredibly diverse in his skillset with an open mind to trying new roles. The question to me is more geared towards Jordan, and whether he is willing to continue competing and whether he thinks he's "still got it." Obviously he only has to say the word and he will become a staple on broadcasts if that's the route he wants to go. He could also probably start a highly successful stream/YouTube if he wants.

Speaking of the old boys, Hiko and seangares aren’t having much success in their respective teams. Do you think their careers as players are nearing their end, or is there something salvageable from Misfits or Rogue?