Luke ”Havoc” Paton and Chad ”SPUNJ” Burchill

In recent events Renegade’s results have been in decline and soon the Australian team is moving to a new continent.

They have however received criticism as to why they are moving to North America instead of Europa and now the in-game leader Chad ”SPUNJ” Burchill explains:

– The Turner Media league is in America, he says.

Having participated at four out of the first six major tournaments, the Australians Chad ”SPUNJ” Burchill, Luke ”Havoc” Paton, Justin ”jks” Savage, Aaron ”AZR” Ward and Yaman ”yam” Ergenekon from Renegades, former Vox Eminor, have made quite a name for themselves.

Much thanks to their unusual, and often loud, approach to the game, and maybe partly because of certain beard and hair styles, Renegades has become fan favorites.

From underdogs to respected squad

They started out as obvious underdogs from a weak esports region, but has since then cemented their position as Australia’s best team and become a force to be reckoned with in the CS:GO landscape. Most recently however, at Dreamhack in London and Stockholm, their results have been lacking.

– We played like shit, Chad ”SPUNJ” Burchill tells Aftonbladet Esport about the loss to the hands of EZSkins:

– We started really slow and we didn’t play to our full potential versus them. Then we were so down and just got slammed by EZSkins which was embarrassing to say the least. Not that I don’t think they are skilled players – they could potentially be a good team – it’s that we should’ve won.

– I feel like the patch happening so soon with us traveling has kind of hurt us a little bit. Maybe we’re just in a slump at the moment, showing how sloppy we are in certain situations.

How does that affect your confidence?

– You can’t read too much into it and you cant take it on board. If you sit there thinking you have to change your whole game going into a big event, then you’re probably going to end up playing worse than what you would of otherwise. So we kind of shrugged it off as a one time thing. Then, against Team Liquid we underperformed again.

– It’s just really bad and disheartening and there’s really no excuse for us being so sloppy. Maybe we need to readress some of the things we are doing. We’re gonna have to do some readjusting.

”Probably better than Europe”

To enhance their chances of improving, evolving and to climb the world rankings, the Australians recently announced drastic life changes. After completing their commitments in Australia they are set to move East to North America. The decision was however met by criticism as to why they would choose USA instead of Europe.

– Renegades already has a house in America. So we’re going to go over there and make the most out of those facilities, embrace becoming a full time team, actually playing full hours of counter-strike Monday to Friday, practice properly and hopefully having better practice opponents in America than Australia. Those two factors combined made USA seem probably better than Europe. It’s not a big cost factor for us or the organization to go to the States and it’s very achievable.

– Also the Turner media league is in America, and we’re going to be based in America mainly for that league.

You were not allowed to compete in the ESL ESEA Pro League.

– No they wouldn’t accommodate us for that league. They didn’t want to break the relegation rules and all that kind of stuff, so we didn’t get a chance. Basically all they said to us was that we can start in the open league and work ourselves up like everyone else. So I don’t think we’ll play in pro league unless it expands to maybe Australia or Asia.

Would you rather have moved to Europe?

– Looking at teams like Luminosity and Cloud9 they are more than able to compete with Europeans and they only get to play in America the majority of the time anyways. So looking and those two models, if we can be as strong as them, we’ll be doing alright.

”Very difficult to stay up to date”

Renegades have received the community’s blessing and become fan favorites, much thanks to their unusual, and often loud, approach to the game. SPUNJ himself says they are not trying to be different, but that their environment makes them different.

– The meta game in Europe changes so quickly. It’s very difficult to stay up to date when you don’t get to play against them all the time. So we have to look for unique and gimmicky cheese strategies that catch teams off guard, and really make them think. If it’s old stuff or new stuff that they haven’t seen before and it works – they have to settle into that and work out what we are going to do next. We have the ”X-factor” of being an unknown quantity.

Have you considered coaching Renegades?

– If I didn’t think I would be able to performance skill wise with the rest of the team, then I would definitely consider moving to the coach role. I’ve put a lot more time into my personally performance than I ever have before and I think it’s showing on the score board, I think that I’m contributing as well as I need to be while calling still, and I don’t think its suffering.

– Now that I have the freedom not having to go to work, having my whole days being able to put into counter-strike, I’m going to get a good balance between in-game leading and being a good individual player. So it’s feeling better for me. But yeah, if I dropped off skill wise and I wasn’t keeping up with the rest of the team I would definitely consider moving to a coach role and bring in more firepower.

”I’m more than open to it and would like to pursue”

SPUNJ has proven to be quite a charmer, convincing a mother to let her kid stay up for a game of Counter-Strike. And if he needed a new method for pleasing the fans he has certainly found a good one in casting. Recently, during ESL Dubai Invitational, his stream became the platform for a more casual way of commentating.

– I just asked the guys from ESL if I could get the IP to cast and they were more than happy. I thought maybe it would be better to have a more funny and more relaxed style of cast as opposed to the really serious stuff.

– People kinda liked it so it was entertaining, but it’s not something which I think i’ll do too often. Obviously after my playing days are over I’m more than interested of getting into different facits of the esports community in terms of casting or being a coach or anything like that. I’m more than open to it and would like to pursue, but I don’t think in the immediate future.