Wilton "zews" Prado is a two-time Major champion and Immortals' in-game leader. In the roster's debut LAN at Northern Arena Toronto (with zews at the helm) they defeated Cloud9 2-1 to win the tournament.

On Day 1 of Northern Arena, zews took the time to share his thoughts on the Majors coaching ban and why the team dropped out of the SL i-League Season 2 LAN Finals.

How’s your transition from being a coach with SK Gaming to being a player with Immortals?

It's fun, it's a lot more fun. The Immortals guys, I had worked with them before, they're amazing guys. They're really fun people overall, they have a positive energy.

The difference between playing now is that I get to relax a bit more. I don't have to worry about everyone else and can focus on the team and prove everything we need. So it's been going well.

What was your reaction when you heard about the coaching changes for the upcoming Majors?

Oh, I was really sad. I mean, I was kind of fortunate in the timing of my move, but I was really sad for all my friends that I know like peacemaker [Luis "peacemaker" Tadeu], starix [Sergey "starix" Ischuk], THREAT [Björn "THREAT" Pers], all those guys and the whole community and our player union. We think it's a really bad move the way it was done.

We're trying to get a compromise from Valve, but it sometimes can be hard to speak with them, right? Valve do have the best interest in mind, we just have to find the best way to make it work together.

I've heard that there was a collective email signed by a bunch of the teams and sent over to Valve. Can you reveal maybe some of the details in that or —

No, it's just basically to try to get into an actual meeting with Valve. We put some of the reasons that we believe why the coaching should be changed, or at least meet with us halfway. I think they agreed to have a meeting with us already.

Are you going to attend that meeting?

Depends. We're probably going to just send a representative, because for an actual meeting it's sometimes not good to over-populate it — too many voices. We just need a few voices saying the same opinion, so we all have the group. We stay in touch together, decide exactly what we want together and have a few people try to work towards that.

So coming into Immortals, before this you were actually their coach when the team was still Games Academy. How is the team now that you're a player and in-game leader.

When I was a coach for Games Academy I was already their in-game leader, so that hasn't changed much. I’ve just brought in more experience that I've gotten from SK, the only difference is now I'm playing.

They had already asked me to be a player for them actually, when Luminosity Gaming had the roster move with TACO and fnx, but they didn't know that I was going as well. They asked me to be a player, but I told them I was going to LG as a coach, because it was a different time, financially and everything; it was way different back then.

Now, it's been working out pretty good so far. We're improving fast.

Speaking of that, where do you find you stand in the North American scene, as well as globally?

I don't know where we stand because we still have to finish the tournament. We've had a few losses that were bad, but they were in the beginning of the season when we still were getting adjusted.

I believe we're here to fight for the number one spot in North America together with Cloud9 and SK, OpTic and all those teams. We still have to see who's gonna be where when it all ends up.

And world-wise, we're fighting to be Top 10, Top 5 as soon as we can. We know that there is still ground to be covered, because our lineup has changed so we do need to put in the work, but we just want to see where we end up when we do.

Do you have anything to say about Renegades’ 16-0 win over SK Gaming in ESL Pro League?

I woke up from a nap....did renegades 2-0 sk?? And one of them was a 16-0?? I must be asleep still. — mOE (@m0E_tv) September 1, 2016

I mean, it was really sad, absolutely. For me, even though I'm no longer part of them, the way that I ended up leaving SK was really well thought-out and I still care a lot about the guys and they care about me. So, I do in a weird way feel like I'm part of the team in some way. So it hurts to see that happen and it's not SHOOWTiME's [Gustavo "SHOOWTiME" Gonçalves] fault like people were saying.

When something like that happens, it's everyone. It's just really sad, but I'm sure they'll pick themselves up after.

Why did you guys drop out of StarLadder?

Pretty simple, because we have the ELEAGUE open qualifier since we didn't participate last season. Immortals wasn't in ELEAGUE last season, we're not even in the preliminary rounds, so we have to play open qualifiers and they’re on the StarLadder LAN finals date.

We had to make a choice and ELEAGUE is just a bigger overall goal, even though it sucks that we're not in the preliminary. We tried speaking with them, but there's nothing they could do for us.

That's a pretty interesting decision, considering you qualified for the SL i-League LAN already, but you're giving that up to go to an open qualifier. Obviously you understood the risks involved, but how did the team come to that conclusion?

We spoke with the organization, we spoke amongst ourselves. StarLadder, we've always loved it and they always treat the players so well, they do so much and it's one of the tournaments we really, really wanted to go. But in the end, as an organization and a team, ELEAGUE is more attractive right now.

For TV viewings, for the prize pool itself and everything like that. So it's a risk, we thought together, was worth taking.

Though you weren't involved when Immortals were 'denied' for Season 1 of ELEAGUE, is getting into Season 2 kind of a revenge story line?

Yeah, the players want to get in for everything. It's not revenge, because of how things happened in the background with them. They knew it wasn't their fault they didn't get in, so they're not upset.

It's not a revenge, but they really do want to be in it. ECS and ELEAGUE left a bad taste in their mouths and they just need to be in these leagues now.

RELATED: Tempo Storm's Reynad claims he sold CS:GO roster to circumvent exclusion from ELEAGUE

Are you playing Pokemon GO?

I was before, but my team is going insane. boltz [Ricardo "boltz" Prass], HEN1 [Henrique "HEN1" Teles], Lucas [Lucas "LUCAS1" Teles] and our coach, Rafael [Rafael "zakk" Fernandes], just can't get off it. And we live near Huntington Beach Pier, which is one of the most crazy Pokemon areas in Los Angeles or I think even the United States. So they're just going insane with that.

@CNBguerri ó meus babys. So assim pra vir os pokemon monstro, torrando os $$ uahaua pic.twitter.com/n9c3bmavJX — Ricardo Prass (@IMTBoltz) August 4, 2016

But you gave up?

I gave up Pokemon a while ago.

What level is boltz?

boltz: 22.

(To boltz) What's your best Pokemon?

boltz: Arcanine.

He has an Arcanine! What a bastard.

He's pretty good. I think Noah [Whinston], our team owner, is really good as well. He's like 21 or 22.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.