HLTV.org’s cago sat down with Joey "fxy0" Schlosser last week talking about everything from Epsilon's future to the current state of the game and the changes it needs.

What changes do you hope to see in order to fix the metagame?

Like I said, first they need to change the smoke, they need to make so it doesn’t block the vision 100%. Make it like in 1.6 where you needed 2 smokes in order to block the vision. That will limit the time a counter-terrorist can block the terrorists from taking an area.

When Titan lost KQLY last year, ScreaM said that they most likely would pick a player from Epsilon. How did that affect the team? I guess you had to put everything on hold until it was decided, and when it was released that he didn’t got offered the spot; is he motivated to become the best with Epsilon? And as a bonus here, would you have said yes if Titan were to ask you?

We had to stop practicing for a while until it was decided. After Titan decided we sat down as a team and talked about what we wanted to do, everybody was motivated to work hard and make a good team with Epsilon. 2015 is a breath of fresh air. ScreaM is really motivated with Epsilon. I can understand that he wanted to say yes if Titan where to ask him, it’s in the human nature to choose what’s bigger and better. For me – I always wanted to make a good team from the beginning with Epsilon; I don’t think I would’ve said yes to Titan.

And B1ggy is also motivated?

Hehe, yeah, he is motivated as fu**. He wants to be the fifth in our team.

Let’s move in to some questions about you. A lot of people are asking how you warm up, how do you get so good with the awp, what’s your secret Joey?

Haha! I don’t warm up almost. When it’s an official game I just connect to the server and; “let’s go”. I don’t play a lot of deathmatch. I play a lot of faceit, matchmaking to stay in shape. I also like to watch streams in order to keep up with the metagame.

So there’s no fxy0 playing 8 hours of aim_awp every day?

Hahah! No, never. I tend to play 10 minutes of matchmaking just to get my hands warm. For me, warming up in deathmatch doesn’t work, because what you see and do in deathmatch; will never happen in an official game.

What do you think Valve needs to do in order to offer a normal player a viable place to play? A lot of people are using FaceIT, Esea, Cevo etc. Why is matchmaking not a viable option as it is today?

First of all, they need to get a good anti-cheat system. That and 128 tick servers. Number 2 I would like to see the _se/_ce maps back. I was playing a match the other day on those maps and I was baffled by how good it actually looked. I really wish they could make those maps the official ones.

Streaming is also something that is growing within Counter-Strike. You stream yourself and a lot of other pro-players does as well. Do you think it’s important for up and coming players to watch streams?

Yes, I think it can help in many ways, but only to an extent. It can help when you see how they communicate, their playstyle, how to handle all the situations and so on – but – most of the games the pro-players are streaming are matchmaking. So I think for a player to evolve quickest is to watch POV-demos in order to see how it is in an official game.

This question has been asked a lot of times but here it goes; how does one go pro? Could you tell us your story? What was your motivation to become a professional player? And how did it start?

I come from Counter-Strike: Source, not 1.6. I started back in 2008 and played casually for 6 months, after that my motivation was the events and the shoutcasting part of the game. Watching RedEye is always so exciting and every time I watched him I was like: “Wooow”. That’s when I decided that I needed a team and I wanted to get good. In Counter-Strike it’s all about connections. I was lucky and found a good team, and I just got better and better. You need to find a team that can make you grow in the game.

I guess we’ve come to the end. Thank you for taking your time for us. Is there anything you would like to add?

I want to thanks all our sponsors and a big thanks to our boss Greg Champagne for being an awesome e-Sport business man and a really cool guy.

Epsilon is going to announce their last player very soon. If the last player is to become B1ggy, Epsilon will have the following line-up:

Joey “fxy0” Schlosser

Adil “ScreaM” Benrlitom

Kevin “Uzzziii” Vernel

Robin “GMX” Stahmer

Morgan “B1ggy” Madour (Not Confirmed)

You can follow fxy0 here: Twitch – Facebook – Twitter

Follow HLTV.org’s cago here: Twitter

Epsilon played throughout 2014 with mixed results, a VAC-banned player and with numerous stand-ins. Joey "⁠fxy0⁠" Schlosser says the team has never been more motivated and looks at 2015 as a breath of fresh air in to the organization. He also hints to who they are looking to add as a fifth.



What’s the main goal for Epsilon this year? Actually, our first goal is to get a strong 5th player, B1ggy is doing a good job so far and he has the competitive experience a player needs. He is clever, his in-game understanding of the game is good. He will probably be our fifth, and after that, we will start focusing on our tactics. We also just signed a new contract with Epsilon giving us the salary to be doing this full-time. We will try to play in every tournament we can or get invited to. Also to qualify for the majors is one of the top priorities. Do you think that this lineup has the potential to be one of the best teams in the world? I hope so and I believe so. It’s always about being the best, that’s just in our competitive nature. It will be hard, and many people say that we’re “Leftovers”. We’re going to spend 3 months now evolving as a team and we have to evolve individually and do some hard work. I believe we can be in the top 8 this year. Seeing that Epsilon is going to commit 100% to the game this year, do you see Epsilon expanding in the way Titan and NiP is doing by moving the team in to a gaming-house? Epsilon probably has the money to move us in to a gaming-house, but we prefer to practice from our homes. Before big events we’re going to start bootcamping and prepare better. Last year we didn’t prepare anything for ESL Cologne, so this year is going to be different. We have talked to one of our sponsors and they have told us that they will help us set up bootcamps when we need it. In recent matches you’ve had some trouble regarding DDoS. What’s your take on the situation and how does that affect you? Obviously it does affect you in a bad way, but talk a bit around how you guys deal with it. Of course it sucks to get DDoSd. But I think it’s more about losing momentum and being forced to continue to play that’s hurting. Let’s say we’re playing a match, we’re winning pistol round and getting 1 up. Then you start getting DDoSd, you have pauses, your teammate is not responding, the enemy is up 1-5, 1-6 etc. It’s really hurting the professional scene. What do you think is the cause of this? Many fingers are pointing to CSGOlounge, do you think they are the problem? Both yes and no. I think CSGOlounge is great for eSport, but you have that 1% of the users that are toxic and try to ruin for everyone else. It’s not the site that is the problem, but the few users behind the computer trying to put the blame on a betting site. Me personally think betting is good for the game. Not only does it help raise the popularity of the game, but you get a whole another aspect of the game. Not everyone is here to play the game; I know a lot of people only being here for the betting. In recent times it was discovered more proof to the match-fixing scandal between iBuyPower and NetCodeGuides last year. What’s your opinion of match-fixing in general and how does that affect the community? I think it’s just stupid and it’s not good for promoting e-Sport. When you’re a pro-player you don’t have to throw a game. It’s not professional. Even if someone says that it’s not an important game, for the respect to the game and to the fans, it shouldn’t happen.



fxy0 says the metagame needs to change..

Cheating was a big headline last year, and is obviously a problem in the game. What do you think needs to happen both from Valve and other event organizers? It’s a shame that you can cheat in the game. The VAC-system seems useless. In matchmaking it’s rare not to see a cheater. When a guy gets banned, he can just buy a new account. I believe that the steps Valve made at DreamHack Winter 2014 was really nice, with the limited internet-connection, no usb devices, sending your config ahead of the tournament and so on. Another big talking-point is the format of the big tournaments. Do you think it’s correct to have Bo1 in the group stage where teams are traveling from all over the world? It’s a shame to have Bo1 in the groupstage. Like you said, teams are traveling all over the world to play 2 maps and go home. It’s a horrible feeling for the players. In my opinion it should be Bo3 with double elimination. If you’re better than the other team, a bo3 will show that. With a bo1, there will be upsets. My biggest dream is that all the tournaments can play by the same rules so you don’t have to adjust to each and every tournament. It’s the same game, so why not have the same rules. How do you feel about the current map-pool in the game? In my opinion, every time Valve releases a map, it’s heavy CT-sided. It’s not really cool to watch, I watched ESL Cologne, it was 12-3, 11-4, etc, it’s not fun to watch. I also think that the maps in CS:GO are too small. The rotation time for CTs between bombsites are too short. Take nuke as an example. It’s a really CT-favored map, and it doesn’t matter what bombsite or where you push, the CTs will always have the advantage. Go yard, you get sniped, go down – there’s already 5 CTs there. I want it to be really balanced maps like in 1.6. To do that in CS:GO you have to start by fixing the smoke. The smoke is way too overpowered. It blocks the vision 100% and the CT-side can block your push for a long time. Take inferno as an example, you can smoke banana all the way from bombsite A. If you add 5 smokes and on top of that, the CTs have molotovs to stop the push. On a spectator side of it all, it’s not fun to watch a team waiting for 1 minute for the smokes to clear out. The metagame needs to change... Do you see the new de_train being a part of the map-pool? Yes, it’s more T-sided and it’s more open. But I would like to be able to go under the trains again and they need to change the texture. The map is also really dark and it’s very hard to see players sometimes. What changes do you hope to see in order to fix the metagame? Like I said, first they need to change the smoke, they need to make so it doesn’t block the vision 100%. Make it like in 1.6 where you needed 2 smokes in order to block the vision. That will limit the time a counter-terrorist can block the terrorists from taking an area. When Titan lost KQLY last year, ScreaM said that they most likely would pick a player from Epsilon. How did that affect the team? I guess you had to put everything on hold until it was decided, and when it was released that he didn’t got offered the spot; is he motivated to become the best with Epsilon? And as a bonus here, would you have said yes if Titan were to ask you? We had to stop practicing for a while until it was decided. After Titan decided we sat down as a team and talked about what we wanted to do, everybody was motivated to work hard and make a good team with Epsilon. 2015 is a breath of fresh air. ScreaM is really motivated with Epsilon. I can understand that he wanted to say yes if Titan where to ask him, it’s in the human nature to choose what’s bigger and better. For me – I always wanted to make a good team from the beginning with Epsilon; I don’t think I would’ve said yes to Titan. And B1ggy is also motivated? Hehe, yeah, he is motivated as fu**. He wants to be the fifth in our team. Let’s move in to some questions about you. A lot of people are asking how you warm up, how do you get so good with the awp, what’s your secret Joey? Haha! I don’t warm up almost. When it’s an official game I just connect to the server and; “let’s go”. I don’t play a lot of deathmatch. I play a lot of faceit, matchmaking to stay in shape. I also like to watch streams in order to keep up with the metagame.



fxy0 and Epsilon is looking bright at 2015.

So there’s no fxy0 playing 8 hours of aim_awp every day? Hahah! No, never. I tend to play 10 minutes of deathmatch just to get my hands warm. For me, warming up in deathmatch doesn’t work, because what you see and do in deathmatch; will never happen in an official game. What do you think Valve needs to do in order to offer a normal player a viable place to play? A lot of people are using FaceIT, Esea, Cevo etc. Why is matchmaking not a viable option as it is today? First of all, they need to get a good anti-cheat system. That and 128 tick servers. Number 2 I would like to see the _se/_ce maps back. I was playing a match the other day on those maps and I was baffled by how good it actually looked. I really wish they could make those maps the official ones. Streaming is also something that is growing within Counter-Strike. You stream yourself and a lot of other pro-players does as well. Do you think it’s important for up and coming players to watch streams? Yes, I think it can help in many ways, but only to an extent. It can help when you see how they communicate, their playstyle, how to handle all the situations and so on – but – most of the games the pro-players are streaming are matchmaking. So I think for a player to evolve quickest is to watch POV-demos in order to see how it is in an official game. This question has been asked a lot of times but here it goes; how does one go pro? Could you tell us your story? What was your motivation to become a professional player? And how did it start? I come from Counter-Strike: Source, not 1.6. I started back in 2008 and played casually for 6 months, after that my motivation was the events and the shoutcasting part of the game. Watching RedEye is always so exciting and every time I watched him I was like: “Wooow”. That’s when I decided that I needed a team and I wanted to get good. In Counter-Strike it’s all about connections. I was lucky and found a good team, and I just got better and better. You need to find a team that can make you grow in the game. I guess we’ve come to the end. Thank you for taking your time for us. Is there anything you would like to add? I want to thanks all our sponsors and a big thanks to our boss Greg Champagne for being an awesome e-Sport business man and a really cool guy.

Epsilon is going to announce their last player very soon. If the last player is to become Morgan "⁠B1GGY⁠" Madour, Epsilon will have the following line-up:

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