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Bartosz “a.wake” Lorenc: Hello Jacob. Take us through your average day as a player.

Jacob “FugLy” Medina: I usually wake up an hour or two before practice to get out of that morning funk. Before practice, I will do 100 kills with AK/M4/AWP/USP which usually takes up 45mins-1hr and if I still have time left over before practice I’ll play some awp_lego [laughter].

During practice, we will have one hour before scrims to talk about things (if we watched demos a night before or if we have a problem we need to fix). Then practice begins with 3-4 games per night and afterwards our coach would talk to us about things he saw in-game, good and bad. After practice, I’ll play Rank S, DM, play with gf or just relax and watch movies.

After spending several months in LunatiK and Denial, your team was signed by Team Liquid – one of the largest esports organizations in the industry. How did you feel about it? How did this whole transfer process look like?

So when we were Denial and Team Liquid approached daps, we went to Denial and see what they were going to offer us on our new contract (Since we were going to resign). Denial was offering us a good amount of $ but only AFTER they signed with their new sponsor “VISA”. Denial wanted us to sign a contract for $0 then once they signed with VISA, the Denial owner would revise the contract and have us sign a new one with a salary. Most people were skeptical and decided to go with Team Liquid because of their status in the esports scene and experience with being an organization. I am glad to say that the choice was perfect and am happy that Team Liquid is still supporting the CS:GO scene!

Do you think that your Team Liquid roster had more potential than it actually showed? You spent there only one year, but your team did not achieve any significant results despite having some star players at that time – like Spencer “Hiko” Martin or Eric “adreN” Hoag.

The roster at the time was competing to be the best in NA, we were very hit or miss when it came to beating Cloud9 online and on LAN. Sometimes we would win, sometimes they would win, wasn’t a clear #1 in NA until they beat us at the iBUYPOWER LAN. I’m completely sure we had more potential than we showed. I started falling off a bit towards the end Team Liquid, our motivations weren’t as high as it was from the beginning of TL, we never really got that LAN win or playoff run we needed to spark some life back into us. Didn’t help we cut so many players over that year.

The biggest problem for us was going to way too many LAN events. We were literally at an event every weekend for months… We had very little practice except for on de_cache which we scrimmed and played a ton at the time. I remember going home from an event in Europe and the next day (8hrs later) I was back on a plane to EU again.

At the beginning of 2016 you were signed by Counter Logic Gaming. The team did not start that year very well and the only important achievement was a 5-8th finish at MLG Major: Columbus 2016. How do you think – what was the main reason of this roster’s failure?

Meh, I was only on that roster for less than 6 months I believe. The system that CLG ran in was made by pita and that basically consisted of heavily favoring JDM and tarik. Meaning putting them in every spot they wanted, always dropping JDM an awp, tarik 2ndary awp, just making sure they always had guns even if it meant we only had a p250 in hand. So if they weren’t playing well then we weren’t going to win. That major run was actually subpar because we beat a dying EnVyUs in group stage along with Gambit who aren’t the team they are today. We blew a 12-3 lead on cache in the playoffs to Liquid then got stomped in the second map.

Outside the game, I know hazed and I weren’t feeling the best mentally, we were only allowed to play CS, no other games. After a long 8-9hr day of practicing and the only thing in the house was a PC and bed, there was literally nothing to do if we couldn’t play other games. My brain was fried and I just wanted to go home. Was definitely the worst times for me in terms of mental health and wellness.

In May 2016 you were acquired by NRG Esports. At that time it was a German-American team with Fatih “gob b” Dayik, Nikola “LEGIJA” Ninic and Johannes “Tabsen” Wodarz on-board. Do you think that this experience of playing in an international team with one of CS legends – gob b – significantly improved your game or any other aspects?

Playing with the Germans made me a better player today. They engraved some things in CSGO into my brain that are just second nature to me now. All of them were really good teammates inside and outside the game. If we all performed just a little bit better minus tabsen (he’s a beast) then we could have beaten a lot of EU teams.

Luis “peacemaker” Tadeu joined your team in November and left it less than a month later due to “separate visions for the future”. Was it actually a conflict between the players and the coach? As most of people knows, peacemaker is kind of globetrotter as he has not managed to stay in any team for longer than 5 months. What was the real issue?

peacemaker was power hungry and wanted full control over the roster. He was trying to pick up players like roca and freakazoid (Echo Fox at the time) and cut everyone else. He would occasionally talk to me about lineups with me included in the lineup but I already knew I was never going to be a part of his “vision”. I’m happy NRG chose to side with daps’ vision of a roster which was me, daps, brehze, ptr/nifty, and a 5th which we cycled through a bunch. This is why he was promptly cut from the team.

Your team consists of 4 North American players and a Bulgarian youngster – Cvetelin “CeRq” Dimitrov. What were the main difficulties when he first joined the team? Did he have any problems with adapting to your game style or even living in the USA?

We had no issues whatsoever once we got cerq. He easily adapted to our playstyle and I know he loves USA. Usually teams have those 2 players who don’t like each other but as of right now, we all have a good time playing together and can actually stand being with each other in real life. This is definitely the best version of NRG since I joined 2 years ago.

A few days ago NRG decided to sign a British player – Ian “Immi” Harding – into a coaching role. How did the scouting process look like? Were there any other candidates? Are not you worried that his little experience as a coach may be not enough to improve your team’s game?

Day 1: We talk about getting a coach.

Day 2: daps scouts out Immi as a potential coach, we bring him into TeamSpeak to coach that day. Later that night we talk about him and his insight he gave us that day and agreed he is really good at it.

Day 3: Immi is our coach.

He helps us a ton with setups, reactions, pistols, making sure we aren’t stale and just creative things that he has seen over the years. We also troll him a bunch for being from the UK and he has the patience of a saint and never gets mad.

I am sure that your main target is advancing to FACEIT Major London 2018. Team Liquid and Cloud9 are already qualified, so it should be way easier for teams like NRG, compLexity or Rogue. It has been almost two years since your last Major – MLG Columbus 2016. Do you think it is high time you finally played on one of the most important events?

Oh yeahhhh, everyone on the team is super hungry and our main goal is to make the TOP 16 part of the major.

What is your opinion about the new Major qualifier system?

I got caught off guard and was confused when it was first announced. I don’t think it’s that bad, it’s more publicity and more experience for lesser tiered teams who don’t make the top 16 portion. I just hope the people hosting these tournaments don’t just half-ass the qualifications to get to the Challenger Stage. It was a disaster, online BO1s ridden with cheaters and random upsets…

Cloud9 and Team Liquid are on fire right now – with Liquid being considered as a top 3-4 team in the world. How do you think – what has caused such an improvement in their game?

I had the biggest grin when Cloud9 won the major, everyone in my family was watching it in the living room and we were all cheering and super happy when they won.

Cloud9 players are all just playing out of their minds lately. The system they have is working so well for them, everyone is super confident and Skadoodle is reaching his peak again which is amazing to see. They all know how to play every situation correctly, they know proper rotations and all of them can be a support player.

As for Team Liquid, they recently acquired NAF which massively improved their game. I think it opened up a lot of room for how they function on T side. NAF is also an incredible player and will just carry games no matter what role he plays.

Let’s talk about the current state of CS:GO. Do you think that CZ-75 is overpowered? Nowadays there is a very high chance of losing the 2nd round after won pistol round. There is a big difference in usage of M4A4 and M4A1-S in competitive games. Do you think that Valve should somehow boost the silent M4?

Once they nerfed the M4A1-S, the majority of players switched over to the M4A4. I think they could definitely make the A1 better, but I am not an expert in this field, so I wouldn’t know how [laughter]. The CZ was already nerfed with less $ bonus + lowered rate of fire. I like it the way it is, definitely better than pistols when CS:GO was first released…

Some analysts say that the economy system in CS:GO is broken. Do you agree with them? Is there anything that you would like to change?

I played CS:S and CS:GO only, so I wouldn’t know what a proper economy system is which 1.6 apparently had.

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