The Italians have proved their doubters wrong. Having come into the event under pressure to perform due to immense criticism from the community they've made it into the upper bracket final.
They have had arguably the easier route of the top 4 seeds, but they have had to work hard. Their match against Adversity could have gone either way and a server crash when it hung in the balance gave OX the chance to regroup and pull through, they made light work of Rasta. before coming up against UK mix team TLR.
Their match against TLR has been one of the best in the tournament so far as both sides looked like they could win it all the way up until the final few rounds, it was OX who pulled through though and the excitable Italians are now facing the prospect of playing against the unstoppable VeryGames in the upper bracket final. We caught up with the team before they begin preparations for the big match.
*Note: Richard spoke to the entire team, however translating for the other four members was Guglielmo “GugLi” Carraro.
Following the Adversity match there was a lot of people thinking you would struggle come the later stages of the event. Yet, you've just defeated TLR to book a spot in the final, what's changed between then and now?
kimera: We're motivated enough to beat VeryGames now!
GugLi: I think that every LAN has its ups and downs and you will struggle at times no matter what team you are or who you're playing. Against Adversity we had a pretty bad game but we've sorted it now and as you saw against TLR we're playing well again.
The team were saying that you managed to win because of the server crash - against Adversity. As with the money situation and other factors they were in the driving seat, would you agree with that?
Well that could be true but at the end of the day it's a funny game so who knows what would have happened had the server not crashed. You still have to win whether you have $10k or $2k, we're just glad we did.
Guglielmo practices at OOF3 while Tomas "WT" Herout watches on (Picture: Heaven Media)
What about your match against TLR. Although they're a mix team they do have a few big names, were you guys perhaps a bit nervous or were you confident you'd win?
We knew we had it in us to win starting on the T side left us a bit under pressure. Against Adversity we had a poor terrorist side and it was the same against TLR today, luckily this time we had an amazing CT side and just seemed to win every single 1v1 or clutch we were in, everything just went well.
Coming into the tournament was there any team that you wanted to avoid? Any teams here you really didn't want to have to play against?
DEMONiC.mix, I wouldn't have like to play against those guys. They're all fantastic players and all of them have tons of experience, plus it's a mix so you never really know what to expect from them, so playing against them.. No thanks.
What about you guys as a team? This is only your second event together and coming from a very small country in CS:S terms it's hard to find events to help you practice. How do you adapt to this sort of environment and how do you prepare?
Well we never play against Italian teams really because there are none. We just play against European teams so that gives us a chance to learn the playstyle and practice as a team against good opposition. When it comes to LAN we know we're a better team on LAN than we are online, because people actually get flashed! We seem to get into it more at LAN though as most people will have noticed, we're a pretty loud team and we thrive off of the energy which makes us play better.
That's a bit strange because a lot of people say that you guys are "onliners", why do you think you guys carry that tag?
Haha, well because we don't have the chance to attend every LAN but we manage to beat these teams online we get called onliners. The Italian LAN scene is a joke too, so the only chance we get to come prove ourselves is at events like this. It seemed to all spawn from Italy playing so well in the ENC because we came from nowhere..
Your next game is against VeryGames. How will you guys prepare for that? What is the plan?
kimera: Headshot them..
Well a lot of teams seem to be scared of them but that's pointless. We have absolutely nothing to lose as we are total underdogs here, all the pressure is on them as they are already being considered the winners of the event.
kimera in action at the CPH Games
So will you be changing your style to suit them? Or will you just keep to the plan that you've used all event?
We play our style, no matter who we're playing against. We know how they play and if it goes well hopefully they have to change their style to suit us!
What's your thoughts on the event so far? I think it's fair to say it's not been very well run - for a team like you who have flown all the way from Italy, what has it been like for you guys?
Nothing has been too bad in our opinion. I mean we had a problem with one of the PC's this morning but it was fixed as soon as we told the guys. If the problems can be fixed the admins are working hard to do just that and sometimes things happen which can't really be planned for or helped.
Do you think that UK Gamers are a little bit spoiled then? Given the attitude of most British players this event?
Well I would have said the same if it was an Italian LAN, it's weird because it's a British event so the British gamers want it to be run well so they have something to be proud of. If it was the same thing in Italy I'd be going mad too.
What targets have you set yourself coming into the event?
It depends really, initially we wanted to finish second but then we saw DEMONiC.mix enter and it threw it up in the air a bit. But second is still the target, we'd be happy with top three though.
Would it mean a lot to OX as an organisation if you guys manged the unthinkable? In terms of publicity. Would it be a platform for you guys to go on to do better things in future?
From what we understand our plan is to go to TeX with the team, so a better placing here will hopefully mean more money from sponsors and a better chance of attending TeX later this year.
When you win the tournament - or come second depending on who you're speaking to - what's the one thing you want to do before you go?
We want to play on the main stage.
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Fri, 10 Feb 2012 04:08:59 +0000
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