In the next episode of our interview series we bring you Dignitas Mark, from the team who recently won the i35 COD4 tournament in stunning fashion by beating the Canadian opponents 13-1 in the Grand Final. We spent some time searching his brain for everything CoD related.

Mark, since it is impossible for people not to know you, could you describe yourself in 3 words?

hmmm chilled organised and confident!

Tell me a bit about the rest of your team, who are they and what do they do in the team?

Soclon - Danny is the sniper of the team and probably the best sniper in the world, he just runs around quickscoping people making the matches easier for the others :D Blackmane - Chris is more of an allrounder as he can snipe, smg and assault well which is really handy if someone is having a bad day in their position he can slot in perfectly. Raz - Raz just runs around, either gets 3 then dies or dies straight away and then laughs :D Lookzor - Jason, he is the most punctual of the team, always here on time and very chilled in game, good player too!

Odee was recently heard saying that your team "lack social skills". What is your opinion on this matter?

Haha don't have a clue what he was on about, probably meant blackmane instead :DDD

Do you think blackmane plays a big part in what Odee says?

Haha, no way unless its towards blackmane for being a 'moron' or 'idiot' then yeah it does, but anything to do with the team in general nothing at all :)

A lot of players seem to hate/dislike BM because he's such a flamer in game and behave unsportsmanly at times, you think this is just some banter or is this really a flaw in his personality?

Chris isn't liked by some because they take his in game banter way too serious, he is one of those guys that gets really into a game which can be really beneficial at times when he's motivating, but sometimes it goes the other way so we calm him down and all is well ^^. I don't think that he means at least 99% of what he says in game :D

So your way of calming him down is sitting next to him @ i35 and threatening him to slap him in the face when he gets annoying?

Haha, you could say that, i've never had to prod him because he never gets angry, i guess i give off a chilled aura! :D

Just a few weeks ago you attended the Multiplay i35 tournament, what are your thoughts about the event in general?

I thought the event was lacking something, it just didn't feel like an i-series normally does, maybe it was just the lack of fnatic and especially tidde :<

Do you think that the winter i-series in general are not as good as the summer ones? From what I hear from most people, the summer events are mostly really good,and the winter events bad, or not as fun.

Well, the winter events are generally smaller but the last winter event was at newbury racecourse, an i-series at that venue in any place feels like home which just makes it better i guess :P So i don't know what it was this time round, guess we'll have to wait and see what they got in store next winter!

A lot of people have been heard complaining about the tournaments (COD4/CSS) about being badly organised, seedings done wrong and more, do you think they are right?

The seedings for cod4 at least were done really well, until they got after number 8. It seemed like they didn't research the teams properly and we ended up with about 6 teams who could of come top 12 in one group, and then other groups had 3 which really didn't seem fair as some teams, especially yours sid!, got lamed hard and ultimately had a wasted weekend because of it.

Yeah I can't say I was pleased with how they handled things and how some teams showed sportsmanship, but hey, that's life. How do you think Multiplay can sort the seedings? We all know that Cadred does them for CSS, which leaves most people satisfied, do you think this would work for the CoD tournament as well?

I certainly do, the cadred staff seem to know a lot about the scene and keep on top of it, and they can of course always ask for opinions from people that know the scene as well. I think if cadred were to do the seedings for cod4 like they do css it can only help the tournament admins and save them stress.

Now for some more interesting stuff, you won the i35 CoD4 tournament, are you satisfied the way you played?

I'm satisfied with the way i played and the team because we won :D There is always room for improvement in any game at any level though :)

I heard before the event that you guys barely practiced any more due some persons in the team not liking cod4 anymore, could you comment on that?

It's not necessarily liking cod4, its not liking cod4 when we are practicing vs teams that just don't play the same as top teams do which is where peoples attention span kicks in and then people start moaning because it really isn't as 'fun' as it used to be when we were practicing with really good teams. For a certain well-haired individual, it just seems to be a dislike of the game which could change with the supposed new rule set coming for CC5.

Could you tell us a bit about what this new rule set is supposed to look like?

I've only heard runours, but making it so you cant cook nades to 4 blips and limiting it to 2 or something so you can't instakill someone 10 yards away with the best cooking skills in the game and a limit of 2SMG's. It's all rumours atm so we can only hope!

What is your opinion at the moment about the game? You still enjoy it and want to keep on playing?

I like the game and i want to keep on playing it, especially after playing cod5 on the xbox360 at lan and dominating tim revoltz denton in a 1v1 tank war then him raping me with a flamethrower :< Cod5 just seems a rushed game with the worst maps in the history of games, even moh airborne is better than cod5!

Raf1 just released his first version of promod (or at least screens/devlog), with this, will the game be more playable or will you stick with your opinion on how bad the game is (which the interviewer agrees on)?

A lot of people know my opinion on how bad it is and i can only wish raf good luck making that game playable. If he succeeds, you might see me there.

What do you think COD5 need to make the game playable (except Promod), like 1 shot kills on rifles, better/new maps, etc?

It needs a massive mod, someone to make 5 or 6 really good maps because all the ones at the moment are atrocious.

The community is split up between going to COD5 or sticking with COD4, while the money is (probably) going to be in COD5. Do you think the community is strongwilled enough to withstand the temptation and stick with COD4, or will they be sheep and are the screams you hear atm just empty and will they turn to COD5 in an instant?

It's a hard choice, we as a team are in cod4 at least until january due to EPs and if more gets announced we will definitely be sticking around, a lot of people have realised how bad this joke of a game (feels like a bad cod4 public mod) is and want to stick with cod4 as they see it is after all quite good.

An obvious question is, if you would have practiced more, would you perform better? Or do you think that not playing helped and you were more motivated to show that you still had it in you, despite being inactive?

Before i-series we had noticed there wasn't, if any, any really good practice wars going and overall i feel if we practiced hardcore vs sub top tier teams then we would end up playing differently to how we do as we would be countering there styles of play all the time, which is totally different to that of say top 8 eu teams.

Do you see the inactivity of many "Topteams" as a sign that COD4 is dying? Or is this just a temporary downfall and is it going to pick up again in a while?

I believe it depends on whether or not they like cod5, the blip of activity as of now is that people are waiting for cod5 thinking its going to be a massive hit as it has rifles, but in reality it isn't, so in a few weeks or after christmas if more events are announced then i hope we will see cod4 back to activity with a lot of tournaments.

During the i35 tournament there were words about you guys not going to cc5 as Odee was not satisfied with your practice regime, do you think you showed him now, or are you really stepping up the practice a bit now?

Well ironic you say this now, as we have just sorted out a practicing schedule that should incorporate some good practice and enough to keep us active and on form, it just depends now on certain individuals turning up when they're told to :P

We have all heard blackmanes thoughts about the map choice of EG in the final, what I would like to know: do you think they were just trying to lame you or do you think it was a strategic choice which just turned against them in the end?

Well, after that map choice i lost a lot of respect for the EG guys, i think it was a bit of both, even though they knew it was lame i think they did it to try and get onto our map as soon as possible with us in a weaker state of mind i guess. Whatever happened, it certainly didn't work.

Alright, so your attending CC5 in just a few weeks, is this LAN going to be a walkover? Is there a team which could make things difficult or are they just too bad?

I think our main rival will be button bashers, i have noticed them actively practicing and they seem to be playing well as of late at lans and online so if we were to play them at CC5 i think it would be a really good game! Zellion also seem to be turning a few heads lately so who knows, we will have to wait and see. Hopefully of course its a walkover !

Buttonbashers are said to be the first professional COD team (as in, getting salaries) in history, do you think its worth investing that amount of money in the COD scene with new games appearing every year which causes an ever changing scene, which is very unstable (compared to CS/CSS)?

If they do it right then it could be, but personally i don't think that team should be getting what they do as they couldn't topple fnatic at slap who didn't practice for 2 weeks prior to the event but there could be an underlying reason which i don't know about or something. If you ask me the same after cc5 i'll most likely have a different opinion after hopefully playing them.

What are the team plans after CC5? I've heard stories that Lookzor is going to attend uni and thus will become inactive etc.? Or is this all lies and will we see Dignitas going strong for the near future?

There is still EPS UK to play with lan finals in january i believe which we are 100% committed on qualifying for, as for lookzor he is at uni atm so it's not as big of a deal as it was first intended but after january it depends on what gets announced, and if cod5 can get the 10gig mod it needs to be good.

Those were all my questions! Just want to shoot some quickfire questions (idea stolen off Durus <3), so lets go:

Alright, that's all for now, any shoutouts?

A big shoutout to everyone i know, and a big thanks to Intel, Creative, Scan, EA, Razer, Zyxel and Dell for continually supporting us !

Thanks for this massive interview Mark and cya at CC5!