DuRuS interviews raz, part of the dignitas team that won OOF3

After winning the OutPost on Fire 3 Call of Duty 4 tournament, I caught up with one member of the dignitas CoD4 team, namely raz. He has been in the side longer than sliced bread has been around, and is now a huge part of the team.

He helped the team beat fnatic over 2 maps to win the tournament and take home €3,000 between them all. There is also an audio version of this interview further down the article

raz winners of the OutPost on Fire 3 CoD4 tournament. How does it feel?

It feels really good considering we came into this tournament really as underdogs considering we didn't have Mick. But BlackMane was just an amazing merc for us and he showed it many times.

Talk us through that final. You came from the LowerBracket and had to win 2 maps, everything just seemed to go all right for you guys.

I think to be honest it went right throughout the entire LAN, everything was going all right. But versus fnatic we had a really bad game. We underestimate fnatic in general and we didn't do our end. But every other game has been spot on, communication and everything has been awesome.

raz jumps for joy on call with ODEE

Do dignitas feel like they are back at full strength after some poor performances earlier this year?

I think so. There is a lot of motivation within the team, I actually haven't seen it myself before. I mean 4 people in the team have actually lost their voice this LAN. I really haven't ever seen that. So I can say yeah, everyone has been really motivated and gelled well.

BlackMane was a very late introduction, but from what I have seen he has been playing amazingly. Could you have won this tournament with Mick?

I am not knocking down mick at all, but I think with BlackMane he gives us diversity when playing some teams. In some matches Black has got the sniper, or Danny has got the sniper. By us doing that, it messed up teams, especially ButtonBashers and it allowed us to adapt to them. We would have done top 3 definitely with mick.

What about the banter that goes back between you and your opponents? Does this help you motivate you and keep you going?

Yeah definitely, yeah, if you just win a round and you shout really loud, louder than the other team it takes affect on them, and they are really on a down at the start of the LAN, so it really does help.

Do you think there is a line that people shouldn’t cross, that people may have crossed at this event?

I’d say there is general banter which is fine, but when you go really seriously, racism or taking the piss out of people’s looks/personality, that is really below the belt, and I wouldn’t expect that from any of our team.

Moving on to TeX, you are heading on up there tomorrow, once you get mark’s passport sorted of course. How do you think you will do? Can you repeat this performance?

In fairness we will take every game as it is, because as soon as we lost to fnatic, we just had to go straight back to the drawing board, and as you saw, I was really keen with my note pad and pen, which really helped us in all fairness, finding weaknesses within the team, so I think we will definitely take it game by game and not underestimate any team like we did with fnatic.

How have you enjoyed being out here in Belgium?

It is a really amazing location to actually have a LAN, there is so much culture and everything to actually look at. I think I have killed about half the batteries on my camera from just walking around from the LAN, so yeah it is a really good location.

Who has surprised you in terms of underdogs here at the event, the smaller teams?

I would definitely say Cube. I didn’t expect them to get so far into the playoffs, and actually take down an American team because of their mix playstyles but they did really well so my hat off to them.

So thank you very much raz, the winners of the OutPost on Fire 3 tournament; do you have any final shoutouts you would like to make?

Well definitely a shoutout to all our management, and our sponsors which have also made it possible to make it possible for us to attend both these events. A shoutout to Dell, XFI, EA, Intel, Scan, LG and Razer. Thanks