The reigning champions of Reason Gaming will have their eye on another i-series title this time around, but there are those who think that they may not be the force that they once were.

As the group stages trundle along the captain of Reason Gaming was sat eating some dinner. I interrupted his meal and grabbed a few words in between moutfuls while they waited for their next fixture to come around.

So, another i-series, some delays and some nice and interesting group stage matches for you. How’s it been going so far?

There have been no problems so far, I haven’t really noticed anything to bother us and we are used to i-series by now.

You were seeded first in the tournament – Do you think that is fair? Do you see yourselves as the best team here?

It is hard to say because it is very even at the top and we didn’t compete at SLAP so it is really hard to say. For us we would not mind if we were seeded second or third as you still have to play teams of similar skill and win.

When you look at the teams that are around your skill level, which team do you think will be the one you have to beat if you want to win the competition?

Power Gaming who I think we will meet in the semi-final and then maybe fnatic or Dignitas. We would rather play fnatic in the final than any other team though.

Is that because you think they would be easier to beat?

Not really, we just would like to play them as they say we are not good online, so we would like to show them what we can do on LAN. We practice with them all the time and we have a friendly rivalry so it’d be nice to show them what we are capable of.

I’ll ask you about that – there is a discrepancy in your online form and how you do at LAN. You seem to lose some strange games online but when you come to LAN you are capable of beating anybody. Why is that?

A difficult answer... We don’t really enjoy online as much as we do LAN, I don’t think a lot of teams do.

But it is usually the other way around. Teams play well online then crumble at LAN...

We have played a lot of LANs and we feel no fear in those situations. The games at LAN are so much more important and interesting and it is just natural that the more LANs you win the less you care about online.

It’s still true, I’m guessing, that you will be quitting competitive gaming in the Summer of next year. What do you hope to achieve between now and then?

It is still the plan, yes. I just want to win as many events between now and then, but I will really want to win the next TeX, which for me will probably be my last event. That would be the cherry on the cake as you say.

How has Sneix been fitting in the team? You came to the last event with bazy and won it – are things going well with the new addition at the moment?

He has been doing great and we are very satisfied with how things have been going. We have clicked as a team because we played with him at eSuba for a long time, which was one of the main factors in us deciding to pick him up.

Some people have been saying that you guys aren’t as keen as you used to be and that is going to be the deciding factor between you winning and losing. Some teams here are meant to be very well practiced. Do you see that as a potential problem?

We recently won a LAN in Slovakia but it is true that we have not been practicing as much before this event. That is mostly because some guys have been ill and Guardian is still ill...

Swine flu?

I hope just normal flu but it has been a bad one.

Yet you do still feel confident of winning this event?

We are confident at every event. We just don’t practice as much as other teams do but there are reasons for that this time.

Do you think maybe not practicing as much is one of the reasons that the team has lasted as long as it has?

I think so. We can prepare when we need to, but sometimes when we are tired of the game we just relax and don’t force it.