Brehze: "Liquid is a team I've always enjoyed playing against"

With the dust settled on day one, Evil Geniuses find themselves in the 2-0 pool, set to face 9z, a position that not many people expected Evil Geniuses to be in, especially considering the squad had to face FURIA en route to this point. With qualification to IEM Rio tantalizingly close, longtime Evil Geniuses player Vincent "Brehze" Cayonte spoke with Dust2.us' Liam "Slevo" Slevin to discuss the game against FURIA, how the team's dip in form affected him, and what it has been like to work with new IGL Sanzhar "neaLaN" Iskhakov.

After a massive victory against the number one seed, FURIA, tell me a bit about how are you feeling after that game.

I'm feeling pretty good. I'm happy with the result. Obviously, they got the win over us in Malta. I felt at EPL we had a chance to really close that game out, but we kind of let it slip, so we came into this game looking very confident. We kind of knew what they were going to be doing and we just made some adjustments from EPL and brought it to this game and got the win.

Like you said, you play them at EPL and they beat you there, on Nuke as well. With the veto today and the BO1 going into Nuke, was that expected from you guys?

Yeah, we were pretty confident it was going to be Nuke again so we just had to make our adjustments. We were pretty prepared for them, we just had to not make the same mistakes we did last time and, I think it showed. We had a pretty good T side and just needed to close it out on CT side.

You've been a player who kind of struggled with form toward the start of the year and you seem to be getting more and more into it now. Tell me about that for you personally. Has it been something you changed or is it just the vibes in the team?

I put a lot of it, honestly, into the vibes of the team. Honestly, we had a very rough start of the year, we weren't getting anywhere and it was a rough two years with the rosters, and I think this roster right now has very good vibes. It kind of reminds me of the old NRG team so I'm just happy, and I would contribute it a lot to the vibes of the team.

Someone who has also struggled with form is CeRq, who played an amazing game against FURIA. Tell me how important it is for a game like that for CeRq to get his confidence back.

I've been teaming with CeRq for like four or five years now, so me and him have practically been teammates forever. I know how good he is and I've seen him at his top level and I mean, I think he could say the same too. We both were in the same bout where our teams just didn't have the vibes and the team wasn't really progressing. I think this roster right now is really moving in the right direction. So I think games like this where you get big wins off top teams and games that we haven't been able to win in a while, I think its very good for him to get back in form.

So you guys have three major staff members around here, Vorborg, maLeK, and valens. What's it been like working with those three compared to like, the traditional way?

It's just a lot more input, there's a lot more faces to talk to, and a lot more people you can go to. Obviously, they're big names, like maLeK worked in G2. Vorborg worked with his team that he brought to the Major. So, we got the Danish ideas, the French ideas, and us to kind of bring our own ideas and we're kind of just making it all mesh together well.

maLeK started on the team and was benched, then came in this new position. Tell me, how different has it been from maLeK in terms of the role that he's in now compared to before?

Obviously he's not our head coach. He's working somewhere on the sidelines, but he's still someone that we can go to and ask for ideas or information. He kind of helps with the things that maybe we won't even think about. Like we think we can think as much as we want about the game, but there's stuff that we can't think about, like outside of the game or maybe stuff that we haven't even thought about. He just gives good insight and he's been doing his job for a while too, so he knows what to bring to the team.

Like you said, Vorborgs is the Danish perspective and maLeK is a French perspective. You've obviously got the new lineup as well with the IGL, nealaN. Tell me what he's brought to the tables in terms of leading the team.

When nealaN first joined the teams, I didn't really know much about him. I didn't know who he was and when we first got him and started playing with him I was very impressed. He makes very good calls, he's confident, and I like his attitude, and yeah, of course, he's from the CIS region so he can bring his own stuff and his own style. So, it kind of reminds me of how we used to play, so I like the direction it's heading and yeah, we can only get better.

Another new player into the team as well, HexT, who is relatively inexperienced at top levels. He's had a couple events now with you guys, tell me what's impress you the most about him.

Jaden just has what you would expect from a young player. Really good energy, he has very good fragging potential, his aim is insane. It's just nice to have a new face, a young face on your team, and you can kind of mold them. I think he's very moldable and he's very energetic in our games. He's the one doing the yelling and all that stuff for us. So, I mean, he's giving us energy and yeah, I think he's a very important piece for the team.

Now that you guys are 2-0 and you've beaten a team like FURIA, how confident are you that you can take a 3-0 or even take that Legend's spot?

Going 2-0 was very important, not just for confidence, but I mean I think having that buffer of just not having a loss yet on the first day. I think making it to the next stage shouldn't be a problem, knock on wood, but no matter who we play, we are just going to play our own game and play with confidence.

One final question, Liquid played in Cologne and EPL and put up great performances. Are they a team that you eye up now as a team you want to beat?

From personal experience, Liquid is a team I've always enjoyed playing against. In this new iteration, we haven't been able to play them too much yet and I'm just always comfortable playing against NA teams. So they're obviously the big dog in the region and we would like to take that spot, but there's still time and we're still working on ourselves, but I think we're not too far off.

Brehze and the rest of EvIl Geniuses will now be looking forward actually playing Liquid in the seeding match to do decide who gets the Legends spot.