lisa: "I think we're the second best Impact team in North America"

Unfortunately, Shimmer and FlyQuest Red's initial losses at ESL Impact Season 3 Finals at DreamHack Dallas put the two North American teams in an elimination derby on the first day. The established North America team came ahead, sending Shimmer home on the first day of their LAN debut.

Nonetheless, the team was very thankful for the experience, and hope to qualify for more LANs in the future. After the game, Dust2.us' Daniel "Scoobster" Khurgin talked with Lisa "lisa" Nguyen to talk about Shimmer's recent emergence, their place in the North American Impact scene, and Impact in general.

Do you think Shimmer are the second best Impact team in North America?

Yeah, I definitely think so. Honestly, Saints are pretty good, they've been grinding out a lot. I know they've gotten us close sometimes. But I do think we are the second best team. I think we can give FlyQuest a competition.

Your team is quite new, but you've already given FlyQuest Red a run for their money. Do you think your team will stay together as five for the future?

Yeah, definitely. I think we're all so like-minded, we agree on a lot of things when it comes to how the game should be played and how we approach things.I definitely think we're gonna stick together no matter what. We're just gonna keep grinding it out. We're not gonna stop.

empathy was most recently on EG Gold, how did she end up on the Shimmer roster?

She was friends with abby, and I knew abby, so empathy decided to leave EG and abby thought "hey, why don't we make a team?" We tried some scrims together, and that's how it all came together.

What does snav, your coach, bring to the team? How has he helped Shimmer?

Honestly, he's helped so much in my opinion. He has his own team, so he's quite busy. Sometimes he can't make the first day of a Cash Cup or something because he has his own Cash Cups, but he does put in a lot of time for our team. He demo reviews for us, he reviews other teams demos, does antistrats for us. He wrote pages and pages of what to expect from the other team or what we should do to counter. Especially online, he's able to help us out in the rounds where we really need it, where we're not as aware [as we should be] as a brand new team. I think he's helped so much.

Why do you think endemic orgs are hesitant to join the impact scene?

I feel like when VALORANT came out, a lot of experienced girls switched over, which didn't leave much competition in North America. So there's not that many people playing. We're trying to grow, but for a time, there wasn't as much experience for teams and not crazy competition. I think that stuck out to orgs, but to be honest, I don't know! I'm not really sure.