EliGE: "I think NA teams are better than most give them credit for"

Two games in, Complexity are sitting pretty at 2-0. A 13-6 over Elevate on day one followed by a nail-biting 13-10 against BOSS on day two gives Complexity two BO3 chances to make the Major. However, the last game was anything but easy. In every meaning of the phrase, it could have went either way. Multiple clutches from Håkon "hallzerk" Fjærli were needed to drag the game across the line, without which, we could see Complexity drop down to one game from elimination.

After the game, Dust2.us' Jeffrey "Mnmzzz" Moore spoke with Complexity's star player, Jonathan "EliGE" Jablonowski about the match, the team's performance, and the state of North America.

Please note that the full interview can be found here or below on YouTube, while the transcript has some key snippets from their conversation.

Were you expecting that match against BOSS to be so close?

Honestly, I think that we thought that we were gonna win a lot easier. I think we came off a little bit cold again, got smashed in mid for the first two gun rounds, lost pistol, and on MR12, that can spiral out of control very quickly. I'm happy that we found a solution quickly, I was able to shut down mid one round and hallzerk had so many insane clutches the entire game. We just played a lot better as we woke up with it.

A lot of casual fans don't know a lot about BOSS coming into the RMR, based on your match against them, what's your assessment? Are they more impressive than you were expecting?

We've actually scrimmed them a lot and our scrims against them have been one-sided. Even they made a joke before the game yesterday, which was funny. I think NA teams are better than most give them credit for. I think that people haven't been watching the games and aren't giving the NA teams a chance to show that they're better than they were before.

I think that the matches that Liquid have been playing and getting close, people are seeing that, 'okay, this is a team I respect a lot, Liquid, struggling against these teams.' Yeah, they're not as bad as you guys think. Just give NA teams a chance to prove that they're better than you remember.

You ended 2023 on a high note at IEM Sydney. How close do you think you are to returning to the top five form you had at the end of last year?

I don't think that we're that far off. Just prior to Katowice, we went off the path off what we should be focusing on in our practices. Our fundamentals started lacking and we focused too much on tactics. I think over time, that eroded our gameplay. That's been a big focus for us for the last two, three weeks, pretty much since Katowice.

After Katowice, we had a talk on "this is what we should be focusing on", and since then, our scrims have been getting better. And it's not just the results, it's how the scrims feel, the rounds that we're winning, the rounds that we're not losing. Overall, it feels like we're on a really good path. In terms of how far away, you know, hopefully the next three weeks! [laughs] We want to make sure we're ready for the Major in time. I feel like there's definitely enough time, and we're getting in a lot of good reps here.