consti: "We're trying to raise our game... but it has made it a lot more volatile"

Vagrants were knocked out of Fragadelphia x LVL UP Expo Vegas in the first round of the playoffs after a one-sided loss to Ninjas in Pyjamas on April 26th.

Dust2.us' Editor-in-Chief Jeffrey "Mnmzzz" Moore caught up with Vagrants' latest addition Kevin "consti" Yi right after their elimination to discuss what went wrong in the game versus NIP, their 0-3 campaign at Dust2.us Eagle Masters Series 1, and why he left Akimbo in March to join Vagrants.

The full interview can be found below on YouTube, with key snippets underneath.

So, not the best display of CS prowess today. What went so wrong for you in that NIP game, you think?

I think it was a mixture of them just being super ready, right? I saw Xizt there with Skybox Edge, they were definitely super prepared for us.

And also, there are a lot of tech issues and stuff that definitely made the game feel less immersive because there are so many pauses. However, at the end of the day, we lost fair and square, and they're just a really good team.

This has been a bit of a sour period for the Vagrants. Just over in the Dust2.us Eagle Master Series, the team unfortunately exited with a 0-3 record. What went wrong there?

We're trying to basically improve our ceiling as a team, and by doing that, we made our game a lot more volatile. We're doing a lot more risky or kind of gambly things in order to make up for our lack of experience, which is a valid thing to do.

However, when we transitioned back into playing teams that are weaker than us, we couldn't really make the switch back. And when we do the risky things against the worst teams, a lot of times they don't have proper reactions, and it kind of comes back and haunts us.

On the positive side, though, you did end up locking in playoffs in ESL Challenger League with a 16-12 record. How are you feeling with ECL this season?

I think ECL has been great. The two BO1s format definitely favors underdog teams, which is very good for us. It's a lot harder to win a best-of-three compared to best-of-ones, where anything can happen.

I think the playoff structure still kind of sucks, and a lot of teams are kind of confused about how the next season's invites will work, like playing ECL playoffs while Advanced playoffs are right after, it's kind of odd for us. But, we're just like every other team, we're just in it. Hopefully, after the season we have enough VRS to make it back and [earn an invite], but if not, then we still have to play Advanced playoffs.

You made the decision to jump from Akimbo over to Vagrants. I wonder if you could explain that decision for us?

The main thing is just that Akimbo aren't a practicing team. N2o and laxiee have work, so they can't really afford to practice very much. Akimbo was kind of my dip back into playing competitively because I took a year off. After that, I felt like I was ready to join a competing team.

Also, I wasn't trying to leave them for no reason, but it just happened. That opening came up and I knew brett from before, so it kind of connected.

Vagrants will look to improve with consti and climb the NA VRS rankings over the next few months.