
stanislaw: "I feel like the learning curve is a lot smaller with the new generation"
Peter "stanislaw" Jarguz is one of the only players from North America's old generation still competing at the top level. The 31-year-old has resurged in the past few years by taking some young, unproven players under his wings, and is now at the helm of one of the best NA teams, Wildcard.
stanislaw stressed how important it is to pass his knowledge in an interview with BLAST ahead of the Austin Major, while also touching on how newer players don't have the attention span necessary to undergo hours of theory crafting.
It's very important for people in our position to be able to pass down our knowledge and experience, but also, one thing that I've realised which has been difficult is finding players, especially in NA, that are eager and humble enough to learn.
I also don't know what it is, maybe it's the TikTok generation, but I feel like the learning curve is a lot smaller with the new generation. It takes them a lot longer because I don't know if they're able to retain information as well as they can, their attention span is a lot shorter.
Back in the day, you were able to have hours and hours of theory, now you have to break it down in specific parts. You look at all the tier one teams and all the players have playbooks and these papers with them on their desk, you don't have to remember anything and it feels very robotic, you just look down on the paper and do what it says versus how my generation wasn't how prepared.
The IGL also recognized that the level of competition is "much higher" now because everyone works harder, and that there needs to be a balance of veteran players sharing their knowledge and youngsters being humble enough to learn.
Besides stanislaw, there are other veterans still playing at the highest level, such as Nick "nitr0" Cannella (NRG), Russel "Twistzz" Van Dulken and Keith "NAF" Markovic (Liquid), and Jonathan "EliGE" Jablonowski, who left Complexity for FaZe this year.

However, there's a clear lack of new star players in NA, and nobody is even close to topping what the veterans achieved. For stanislaw, this has nothing to do with individual ability.
"I think that in terms of mechanics, you can definitely find players that have it, and it's more down to their decision making, attitude, and work ethic," stanislaw told BLAST.
The BLAST.tv Austin Major will tell a lot about NA's level right now, as it will be the first Major ever to feature 32 teams, so every region has sent more teams.
Wildcard will debut against Metizport on June 3 at the Austin Major Stage 1, and stanislaw hopes they can beat them for Tim "susp" Ångström, and advance all the way to Stage 3.
"I'm feeling good, susp's twin brother [adamb] is on the team, so we're going to take them down for him. Our goal is to make Stage 3 like we did in Shanghai, but for this Major, I would personally like to make playoffs."
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