Cxzi on facing OG in Major debut: "To be honest, I haven't watched them"

Complexity are one of the NA teams playing in the Stage 1 of the BLAST.tv Austin Major 2025, which starts tomorrow, June 3rd. The team has gone through a lot of difficulties since losing Jonathan "EliGE" Jablonowski, and bringing in Danny "Cxzi" Strzelczyk and Nicholas "nicx" Lee, but they've had good results heading to the Major.

Dust2.us' Editor-in-Chief Jeffrey "Mnmzzz" Moore interviewed Cxzi during the media day, and they talked about how cxzi is feeling about playing in his first Major, the differences between their AWPer Håkon "hallzerk" Fjærli and the stand-in Paytyn "junior" Johnson, the preparation for OG in the debut, and more.

The full interview can be found below on YouTube or in text form below. All questions and answers below have been slightly edited for length and clarity.

So, to start, this is your first Major. How are you feeling heading into what's been a long road for you to your first Major?

I'm feeling pretty good. We've been practicing with junior for the last couple of weeks, so I think it's been better than I expected, honestly, with having a stand-in, especially going over everything that we want to. But we just want to play our game and do some damage.

You mentioned having junior here. I was surprised to realize that you've never played with him despite both of you coming up at the same time. So, what's it been like working with him in this short time you've had with him?

I think it's been a pretty good overall. I think he definitely has a little more passive style, but I think it actually helps me because I can go more aggro sometimes, and he's a more supportive base now.

I never did play with him throughout my career, but I think he also always moved up a little bit before me. For example, he and Grim left Triumph, and I joined the team. So, I was always one step behind, I guess you could say.

How long have you had to work with junior after the hallzerk news confirmed? A week, two weeks? What's been sort of the bootcamp with junior?

I think we've been playing together for around three weeks, maybe even a little bit more than three weeks now, so we've had some time together.

Additionally, you got rid of T.c as your coach almost two months ago, and now you've been working with adreN. How is he different from T.c and the other previous coaches you had?

I've worked with a couple of coaches and overall, I've had pretty good experiences with most of them. I think T.c has always been more like a mental coach for us because when we were losing, the mental aspect was kind of getting lower and lower. I think T.c acually helped a lot with that and keeping us positive, while also keeping us accountable for mistakes and everything like that.

We've only been with adreN for a month now, maybe around three weeks like junior. I think he's brought a little bit more tactical stuff, and more stuff that we can think about, such as how we want to play.

Tomorrow, you play against OG, which is another team that's kind of been through a lot of ups and downs. How's the squad feeling about that match tomorrow versus OG?

To be honest, I haven't watched anything about them yet. I don't really know anything about OG. I know they've they did well in the qualifier to the Major, but I haven't really watched anything because they weren't really doing well until then.

It's pretty unusual to prep only a couple of hours before your match tomorrow. Is that a sign of the team's confidence, or is it usual for you guys to do pretty late prep and focus on other things before then?

I think everybody preps differently. They haven't had many matches in the last month, and all the stuff we could even watch is from a month ago. People change their stuff, and in tier-one, everything's always changing consistently. Like, you don't use the same stuff you did a week before, you change it up.

So, I wouldn't say there's a point in watching stuff from a month ago, as it's something that is going to be changed. If you prep too hard, you're just going to be confused, and you're just going to not play your own game. Honestly, prepping for us is a lot different from maybe other teams usually do.

I think a lot of people were expecting you to have maybe more of the early breakout, while nicx would have the most struggle because you have far more experience than he has. But, it was almost opposite at the start of the year. More recently, we've seen you had a pretty good uptick in form, and you've been improving in tier-one. How are you feeling about your own form heading into the Major?

I think early on, it was definitely a little bit rough throughout the whole team. I think we've made some role swaps and everything like that, and it kind of fits better. Now, I'm in a mixture of some anchor and lurker roles, and also some of the rotator spots. Now JT gets to have a bigger vision, and Grim's getting a little bit more unlocked.

So it kind of makes it all a little bit easier. But, honestly, I've just been more confident. I think I was a little bit nervous at the beginning of the year, and obviously, it was the first event in a while that went well. I had maybe a good map in Katowice, but it just takes time. Then we had to go back to NA, and we killed it. Then we built some confidence, and it kind of carried over.

More broadly, what do you think is the biggest change in the team if you look back at the start of the year and now, at your first Major? What's the most significant change the team that you think is going to allow you to find success here in Austin?

I feel like our style is just a lot different than a lot of the other teams that we traditionally play. We're like more of a shock factor. Also, we're just playing together really well overall. I think [Complexity have] more teamwork [now]. When they had EliGE, obviously, he's a star player, and he was a top 20 player in the world last year.

[They were] playing more around him, but now we're all just playing with each other, and doing things for each other in the server, and that's how everybody can have their moments and shine.

How are you feeling about your chance of making Stage 2?

Pretty confident. I think we'll go 3-0 or 3-1, or whatever it is, and we'll get through this Stage. Honestly, I really think we can make it to Stage 3, and who knows, maybe hallzerk does get his visa, and we can just show everybody off in Stage 3 too.