Swisher on qualifying via VRS: "There's no sudden surge of emotion like when you win the qualifier"

Dust2.us' Jeffrey "Mnmzzz" Moore had the chance to speak with Michael "Swisher" Schmid of M80 on the Stage Two media day at the BLAST.tv Major Austin.

Swisher commented on North America's performance so far, the anti-climax of making his first Major, and M80's form coming in Austin.

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.

Welcome to the Major, Swisher. When did you arrive, and how has it been going so far?

Thank you, Jeff. I got in around 10 p.m. last night, had a later flight. Set up PCs, felt the monitors out because that was the biggest concern. Then, went to bed for a bright and early media day.

We finally have another NA team in the mix. What are your team's expectations for this Major?

We want to go as far as we can. We had a really good practice session these last three weeks. We had better practice here this last week and a half than in Europe, I'd say. A lot of tier-one European teams stayed here for the Major. We're pretty confident coming in.

M80's arrived as reinforcements after what's been a rough Major so far for our NA teams. Complexity were eliminated and now Wildcard and NRG are fighting for survival today in round five of Stage One. As one of their colleagues, did you expect these teams to struggle as much as they have?

I think Complexity's struggle was a little more expected because they're missing hallzerk. I saw them going through in the 3-1/3-2 teams, but it sucks to see them go out so early. I think Wildcard is a little bit expected to as there's been some rumors of roster changes within that team. So I think it's kind of expected for some of these teams to struggle.

NRG, they've been looking good for the most part, but they don't have a lot of European practice, so I think that could affect them in the long term in the best-of-threes, they looked pretty good in the best-of-ones. They struggled yesterday against OG, but OG looks good.

The big story for you is that this is your first Major. After so many years of trying with Bad News Bears, M80, with all of these teams coming so far then ending up facing upsets. I remember at the RMR in Monterrey, going out by a handful of rounds. How does it feel to finally secure your first Major?

It feels great, I wish we had the qualification at the RMR tournaments, that feeling is unknown to a lot of people but it's so great to experience. When we qualified for the Major this time, we were sitting at home, going, 'The VRS updated, we qualified. Nice, woohoo.' There's no sudden urge of emotion like when you win the qualification match, like we saw in Shanghai, and things like that.

So, I wish that was a thing, but it's still great to finally make it after being one round away in Monterrey and Shanghai, having the same record as teams that qualified, but our Bucholz score was too low.

I think every player from the previous generation has a memory of a moment where, 'I qualified for the Major, I won the RMR,' or the offline qualifier, or the Minors. But for M80, you guys qualified via a spreadsheet. Were you guys sitting around one computer, hitting F5 over and over? Did it take away from the experience at all?

We were definitely still watching because when we passed Wildcard, we knew we were going to be above them no matter what. I remember I messaged Nohte on HLTV and asked, 'How accurate are HLTV's VRS rankings?' and he said it was pretty accurate.

Every game we were watching Complexity play and win at this Qatar tournament qualifier, and we're like, 'Oh my god, they won again, they won again,' and then finally they just stopped gaining points from their wins. It doesn't have the same feeling as actually qualifying through a big game on LAN.

100%, but you did gather those points from what was a pretty decent season. Unfortunately, your main rival was G2. I think every event you've been in for the last three months, you've been eliminated by them. What do you make of your season so far, with some wins but maybe not beating some top teams?

We're happy with the progress at least. We feel like we should be pushing farther into these tournaments. EPL was a letdown for us, we felt like we needed to make that next stage. Astana was a letdown as well, just didn't really push too deep.

Then at BLAST, finally beating FURIA was a good feeling, and then losing to G2, again, that one sucked. On a personal note, I feel like I'm not playing as well as I want to be. I've been putting in a lot of work to try improve and contribute more.

We don't know the opening Stage Two matchups yet, but who would be the dream team to face tomorrow in best-of-ones?

We'd like to play against either Legacy or Wildcard. Wildcard because they're our biggest competitor in NA, at least. And Legacy, because it goes back to them beating us in Monterrey when they knocked us out of that tournament.

M80's Major journey begins tomorrow in Stage 2.