Skadoodle: "Of course I'd come back and play; Counter-Strike's always an opportunity"

Dust2.us' Jeffrey "Mnmzzz" Moore caught up with ELEAGUE Boston Major Champion Tyler "Skadoodle" Latham after his appearance in the BLAST.tv Austin Major Showmatch for Team USA.

Team USA lost to the Stream Team made up of Mark "ohnePixel" Zimmermann, Alexandre "gAuLeS" Chiqueta, and others by a score of 13-11.

Skadoodle spoke about reuniting with Jordan "n0thing" Gilbert, his love for video games, and the possibility of his return to competition in CS2.

All questions and answers were slightly edited for clarity.

Tough loss against ohnePixel and dona, something that will probably haunt you for years, right? Did you have a good time in the showmatch?

Yeah, the showmatch was awesome. I got my three knives and I was like, "Ok, my job is done." At the start, I just wanted to get a bunch of knives and find any opportunity to make the showmatch fun. We could have tried a lot harder but for the sake of the event and the crowd, keeping it close was entertaining for sure.

Was it a good feeling for you to reunite with the Iceman, n0thing, it's been a while since you played with him. Was it good to see your old friend again?

Yeah, he's always so good in the server. He's been out of competition for a while, but he's always playing, and sitting next to him has always been fun. He's always a good vibe kind of guy. He brings good vibes to the server no matter what the score is. Sitting next to him has always been a pleasure, and he frags hard.

What about playing with Gooseman, the creator of Counter-Strike, was that a special moment in your career?

Yeah, it was very interesting. We were trying to put him in good spots to make sure he was having fun. He looked a little lost, but that's ok, can't blame him. We were trying to get him to flash for us or get in a spot to watch something. I hope he had fun. I think he did. Playing in front of the crowd and whatnot, hopefully, he had a lot of fun.

We can't all be Major winners, we can't all be amazing at Counter-Strike, right? He had a good time, and I think the crowd loved having that collection of players on stage. Catching up with you, we last talked to you at Frag 18. Of course, you missed most of that tournament due to a back injury.

You were playing for Undone at the time with steel, and that was a very interesting roster. I believe you ended up stepping down from that team to help with Shroud's streamathon? What have you been up to since then?

Playing video games. I love all video games. I'm a big-time fan of anything, RTSs, MMOs, any FPS, extraction shooters, you name it. I like playing new releases. I vibe, chill by myself, and play with my friends. Sometimes I stream, sometimes I don't. I just stick to whatever's fun these days. I take it easy, really.

Do you still find Counter-Strike fun after all these years of playing the game? Is it still a game you can hop into, chill and have a good time with your pals?

Counter-Strike's always been a fun game for me. I'm not a big PUG fan; I don't like playing random PUGs a lot. I'd much rather play with friends. Of course, Counter-Strike is always fun, and it's much better for me to play in a controlled environment with a team that knows how to do proper setups, defaults, whatever. The fun for me in Counter-Strike is being able to work with your teammates and it makes me really happy when I'm able to flash for a teammate and they get a frag off of it. It's hard to find those moments in PUGs sometimes when the coordination lacks a lot.

It sounds like you're someone that loves structured Counter-Strike and I think a lot of people were excited to see you in that brief period where you played with Undone with steel and the guys. Is that chapter closed for you or would you ever consider coming back a third time and giving it another try once your streaming obligations are a little bit more cleared up?

Yeah, absolutely, steel put together a good squad in a short amount of time. We meshed with the core and so we kind of just meshed together. steel did a really good job coming up with defaults, strategies, spots, and he was really starting to ramp up for the team. Of course, we made ECL and then dropped out, and Cxzi went to Complexity. The other dudes found Marsborne so I'm happy that those guys found opportunities.

steel was still figuring out what he wanted to do. For myself, of course, I'd come back and play. It's hard for me as there's so many awesome games coming out. Counter-Strike's always an opportunity, but we'll see.

I think that's been a problem for NA CS players for a long time. You're grinding CS and then the new Warcraft expansion comes out or whatever. Then, you see someone's hours in Counter-Strike would suspiciously drop down to five hours per week, and you're like, that's bad ahead of Cologne or whatever.

Can I get some closing thoughts from you on this event? Was it good to come back to an NA Major? Obviously, you won the last one, and that was the pinnacle of the NA scene and still is to this day.

Yeah, coming back is awesome. I love the energy of the crowd, seeing all the fans. They all are like, 2018 was awesome, Boston was my first event. I was pretty stoked because to succeed in that event and have a lot of people have their first Counter-Strike experience. For them, we really pulled them in with the experience of what the atmosphere of true Counter-Strike can really be like.

So, I love being back. I couldn't miss it, there was no way I was going to miss another Major in North America. They don't have them here often so I'm happy to fly out and participate in the event.