junior: "Wherever there’s an AWPer, you send laxiee and he’s gonna kill him every round"

While BLUEJAYS would ultimately finish fourth place at Fragadelphia 19, they secured a massive victory in the quarterfinals at the expense of NRG's new roster.

With only a limited number of NA LANs available, it's a key result for a BLUEJAYS roster that was completely rebuilt around Adam "freshie" Paterson this summer. One of those key additions, AWPer Paytyn "junior" Johnson, took the time to speak to Dust2.us' Editor-in-Chief Jeffrey "Mnmzzz" Moore about working with IGLs, his Major stand-in experience with Complexity, and the ceiling of BLUEJAYS' new rifler talent Maks "laxiee" Andryei.

The full interview is available below and on YouTube. All questions and answers have been edited slightly for clarity and length.

Coming off that win over NRG’s new roster; great win for you guys, how are you feeling coming off that series?

That’s a good win for us as a team. Online we lost to them in like eight or nine straight best-of-threes. So winning here was pretty important to us. And we get a lot of VRS because there’s not a lot of NA LANs. So a big win for us.

A great performance from you individually. How do you feel about your form in CS2, especially considering how some AWPers have struggled?

Honestly I’ve been watching a lot of demos to figure out a lot of microplays to get a lot of kills, because that’s how you have to AWP in CS2. You can’t play standard; you have to get more active, more vocal. And when playing with these guys they trust any word I say, so I can call anything no matter what and they’ll listen to me, and that’s pretty important to me.

So you’re taking a more active role in calling? What does the calling workload look like between you and Cryptic?

Cryptic will call the round starts he wants, and if anything breaks down or I have an idea or if Tony [CLASIA] has an idea we’ll chip in there and balance ideas. That’s how the dynamic works.

So that sounds like a pretty democratic approach to IGLing. How does working with him compare to working with other IGLs?

He trusts anything I say. He’ll call me off sometimes, but not a lot, and that’s pretty important to me. He’s a really good player [but] he has a way to go as an IGL. He’ll get frustrated and kind of get in his own head, and as an IGL that can’t happen. I played with JT, who’s one of the best IGLs, and I tried to bring some ideas to Cryptic after playing with JT. He has really good aim for an IGL, and usually IGLs are like a “hindrance” to teams. He’s not missing the aim part, so I’m just trying to help him get the Counter-Strike game down.

We saw you stand in for hallzerk at the Major. Complexity were ultimately knocked out, but how was your experience?

I loved playing with those guys. It was kind of hard to fill hallzerk’s shoes, because he does everything for that team, and I wasn’t really sure how he did it. So I tried my best, we all tried, and it just didn’t work. But I loved playing with them, all those guys are my friends, I cheer for them every game.

Did it feel good to have a bit of a reunion with those guys?

I love playing with Grim. He’s a god talent. He should be a top 20 player this year. I think JT is one of the better IGLs in the world, so playing with him you learn a lot fast. So I think having JT with Cxzi and nicx will help them improve a lot. It was fun, and it was a completely different experience from when I played with them last time. I didn’t take it for granted, I worked my ass off, I had 100+ hours every two weeks for six months. It just didn’t work out.

What can you tell me about laxiee as a player?

Yeah, playing against this guy in FPL and pugs you can see this guy has god aim. Like the Mongolian way. We have a joke on the team where wherever there’s an AWPer, you send laxiee, because he’s gonna kill him every round. His English isn’t the best, but we’re still working on that. The more he plays with us the more it will improve. He’s a young kid with god aim, and I think me, Cryptic, and axed can help him get the deeper level of the game down and he’ll be a god.

How do you feel about the Polish teams Betclic and KOLESIE playing here?

I heard that like one of those teams is dead and one’s just here for fun? I don’t know. I’m not being disrespectful but I’ve never heard of them, but I know players in the team. They’re going to be good players, they’re from Europe. They’ll be sound and drilled so we have to bring our A-game.