Peeping on the IGL situation: "Right now we're just kind of playing freestyle CS"

The year has started here at FRAG Miami 2 with many new squads looking to stretch their legs and gain invaluable VRS points as we come out of the winter player break. This is especially true for Wildcard as they assembled a new lineup in the off-season that will have to start from 0 VRS points and find their place an ever-tumultuous scene.

To that end, Wildcard got off to a great start today with a 2-1 win over Sharks to advance to Stage Two here in Miami. Following the win, Dust2.us' Jeffrey "Mnmzzz" Moore spoke to Jaxon "Peeping" Cornwell about building the new Wildcard roster, who is leading the lineup, his new coach, and the team's goals in the new year.

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.

I'm here for Dust2.us' ongoing coverage of FRAG Miami 2. We're starting the year off strong with Peeping from Wildcard following an amazing 2-1 win over Sharks to claim your first major victory with the new squad. How are you feeling after that win?

Feeling very good. Obviously it's a good win for our team just starting out with the new VRS core and that's our first official match, we've just been scrimming. So, it's nice getting a win.

With that you've locked in a spot in Stage Two so you'll be able to start fighting for some VRS points tomorrow. How are you feeling with this new squad so far in these early days?

It's it's a very good team. We have reck who played on M80 and played on good teams even in CS:GO. Same thing with CLASIA, but he had temper issues, but we have him under control now, so it's all good.

Then we have mhL who's obviously a very skilled and talented player and he's played on many good teams like AGO and he was on the Falcons roster and other teams. And then we have sSen, who we recently picked up from Wildcard Academy, who's also really good. He's a really good anchor lurker, so it's nice having all the pieces there.

How did this roster come together? Were you in early piece of it because you were on the Wildcard bench already? Or when did you come into this process and did you have any role in this process?

I was in it from the start, so it was just me left over on the team. Everybody else kind of went their separate ways and you you can't really blame them with how things turned out with the roster, you know.

It's unfortunate because I loved playing with all of them, but it is what it is. But yeah, I've been on the team since the start and it just kind of came together through picking up players, like we just kind of went with who flowed the best, honestly.

Who joined first, the NA players or the European players from Wildcard Academy. Were you guys looking at CLASIA and reck first or sSen and mhL first?

It was definitely the NA players because NA players are hard to come by and we needed the NA core. So we were definitely looking at getting the best we could get there.

One question on everyone's mind is, what's the IGL situation with Wildcard? No one sort of stands out as an obvious captain/IGL of the squad. What's the situation there?

We're just kind of going with the flow. We enjoy playing with each other, and we all have ideas, and we just kind of go with what we think is best. We're not dumb players, so we just put everything together, that's how we've been playing.

Is the goal there to have someone kind of emerge as the IGL? Is that something you'd want to be as you were quite vocal on Train.

Definitely somebody will emerge into that role, but as of right now we're just kind of playing freestyle CS. I don't think I'd be IGL. I think it'd be more like mhL or maybe CLASIA.

So it's not something you would necessarily want?

No, not at all. I'm not very good at micro managing people like that.

Another new addition to this team Of course, is your head coach JamezIRL. What can you tell me about him?

James has been a great coach. He's very positive. He always keeps the mental up. And that's like that's a main piece of CS is making sure that you're staying positive while you're playing. He has great ideas and he's been around the best players in the world. So he has an idea of what to do and he just lets us bounce the ideas off each other.

In terms of similarities and differences, how does he stack up to your previous coach vinS?

James is a little bit more free flowing while vinS was a little more strict per se. vinS brought a lot of ideas and he was very good. I loved playing with vinS. He was one of the best coaches I've ever had.

He kind of played more structured while James kind of lets us play more freestyle. So that that's like the main difference but I I love both styles honestly.

Heading into day two, you're going to be heading to the GSL group. You're going to have a tough group ahead of you with GamerLegion potentially being in your group. How are you feeling with your chance at making playoffs?

Good, I feel good about it. Obviously GamerLegion is a very good team, but with their they brought ztr in which is a doesn't play the roles that PR plays, so it is kind of looking to our benefit if we play against them, but obviously they're a good team and they know what they're doing, so it'll always be hard.

With the team having 0 VRS points, does that mean we're going to see you guys be pretty busy playing everything you can?

Yeah, of course. We're going to be trying to play everything that we possibly can to get as much VRS as possible. We may not make the first major, but obviously we're aiming for sure for the second major of the year. That's the main goal. If we make the first major, that's just a plus.

With there being a lot of European LANs on the calendar coming up, do you think is that something you guys are going to be looking at doing the travel to Europe?

Yeah, for sure. The on top of the lands out there, the practice is for sure better out there and we're not playing the same, you know, four teams over and over again and like we can play against multitude of teams like it's nice.