Lake on JBa: "It’s nice to have somebody like that on your team. I look at him like my brother"

Powered by a stellar performance from Mason "Lake" Sanderson, M80 took down Voca in a relatively close 2-0 semifinal.

Jeffrey “Mnmzzz” Moore spoke with Lake after the strong showing. Lake talked about the close match, integrating JBa into the team, and responded to rumors of a move to G2.

Find the video interview below, with a full transcription underneath. All questions and answers have been slightly edited for length and clarity.

How are you feeling about that win over Voca to secure a spot in the grand finals?

Pretty good, got a little sloppy there at the end. Obviously, things could be cleaner, but I’m overall proud of the win.

What do you think happened in the second half of Ancient to let them back into the game?

We just weren’t really decisive. In one of our tacs, I called we need to be a little more decisive, have some aggressiveness in us, but correct calculated aggression not the solo shit that we were doing. Just make sure we were grouped.

If we have the wrong read, we lose the round. It’s fine. At the end of the day, just keep doing what we’re doing and it’ll work. We just need to be a little more decisive.

How have things been with JBa so far?

It’s always nice. JBa has probably been my closest friend in the scene, for the most part. It’s always nice to have somebody like that on your team. I look at him like my brother. I love JBa to death. He’s just a quiet little guy. It’s always nice having him, seeing more talent.

Even though it’s kind of us from the pool: me, Grizz, JBa, and nicx. So that’s about it for the North American scene at our age. Coming up together, we are all pretty close.

What is your reaction to the rumor that you are going to G2?

I saw it and kind of just laughed. From a personal, positional standpoint, it wouldn’t make sense. I think malbsMd is better than me. I don’t really have a problem saying that. It’d kind of be weird to go from him to me. I’m like a light version of him, if you will.

It didn’t really make sense to me in that regard, but it was just a rumor. Like throwing darts at the dart board and if they hit, they hit.

So, are you going to G2?

I am not going to G2, as far as I know.

Are you looking forward to facing either Marsborne or NRG in the finals?

Either way it’ll be fun. Marsborne is a bit more on or off. They’re either really on and really difficult to play, they have good rounds, good reads, or they’re off and on the other side of the spectrum. NRG is always fun, there’s a pretty good rivalry going there right now. We’re friends with them all, so it would be nice to play both.

What are the keys to success if you face NRG in the final?

Just play our game. We don’t have a lot of practice with JBa, but just keep things consistent. Do things together and don’t do anything solo. We’ve kind of had a problem with that in the past, so just playing good rounds and having the right reads. If you don’t have the correct read, it’s fine. Just go on to the next round. So, just playing consistently like that will get us through.

Do you think the recent addition of JBa has affected your ability to play together?

JBa is his own player. Just the time we’ve had with him; we’ve played two scrims and had four hours of offline time with him. Before we played, we tried to get him as integrated as possible, but slaxz- was in South Africa, I was at my girlfriend’s house, so we weren’t really playing at all.

slaxz- came to that Miami LAN with no hours on Steam. I had like ten. JBa and Swisher were really the only ones playing. We’re just getting into the groove of things, actually playing now, getting our feet under ourselves.

Have the recent LANs been good preparation before heading to Europe for the BLAST Bounty Qualifier?

I don’t think it’s a bad thing at all. These never really hurt. Obviously, you want that more European scrim style or experience, but these aren’t bad. Just get into it at this point.