JT: "We don't even have three weeks of practice with Senzu, and it's been two and a half months"

Dust2.us Editor-in-Chief Jeffrey "Mnmzzz" Moore caught up with Passion UA IGL Johnny "JT" Theodosiou after his side scraped into the playoffs at FRAG 20.

JT offered his thoughts on Passion's play at FRAG, their struggles as a team, and missing out on the IEM Cologne Major.

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

To start, I'm sure this isn't what you guys were expecting in terms of the road to make it to the playoffs. How are you feeling coming out of groups?

Of course, it was really hard for us. We thought we'd get a 2-0 and go through the groups easily. It's hard to expect anything; we hadn't played the game for close to four days by the time the tournament started.

We hadn't even tried the new update. A lot of us were trying to get comfortable at the start of the day. We felt more comfortable in the third game, at least, so we're bringing it back. There's a lot of stuff going on around the team, and we weren't able to play the game the last few days. We're a little rusty.

How are you feeling about the new update now that you've had some officials on it? Are you liking the AG2 update?

I think it's a step in the right direction. It feels like the characters are moving more balanced in a way. I haven't played it much so far, so it's hard to give valid input.

Looking at the match that caught you guys off guard, you said part of the issue was that you hadn't played for a while.

Were you impressed or do you have any reactions to how Fisher College played? Of course, they're led by a European IGL, so what do you think about their level compared to teams you've faced in Europe recently?

I think they're a pretty strong team. You can tell that they know what they're doing. They were hard to play against, and I've watched a lot of their games before, especially during the Astana qualifier that they won. They're a strong team; we knew it wasn't going to be the easiest game.

You mentioned that the team has been having some issues lately and I think that's reflected on the server. Obviously, you just came from Rio where you were winless. You couldn't use Senzu there, so that's a big factor. What are the team's issues in your mind right now?

I think it goes down to even the org level. We've struggled this season; we had a bad start to the year. The roster change we made looks good on paper, but there were some events that we weren't able to play with Senzu. We're constantly changing roster throughout the season.

We're struggling to get any days to practice. We don't even have three weeks of practice with Senzu, and it's been two and a half months. Besides that, it's been really hard for us to get a system going when we're constantly changing lineups for each event. Even now, we're still having some issues.

One potential issue I noticed is that your head coach T.c. isn't here with you guys this weekend, what's up with that?

He arrived here with us from Rio. He's feeling really under the weather, so he wasn't able to make it today. I'm hoping tomorrow that he's feeling a lot better. He's not feeling very well right now.

Of course, that's really inconvenient because now you finally have five players, but you're missing your coach. You're not really approaching a complete roster that's playing officials after three months. How has your time been with the international squad? I'm sure it's a big change for you, try, and Senzu. Has the language barrier been an issue at all?

I really like to play with the new guys. They're really skilled. We have been struggling with communication since the start, and we're still working on it.

An unfortunate result, since you haven't been able to play with your full roster, is that you ended up missing the Major. As this is trying to be an international superteam, was that a hard gut-punch for you guys?

For any team that misses the Major, it hurts a lot. We knew there was going to be difficult work to be done at the first few events of the season. It is what it is, and we just have to keep looking forward. There will be new Majors and new tournaments to play.

Now that you've locked in playoffs here at FRAG 20, do you think we're going to see more of the team at a higher level now that you're a little more comfortable at the venue and with all the challenges that come with playing a LAN like this?

For our level, all I can say is I hope so. I think we're still struggling with a lot of things. We're feeling a little more comfortable on the machines, but you never know what could happen in our next games.

After we wrap up FRAG 20, in about two and a half weeks, you'll be heading to IEM Atlanta, where we'll hopefully be able to see Passion UA play with its full roster. What's the expectations for Atlanta?

We're going there, but we'll have to see in Atlanta.

You had a short bootcamp in Rio. I noticed that JamezIRL was there. Has he been helping you guys for a while or is this just something that you were testing now that he's left Wildcard?

He's just helping us out; it's a new thing. We'll see how it goes in the future.

Passion UA finished FRAG 20 in third place after besting Marsborne 2-0.