(GotFrag) - Sway gaming is not exactly a household name in the North American Counter-Strike scene but they have made a little noise lately. Now Sway is poised to challenge the best teams in the U.S. in the next GotFrag Revival Tour tournament. In this first of a series of Revival #2 team interviews, GotFrag spoke with Sway manager Ian "fuzzyhat" Olson about the team and their chances of becoming a contender.

Tell us who you are and a little about the history of Sway Gaming.

Hello, my name is Ian Olson. I'm the current CEO\Managing Director of Sway Gaming you could say. Sway Gaming has been around for 3 years, original roster was a team called majin, and then was ran by Scott 'Skitch' Beckham who is the Manager of Green Berets currently. So its the usual story, played for Sway Gaming in CS:Source for a couple of seasons, then when GB came back, Scott left the team to myself and Josh 'aZ' Drecom and Tony 'Proof' Guillen.

Can you tell us a little about each player on the team, a little history/background and a little about their play styles?

Dave 'heller' Marentette: Formally of j1n, came to Sway for an all-Canadian lineup in hopes of making WCG\ESWC Canada. Dave is our in-game leader and is very knowledgeable in the game. He is our main rifler on our team, getting the crucial picks, that is needed to win the rounds, and being one of the calmest players.

Matt 'adr' Caverly: Matt plays a key role as a rifler and helps out with in-game stuff with Dave. He is able to pick up rounds and kills that are needed to bring us back into the game. He is also the first one to scream when we win a round to get the motivation going.

Ryan 'ryennn' Chen: Our main awper on the team. Every team needs an Asian, haha. He is our youngest player on the team, but his talent is there and is one of the key points in our team.

Evan 'emode' Patrao: Evan is usually the first one in on rushes and gets the entry kills. He is an all-around good player. Usually can perform well with any gun he picks up.

Mike 'cozen' Strachan: Mike formally of Dynamo, is the conservative one of the team. Which is needed in some parts due to most of the team playing aggressive. Known for beastly knife rounds, and has the most experience on the team.

You guys have had some recent success in CEVO Main, can you tell us who you played and the outcome of that?

For CEVO-Main Grand Finals, we played Ferocity. The night before we just won CAL-Premier and they lost in the finals of CAL-Invite. So we had the momentum working in our favor. We played them once in regular season, which we won on Russka 16-5, and in Upper Bracket Round 2 of Playoffs where they sent us down to Lower Brackets on Dust 2 16-11. I felt like the hard work the team put into both our CAL and CEVO season would pay off in the end and it did.

You have also had success in CAL as of late, can you tell us about that?

Like I said in the previous question, we went 14-2 in regular season grabbing the #1 Seed for CAL-Premier Playoffs. Sadly the semi-finals against Innate Reflex was a FFW due to scheduling with their team members. But xquizit gave us the most trouble, they are a talented west team, they dominated us on the first map, de_cpl_mill 16-6. 2nd map was Nuke, xquizit took an early lead taking it to 14-8, they Evan pulled off a great eco round, to keep us in the game, and we ended up taking the map 16-14. Final map was Inferno, which we had some bumpy rounds, but ended up taking it 16-13.


Fuzzy and Sway

How serious is this team about becoming a top team in U.S. professional Counter-Strike? Do you feel this team has the talent to compete against x3o, EG and even on an international level?

The team is very serious about becoming a top team in North America. We have the drive and the chemistry to do so. As for competing against x3o and EG. I think beating them would be one of our greatest challenges, and one of our main goals. We are trying to attend the next x3o Qualifier so hopefully one of those teams shows up or even both, would be great to see how we match up against them. International level, I would say that we are a new team, and we have a lot to learn before we put ourselves up there. Hopefully we will see some international competition after WCG Canada.

What does the future hold for Sway beyond the next GotFrag Revival Tour tournament? How would you like to see things progress for this team?

Well we would like to get into King of the Hill soon, to show our supporters that we have here on GotFrag and in our channel, that we are hopefully as good as they think we are. We have x3o Qualifier coming up, as well as WCG Canada and possibly ESWC Canada. As for what I would like to see the team progress in, would be getting into CEVO-Pro, win WCG and ESWC Canada, and I think for our first year that would be a huge achievement.

Anything you want to add?

I would like to say thanks to my team, great bunch of guys, to our fans and supporters, you mean a lot to us, to the people who help me run Sway Gaming, Josh and Tony, couldn't do it without you guys! I would like to thank our main sponsor Pure-Voice, that have been very generous to us here at Sway and big things to come from both parties working together. Also Pure-Voice's mousepad line, PureTrak. They have some great cloth pads coming out soon, hopefully everyone will check those out!


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