Half of this season of CEVO Pro has gone by and Hyper has been doing quite well. How has your experience been with the team thus far? How has the integration of your strong leadership style and personality gone?

Well I think as a team we still have a lot of things to work out. I'm strict with my leadership style and don't put up with messing around when it's time to practice. The problem with that is that Hyper is used to messing and joking around all the time. So once we get through that a little more I think things should go better.

As for our CEVO record, I believe that overall our play has been poor throughout the season. People always believe that if you win, then it's good enough. What they don't think about is how many rounds we've lost through the season that we shouldn't have due to TK's, bad calls, poor in-game awareness. So many things contributed to lost rounds this season that were preventable and unless we're able to get those things fixed, teams like coL, EFG, Verge are going to roll us.

Whether we're able to get those things fixed will show itself in the future, because the only way to really know is when everything is on the line.


Describe each of your teammates and their strengths.

I'd say most of my teammates other than me and Forester tend to have a more passive style of play. Individually their strengths tend to be similar, as a lot of these guys have been playing together for awhile.

The one thing I will mention that will kind of help you to understand why I couldn't go into detail is that with my players I focus heavily on their flaws and not so much on their strengths. A lot of people would say this develops a negative attitude within the team, but I think that in order for anyone to improve in anything in life they have to look at their flaws, analyze them, and fix them.

Focusing on the flawed aspects of play creates motivation to improve, while focusing on only your positive aspects creates a sort of scapegoat for the mistakes you make. It allows you to rationalize your mistakes rather than fix them.


Hyper has had mixed results on LAN, and has led to many community members to call your team online. How do you respond to the people who accuse Hyper of not being able to perform on LAN?

I think that many of the players accusing them of being 'online' have never played as well as they have on LAN...ever. Many of the accusers tend to be the ones that never place well at a LAN. Pressure plays a huge part in any LAN event and unless you have someone there to keep your mind straight, of course your play is going to be hindered. The stress of a LAN tournament affects everyone, just in different ways.


Your recent comments about 1.6 players not being multi-game talented stirred up the community quite a bit. Right now we have coL on top in CEVO and 3D not far behind, but also JMC and u5 with losing records. How do you feel about what you said, and do you still stand behind it?

I stand behind it 100%. I said coL from the start would have a winning team. I did, however, at the time believe they'd have to at least replace one player. Their players, however, have adapted well. Other 1.6 transfers have not, many of them have even quit trying to play CS:Source. When CGS was first announced there were tons of 1.6 teams trying to play Source, but you never hear about those teams because they never did well enough to make it into the Source spotlight.

I think that the 1.6 fans just want to believe that their favorite players are capable of anything. The fact is that most of the 1.6 players that came over did fail, and then they went back to 1.6. The only teams that have succeeded are the ones that have stayed. Whether they'll improve in the long run we'll see, but right now there's only maybe 4 teams from 1.6 that are playing well at all.


What were your thoughts when you saw the updated North American rankings for Source? Did you mostly agree with them or disagree? Do the 1.6 teams that recently switched over deserve spots in the top 10 despite not having any recent accomplishments?

The rankings really aren't anything you can base things around. They're just opinions; when CEVO and CGS are complete we'll know who the best teams are. I have no doubt coL should have been up in the top 5 at least, though.

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