Season 14 powered by Twitch: Premiership Playoff Interviews #3 ipz from Crack Clan

Admirable: They say three is the magic number. So it must be a good omen that this is the third in our interview series for the ETF2L Season 14 powered by Twitch Premiership Playoff. This is a man who puts the ass in ambassador. Yes. It’s me, Admirable. Today I am joined by a distinguished German; none other than Crack Clan’s highly skilled, highly strung roamer-turned-pocket, ipz. Happy Easter, Felix!

Ipz: Yeah same to you my friend.

A: I don’t think I need to tell you to speak your mind, but that is the theme of these interviews. It’s supposed to be conflict and drama; so hold no punches.

I: Hahaha. Alright!

A: I suppose as usual I should say that for unfamiliar listeners who aren’t really familiar with the scene: I do in fact play with ipz in Crack Clan. You can read in to that what you want, but in all honesty it probably just makes my desire to smack talk him even greater.

I: Hahaha.

A: I’ve got a little bit of a formula to these interviews, so we’ll just start off by talking about your season, ipz. I mean you were the roamer for Crack Clan, you had to switch it up to pocket whenever minimoose decided he wanted to step back. Talk me through this transition for you. How has it been for you man?

I: Uhm. I thought I would have more troubles to switch my role in the team, but then again I thought that I was calling a lot of stuff already on the flank when I played roamer. I never really felt that we had a good leadership in the combo in terms of giving calls to the flank, so I was really happy to switch and start to main call. The biggest problem for me until now is that I’m still roaming around a bit too much, and that’s something I want to work on in the off-season now. You know what I mean, guy? Generally I have a good read on the game, so if I see like a gap that I want to utilise on I tend to just overextend and go in to that scenario without having the mind that my job in the team now is actually just to stay alive with you and build ubers and uh… be the combo! It’s nothing weird, but if you are used to playing one and a half years of roamer, switching mid-season your whole dynamics change basically, but the mind-set stays the same.

A: Yeah that’s uhm… do you feel comfortable? Are you still finding your feet in the role? Do you think you were a better roamer or a better pocket?

I: Oh yeah! I’m definitely a better pocket. I don’t know if was because how our combo worked but I always felt that my game sense, my mind-set and my idea of how to play the game never really was the mind-set of our old combo altogether. So there was always a conflict of interests in how to play the game within the game and it always lead to people getting worn up and just ah… playing along with each other. So I feel now with the roster that we have and the way we call and play that we’re just evolved; we’re a better team now. We are like more united and I feel stronger. I think I can have good impact on pocket than I will ever have on roaming soldier.

A: I had another theory, ipz. It was that things got better perhaps because you weren’t on the flank anymore crying your eyes out and bitching like a little girl. We’ve T-Mac there who’s totally silent now! Is that what the difference is? Is it that there is one less person calling now?

I: No the difference is that you can actually buff your roamer now, because your pocket gives room for your team and you can start to heal both soldiers instead of having to heal your pocket all the time.

A: OK! Thanks for clearing that up. Let’s talk quickly about the cc// season. Obviously we had some changes at the start: Retsh0ck out, Brego in, and we also toyed around with our play style a little bit. Maybe you want to go in to some detail on what you tried to achieve this season in Crack Clan and how that worked out?

I: Uh basically we wanted, with the whole unlock change and the way that the game changed with it, we wanted to play a bit more aggressive. Just really constantly follow up on really small advantages and chase down frags. Like people saw us doing it a lot on Process, when we win mids that we even push like teams to last while not even capping the middle points. Something along those lines, just really utilising on small mistakes of the enemy and take the room the give us and… yeah basically just playing more aggressive overall and I think we did quite good.

A: It’s sort of funny that you say that though, because you hear like people like kaidus from BFF saying that “cc// play like pussies” or that we have this sort of stigma of being a defensive team. Is that that true? Or is just people getting mad because they’re getting outplayed?

I: Well, to be fair I don’t think we ever played defensive against BFF. We play defensive against teams that we really have a lot of respect for and that we think are equally in terms of skill to us. So whenever we, like we saw it on the last Process and Gullywash that we played against Broder, the maps that we lost we gave them a lot of credit on mids, a lot of room to play us on, and that was where we played too defensively, basically. But before, I felt that we always played uhm… quite aggressive play during the season and just… basically like I don’t care what people say about our game style, we know better what we play and how and what we push on. You know? We play for each other and for the win and not for BFF.

A: Yeah! That’s right, cc// baby!

I: Hahaha.

A: This interview is totally unbiased. Hahaha. But uh… you did mention the Broder game there, Felix, and that’s definitely something we need to talk about because up until now, the previous two interviews were before the games had actually happened. So this one, even though we were the second seeds, we finished third. We’re able to look back at our own failings here. Like what was it that went wrong there? Why did we not beat Broder? Why did we not live up to the seeding?

I: We played Gullywash first, which if I look back to it now, for me, was the wrong decision. We should have played Process and maybe would have won it and got some momentum for Gullywash then. On Gullywash, like in general on both maps, we didn’t play as a team. They played a lot more coordinated than we did. There soldiers had a bigger impact on the game. Like I had two complete horrible maps and Sam told us after the game that he basically did nothing on both maps as well. So a third of the team felt like it was really strongly underperforming and not fulfilling their roles, so… and if you PCW for 60 minutes and then in the 60 minutes you don’t perform then there is nothing else to blame; like you can’t blame the team if you personally already feel you’re not doing your role or not doing your job.

A: So you think that it was just a number of individual performances didn’t add up to what Broder were putting out? Or was it a tactical loss? Was it that they outplayed us? In middles or…

I: Well, I don’t think it was a tactical loss. Like they are a really strong team I feel. Now of course for this season they are better, but I think overall we are pretty close to each other. And Process was a decent map to watch I guess for the spectators, from the spectators’ point of view. It was just really the… how do you say that? The individual play, like if they had 6 people on fire this whole night and kukkye was completely destroying us. Like even though people are always talking a lot about TviQ in our scout combo, I feel that Sam is a big, big part in the way we play our game. Like he has to be rock solid, he has to bring his ‘A’ game to have our playstyle basically working and if like our combo isn’t working then the whole game isn’t working and we didn’t play well and that was it basically. And they played just better. Like they had the perfect read on us on Gullywash, we managed to just outmanoeuvre them really well once and the rest we won mids where we got lucky I felt after watching the STVs. Yeah. They played stronger and with way more confidence than we did.

A: It seemed ah, I haven’t actually watched the VODs, but two things I felt after the game were that our middles weren’t as predictable as they can be sometimes, it seemed that we didn’t have control on middles, and that whenever our combo engaged their combo we nearly always came out worse off…

I: Exactly…

A: How do you feel about that, being in the combo with me, as the pocket soldier?

I: Yeah like I said…

A: Are you going to be watching Zebbosai’s demos?!

I: Hahaha! I did actually and I know he watched mine, so what’s the point anymore?  We can stop the jokes! Like I said, I think that now a team highly relies on the combo being able to main call for the team, like you and me making decisions. When you and me and Sam (when Sam is in our combo basically as the pocket scout) are not functioning together and are not working like a clockwork, then it’s not going to work and we got annoyed by each other, the comms were clustered at times and we got really unprofessional. We gave it away by just losing focus and… yeah… not playing good, not playing like we should have played.

A: OK. I’ve got a little sort of sidenote there. We’re talking about STV demos and obviously this is the season Crack Clan decided to give it all away. We’ve tried to be as open as possible, as available to the scene as possible with all the STV demos, the streaming, everything like this. Does this actually damage our chances or is this just unrelated all together?

I: Oh no. Not at all. I know that at the beginning of the season when it became mandatory to upload STVs after the officials that a lot of the top three teams… or was it last season that it got announced… I think it was last season already… were highly against uploading STVs after the officials because they would give strategies away and whatever, but for me, this is not making much sense. I think we, as the best teams in Europe, have like the privilege of the attention of the community and we can help a lot by just providing content constantly, you know? And I feel like by just us, as a team, as cc// just uploading all of our comms and STVs and config files and whatever, we make the people around us better which forces us, if we are weak, to be on our toes because people know what we’re focusing on, they know what we try to switch up and what our… you know we made a little list of what flaws we want to work on, so if people download our comms they know exactly what this list is they can abuse that basically and use it against us. I think it makes them better and it forces us to get better as well. It’s a good thing. It’s just a win-win situation for everyone.

A: OK. Let’s talk about Broder versus Epsilon. It’s gonna be coming up this week. The date is as yet unannounced, but the rumour mill tells me it’s likely to be Thursday. I understand Epsilon have a few rosters issues. I hear maybe basH won’t be able to play, it might be wltrs instead. Rumour is that the maps are going to be Granary and Process and a third map which I’ve forgotten, but I think they’ve had a little bit of a gentleman’s agreement there…

I: I think it was Gran…

A: Uh… I’ve got Granary, Process and I can’t remember the third, but anyway! I wanna hear your thoughts. Like Broder have turned over Crack Clan, they’ve beaten the seeding, they’re going in here on a high. Can they take on Epsilon? Do they have what it takes?

I: I think they will trash them on two maps. Uh like Broder is going to win against Epsilon. To be fair, I know that I’m really… like not a lot of people actually think that this is gonna happen, but I feel that Epsilon is highly relying on their scout combo and Mike to work really good together and I don’t feel that wltrs can replace basH at this time. I don’t think that he’s going to make it within the next three days, like I don’t know when you are going to publish it but I think you’re going to do it Monday so two days afterwards the official will happen and I don’t think that these four PCWs that they will be playing until then will be enough to actually get their synergy together that stefan and basH obviously have together with Mike as well. So we will see and I know Broder is really keen, like they’ve been watching STVs of Epsi now the whole weekend long and talking with us of how to play, and I will play with them on Monday to see where I can help because Zebbo is not around until Tuesday.

A: Yeah! That’s a pretty unpopular decision, like are you… is this mind games? Do you actually believe Broder are going to smash Epsilon in two maps? Or at you just at your work here?

I: No I’m genuine! I think that they will do it. Not because Broder now won against us or whatever. I just think that they’re really strong and that taking bash out of Epsilon is a big problem or can be a big problem for them in terms of just coordination and everything. This team is really… when I watch Epsilon play, this Epsilon play, it reminds me a lot of watching Mixup play, because uhm… Mixup is really relying on their soldiers and scouts to work as well. When they play mids they don’t really take Platinum in to the mid fight; they leave him on balcony or whatever and spread all the heals on the scouts and the soldiers. You know? That’s what Epsi played like so far. Numlocked is always late on the middles, so they don’t even have to play with him and just heal everybody else and these people are destroying so far. Now if you take one the scouts out of the fight and replace him with wltrs who basically wasn’t playing for like a month or one and half months or two, I think that can be a big downgrade or is going to be a big downgrade for them.

A: Is it that specifically, that wltrs has been inactive, or do you think that basH is better than wltrs pound for pound?

I: No! It’s definitely just the fact that he’s been inactive. Like I’m not just saying wltrs is shit compared to basH or whatever. Like he’ a really, really, really good scout and sniper. Always in officials we’ve seen him absolutely on fire so far and especially in finals, but I think his inactivity is what can cost them vital synergy in their team. Compared to what kind of team play Broder now has and what mind-set and what momentum they take in to this game. They don’t want to get beaten like the first time they played against Epsilon again. They have been working their asses off to be in the position that they are in now. We will see. It’s really like, I’m not talking personal bias here or whatever. I’m just comparing the two teams to each other. I would completely change the whole fact if now bybben would have be… like if somebody would have to merc for bybben…

A: Flippy! Flippy for bybben.

I: Yeah something like this would change everything completely, but I’m just now comparing the rosters to each other, comparing the people, comparing the separate players and it’s gonna be a really close match, but it’s gonna be a win for Broder.

A: Yeah like a win for Broder would be great for shaking up European Team Fortress 2. Like I’ve heard unofficially from some of the Epsilon players, there was talk that they mightn’t have played next season. KnOxXx was thinking of sitting out, but now he’s saying that he is going to play next season. So the future is bright, I think, for Team Fortress 2 in Europe leading up to i49. I think that’s what everyone’s working towards. I know Crack Clan are as well, but what can you tell me about the future of Crack Clan, just to wrap things up? What are you looking to achieve with the team over the next few months?

I: Uhm. What we are missing and what people seem to forget and what never really got mentioned in the last casts of the last games is that we basically changed a third of our team this season. Bringing Brego in, he was super unexperienced, he still is very unexperienced. He’s one of the best or he is the best DM player I’ve ever seen playing demo. Like that kid just hits everything, but he’s still makes like rookie mistakes that we have to fix and especially we are working on his calls at the moment, like on middles. People know that, people that follow our streams know that we are working on this. And bringing T-Mac in was basically something that took us some time to adapt as well so I’m really like… obviously we are not playing for the third spot, never did. We are always keen on getting at least second, we wanted to give Epsi the shot this season again, but I’m really proud that we got third with this line-up change and the people that we brought in to Premiership TF2. So we’re gonna stay together definitely and we’re gonna work and we’re gonna watch demos; everything that did so far. We gonna still provide all of our content, we gonna start to stream mentor sessions, put out all of our Twitch content on YouTube. We gonna just, you know, boost ourselves, boost the community; help everybody a bit.

A: OK. Well this has ended up being the longest interview so far, but I think we’ve had some decent insight here from ipz. Thanks for your time, buddy. I know you just came back from Helsinki. Better luck next season, mate.

I: Hahaha.

A: I will tell the rest of ETF2L to stay tuned for the Grand Finals. I think it’s gonna be Thursday, but it’s definitely gonna be this week. That will be the ETF2L Season 14 powered by Twitch and Club3D Premiership Grand Final; it’s the big one and there will be a fourth interview before then. It’s either going to be numlocked or Mike, whoever agrees to it, but maybe you can tell me in the comments which one you’d rather see if we can get this out in time. Hopefully this is going out on Monday, and if it isn’t then I’m just going to look like an idiot. Thanks ipz.

I: Thanks, bye!