Highlander Season 8 Powered by Tt eSPORTS Premiership Interviews: PremTech

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It’s time to continue our look at your Season 8 Premiership teams with Season 7 runners-up PremTech. Promoted from Div 1 after Season 6, they announced themselves in the top division by making bold claims of “aiming to be top 3 of Prem in S7.” While the naysayers scoffed, Finnish Demoman BAITO busied himself by picking up a roster of players from around the globe that proved themselves capable of standing up to the big boys. ShaDowBurn tore the division a new one with his Black Box & Concheror shenanigans while UGC Platinum Champions Kids Next Door donated their Medic Nursey and Heavy Kresnik to the cause. Tseini returned from his military service to pick up the Sniper Rifle once more, and they dethroned Season 6 Champions Highpander© in the semi-finals before taking Tourettes Chessclub to a third map in the Grand Finals. Sadly the fairy tale ended with a mere Silver medal, but BAITO and the gang are back for more in Season 8. We spoke to the man himself to get the lowdown.

How happy were you with the team’s performance last season?

BAITO: Of course we were really happy with the result, 2nd place and first season in prem. But as we could have got the golden medal, it was a bit crap to lose the final the way it happened, reservoir as the deciding map.

Have there been any changes to the roster?

BAITO: We weren’t about to change our roster at all, but apparently ShaDowBurn and jwso quit for their studies. We had to get a new flank, so we robbed Tourettes Chessclub and got atomic- and uubers. And during the preseason Tseini quit TF2 so we picked up tracker. Now Tseini is back so it´s kind of a 50/50 with our Snipers. The one who can play, will play. Both of them have had some computer/connection problems recently.

How has pre-season been going? Have you been playing a lot?

BAITO: After we had had almost 1.5 months break, we started playing again just 3 weeks ago and played a couple pcw´s with an unstable roster, but finished our new roster on last Sunday finally. We have been doing 2-3 pcw´s a week when we can, and it is looking really strong at the moment with the current roster.

What do you think of the map pool? You’ve been very vocal in your support of Gravelpit, you must be pleased to see it back.

BAITO:Yes of course that meant a lot for our whole team, we´ve been undefeated on it for so long. It was just ridiculous to see how disorganized most of the prem teams were on a map like gpit last season. However I think the map pool is good, new versions of maps, 2 new maps, seems to be okay for everyone. I am only mad because we got all the payload maps against the new prem teams and the other maps against the top prem teams, which seems to be worse than just typical bad luck.

Who are the standout performers on the team? Who should we be watching for the big plays?

BAITO: I won´t name a single person, because this season we already know each other too well. If one of us is missing, the whole team will be probably fucked unless the merc coming in is like ShaDowBurn or jwso or someone who often mercs for us. So everyone should be equally important. All of us are going to go huge again though, that´s for sure.

Are you aiming to win Prem this season? Who do you see as your biggest rivals for the title?

BAITO: Because of the maps, the games against pander and chess shall be interesting ones this season, but kKaltUu will still probably cause most of the problems for us again. And yes, we are totally going for the league win this time.

Finally, any shoutouts?

BAITO: PremTech gang, Blackout casting gang, Deutschlan gang, that´s all.

With one of the more stable rosters in Prem, PremTech certainly look a safe bet for the top 3 once more. Keeping their combo intact will give them an edge over the other top teams: Both Highpander© and Tourettes Chessclub have changed Medics for this season, so Nursey, Kresnik and BAITO will be looking to exploit any signs of instability in their rivals. The North American players have adapted well to ETF2L, and seem committed to the team. atomic- and uubers were contenders for flank of the season for Chessclub, so their arrival will soften the blow of losing ShaDowBurn and jwso. Perhaps the key to PremTech‘s season lies with their Snipers – Tseini‘s presence will be a huge boost when he’s available. tracker had some outstanding games during spells with Stacked and Tourettes Chessclub but has been inconsistent in the past, so he will need to turn it on when it counts.

An opening week meeting with Prem new boys WASP should provide a relatively comfortable first game for PremTech, but with their meetings with the heavyweights coming on their weaker maps any upsets or dropped points will weigh heavily on BAITO‘s mind. Results against the likes of Stacked and Fair Enough will be expected this season after their previous triumphs, and every team is susceptible to choking under the pressure of expectations. If Season 7 taught us anything, though, it’s that you don’t want to rule PremTech out too early.

• Scout: atomic-
• Soldier: uubers
• Pyro: Ascendary
• Demoman: BAITO
• Heavy: Kresnik
• Engineer: cobz
• Medic: Nursey
• Sniper: tracker/ Tseini
• Spy: polar

Big thanks to BAITO for taking the time to talk to us! Next up in our series of interviews: Stacked.

Season 8 trailer by Jack