Aurora got off to a good start in Katowice with a 2-0 win over 9z on day one.
The team are in good form having finished second at StarSeries, and finally earning the win over a big team that coach Ashley "ash" Battye craved.
There are good signs, from the balance of the riflers to Jimi "Jimpphat" Salo's form and Ali "Wicadia" Haydar Yalçın's new-found interest in grenades.
"Wicadia as well for me, he's starting to find his footing, and that's really encouraging," ash said. "You can see in his body language and stuff, he's finding it much more comfortable now.
"He's paying so much attention in preparation now. I'm kind of blown away by it, as a guy that wouldn't throw any grenades, he knows them all now, and he's actually reminding people, saying, "Yeah, we're doing this, this, this," et cetera.
"So it's really nice seeing him buy into this, and the mental improvements to me have been massive."
ash also touched on relieving some pressure from an underperforming Ismailcan "XANTARES" Dörtkardeş, and how practice demos being available to download is contributing to a "stale" meta.
Listen to the interview here.
Congrats, first win. Just give me your initial reaction to the 9z game
A really good game. I think we had something to prove on Dust2. We haven't really played it so much, and it's been maybe the only map we haven't really shown anything on so far. I think at times it was a little bit nervy on that Mirage T side where it's just been hit or miss. I think Vitality caught us a few times, and then maybe there's some demons there. And I think in these late rounds, maybe we're lacking a little bit of quality, but it's something we can talk about and hopefully can fix in the future.
And on that StarSeries result, it felt like the moment where it started clicking. Is that how it felt even with the final [going against you]?
Yeah. We had two pretty heartbreaking results. We had the FURIA game where we were 9-0 up on the third map [at EWC], and then we lost that one. And then we had the G2 game [at Porto], we had a 4vs2 at 12-10 on the third map, and we lost that one.
The main thing we were missing was a win against a really good team. And then we also played against NAVI, and I don't know what the record is for this organization against NAVI or the core even. Maybe it's ten, 11, 12 games in a row or something. So, getting that win there, I think it gave us a lot of confidence that we may have been lacking, and that big result, from there it feels like it's more normal for us now against these better teams. That was the big hurdle we were looking to overcome.
The shining light so far of the international team has been Jimi. It really feels like it's 2024 Jimi again, right? I know you said that was one of the main goals. What have you done to activate him in this way?
I think maybe pushing him sometimes. I think I can be quite direct with Jimi, but in more of a funny kind of way sometimes with him, of really pointing out how maybe he's missing some opportunities, how he's not really having some impact on the server and then... He's been really receptive with that, and he wants to do it.
When we first joined the team, one of the first things I talked with him about was, what player do you want to be? And this was what he wants to be. He wants to have more impact. But I think sometimes he doesn't really know how to do it, or sometimes he's more focused on trying to connect the team and not make mistakes, and try to get that a little bit out of him.
We need to take risks. You need to have a presence. Because I think when the best teams play against Jimi, they understand he won't really push his positions, he won't really show much lurking. Everything he does kind of makes sense, and if everything makes sense all the time, it's quite easy to play against that. So that's been good progress.
But I've gotta say, Wicadia as well for me, he's starting to find his footing, and that's really encouraging. You can see in his body language and stuff, he's finding it much more comfortable now, and he's making big improvements there mentally as well.
That was my next question because obviously he was the best player over the first six months of the year for Aurora. But I wanted to ask more about how you balance Jimi as such a star anchor. There doesn't feel like there's that many resources to split even though Jimi's in tough positions. How are you making sure that Wicadia also has enough space?
Well, the great thing with Jimi is he doesn't ask for help. He doesn't really need the help. You just put him in a position and... With his CT sides, I'm barely touching things. Mostly it's just, "Hey, you've been doing a lot of this. Let's try some of this," and then practicing it a little bit so he can be more comfortable. But he's just like having a special player. He'd improve any team in the world, I'm pretty confident, because you just put him anywhere he wants and he understands how to play.
He has a lot of confidence in his aim and everything, and that gives more space to someone like Wicadia, who's his partner on quite a lot of these maps, to actually go and do something else. So for me, it's like a dream where I don't need to worry so much about that. And then we have a big voice in XANTARES, woxic can do his things and Wicadia fills in. So the balance of the team feels really nice right now.
And can you expand a bit on Wicadia finding his feet? Obviously it's the first time he's ever been in an international team. It's been a few months now.
Yeah, I think at first he found it difficult. He's a player that wants to talk a lot, and he thinks very fast. So when you think this fast, you need to communicate with your team exactly what you want. It's well known that as a player, he likes to sit in smokes, he likes to find timings. But to do this, he needs someone to make a distraction for him, spam some bullets, make some steps, and I can't imagine how hard that is, only speaking one language, to think it in one, convert it to another one, and then try and play at a high quality level. So I think he found that part a little bit difficult.
But I think also maybe the expectations of where the team were at before with the Major semi-final, and then seeing us struggle a little bit at the start, maybe his confidence took a little bit of a hit. He was very [free], like a free kind of player the way he plays. Being a little bit more structured, I think that was very uncomfortable.
But now I think he's understanding what he can do and he's paying so much attention in preparation now. I'm kind of blown away by it, as a guy that wasn't throwing any grenades, he knows them all now, and he's actually reminding people, saying, "Yeah, we're doing this, this, this," et cetera. So it's really nice seeing him buy into this, and the mental improvements to me have been massive and I've gotta give him a lot of credit for that.
And I guess we're just cycling through all the players now, but XANTARES has caught a bit of flack recently on some podcast clips and everything. I did look at it and it's like 0.92 versus top 20 [teams this year], and that just doesn't feel like XANTARES. You've got a lot of pans on the hob. How are you trying to deal with that as well?
I think trying to take away a little bit of pressure with him. I haven't had so many deep talks with XANTARES so far. It's been more with the younger guys, and I think it's something we'll probably come to more in the future. But I see it with him, one of the first things he says is that for us to win and be successful, he has to bring his game up. And I think that's admirable for him to say that, but it also shows the weight of pressure that he's maybe putting on himself, and that's probably a little bit on me to help him relieve that a little bit.
But I think also on himself, he needs to realize we can't just win because he headshots everybody. He needs to just relax a little bit. I think maybe in the game today in the second map, just a little bit of a rush of blood maybe in his head sometimes, playing a little bit too fast, and I think he's a guy that never in his career has ever baited really. He just wants to go first, and I really like that about his game, but sometimes just relaxing a little bit, taking his time and understanding that these players shoot back well.
But he has the experience to play at this level and I have a lot of confidence in him. I think he's doing a lot for the team as well. So I have good hopes for him, and we'll see more as a sample size, different approach with things, can this improve in the future? I think in the past they were getting hard anti-strat a lot as well, so maybe we can work on that a little bit.
And another thing I wanted to pick your brain on was, I don't know if you saw Snappi's comments recently about Skybox Edge [practice demos] and how it's really hard to innovate right now, basically. Do you have the same feeling in the server?
Yeah. So what you do in practice sometimes is you find something that works, and then you just don't do it for a long time because you're trying to show it to the least number of teams possible. But I remember playing, we played Cache at the start, but we didn't play it in official, and three or four other things that we'd already done in practice that I was a very big fan of, suddenly I see BIG using them and other teams, teams we've played against, and I go back and you think, 'This is frustrating because it feels like we kind of maybe have something there,' and you can't do any of it. So maybe you do one game, now you don't do it.
I think this isn't the way Counter-Strike used to be. I remember you used to play Counter-Strike Source, and the only demo you get to watch was the final of, like, the biggest tournament before. It's the only demo you could watch, and everybody would just do that for the next six months.
Obviously, that was a bit different. But now it feels weird because you feel like you're doing something and you're playing against good teams and you understand, "Oh, they react like this. We could maybe have the same reaction."
And I think it makes it a little bit stale sometimes and a bit inconsistent, because how do you stay ahead of the meta when you play one practice and it's already the meta when you're one of the best teams? So I don't like it so much, but it's kind of become something you have to deal with. I think it's even more respect to Vitality having an era when everybody can see everything you do in practice all of the time.
Ismailcan 'XANTARES' DörtkardeşPast 3 months
Jimi 'Jimpphat' SaloPast 3 months
Ali 'Wicadia' Haydar YalçınPast 3 months
9z
Maximiliano 'max' Gonzalez
Franco 'dgt' Garcia
Ignacio 'meyern' Meyer
Luciano 'luchov' Herrera
Matias 'HUASOPEEK' Ibañez Hernandez
Bruno 'BIT' Fukuda Lima
Aurora
Ismailcan 'XANTARES' Dörtkardeş
Özgür 'woxic' Eker
Jimi 'Jimpphat' Salo
Damjan 'kyxsan' Stoilkovski
Ali 'Wicadia' Haydar Yalçın
Ashley 'ash' Battye
Ashley 'ash' Battye