Gizmy: "I would only be happy with qualifying for EWC"
100 Thieves swooped in for Jack "Gizmy" von Spreckelsen after he was the only remnant of the Monte roster that competed at the IEM Cologne Major, with the Brit taking over IGL duties from Håvard "rain" Nygaard.
Early signs have been encouraging, as they nearly got the better of Spirit in the online portion of BLAST Bounty, but their VRS ranking of No. 39 means that they have no tier-one invites on their radar.
"I think the general target is to make the Major, probably the same with most teams at our level and above, the tier-two region," Gizmy told HLTV after progressing through the group at the EWC open qualifier.
"We've got, I would say, a fairly decent schedule, as best as we could have considering we don't have any top invites to tier-one tournaments or anything."
Gizmy, your team came here and won back-to-back series 2-0. It was pretty smooth, I would say.
Yesterday was definitely pretty cool. Just enjoying the game, really. But yeah, quick 2-0s. GG to both of the enemy teams. Obviously, a bit lower level, so it's just something we had to do, and now we just have the rest of the day to focus on whoever our next game will be against, and prepare for a potentially quite stressful day tomorrow with three games in a row.
It's been a month since you joined the team. This is your first LAN event with the guys. What do you make of your time with the team so far? Because online results have been a bit of a mixed bag, I would say. You beat Falcons, you had a close series against Spirit, but then two losses in the StarSeries qualifier.
The losses against NIP and Nuclear TigeRES, you could generally put them down to the fact that we were a new team. You need a lot of reps to be drilled on defaults and stuff. So these teams that are a bit more rogue than the tier-one teams, they will push you in weird ways, you just punish it instantly.
With Monte, we got to a really good level of that, which was a big reason why we were winning a lot versus these teams, before we made some tier-one tournament appearances. So that was the focus in the past week or so, just making sure we're very drilled on this stuff. Also going over CT sides more because we didn't have so much time to focus on them.
Versus the tier-one teams, it was just… We're obviously skilled players. They're a good bunch, and so just running some ideas, and they worked well for the most part. It definitely could have been even 2-0 versus Spirit had the Anubis T side been different. Overall, really happy with the guys. They're good learners. They're really nice people. We're cracking a lot of jokes. Yeah, it's really good.
You came in as the IGL to replace rain in that role. What areas have you been focusing on? And would you say that the team is already playing to your style, or do you think that it will take a bit longer for that to happen?
They're playing to my style, for sure. gla1ve and zander were very happy with potentially doing as many of the things to begin with my way and how I was doing with Monte. So T sides are very similar, essentially just my system, and then the CTs, I've also had quite a big voice in a lot of the ideas and how we should play, since I'm also in a lot of the active roles.
But overall, like, two coaches are being super supportive of me and allowing this to happen. And they're accommodating a lot of stuff. They're changing their work slightly so it can match mine, and so far it's going really well. We have a good connection already, and I'm pretty hopeful for the future. So yeah, it should be good.
Not too long ago, you were still dreaming of making your first Major. Now, you're leading players like rain and device. You have gla1ve as your coach. Does it still feel surreal at times?
Yeah, it can be pretty weird. I mean, sometimes you're just sitting down, you're having a bunch of fun with these guys, and then you just reflect for a moment like, 'Holy shit.' Like, 'This is rain in front of me.' You know? Or, 'I didn't know gla1ve was this chill.' Like, Nico [device] is very funny as well. So yeah, it's always a good feeling.
But of course, my main focus is on the server, and when it comes to that, then they're just essentially players that I need to lead and treat well. Treat them with respect and they will treat me back with respect, follow my calls and also put their own opinions in, and so far it's been very good.
As you said, tomorrow's going to be a very stressful day, potentially three best-of-three series back-to-back. It's hard to set any expectations, also given the fact that it's going to be a randomized seeding, but what would you be happy with?
We want to qualify for EWC. I would only be happy with that. I can't come away with a loss and not be quite sad about it. So that's for sure the goal. We'll do our best to achieve it. We've got a good structure going, I would say. We're pretty confident on all of the maps. So yeah, looking to show our best form.
Last time I checked, you were ranked 41st in the world. What sort of targets have you set for this season? And do you have any LAN events coming up to gain some points and move up in the ranking?
I think the general target is to make the Major, probably the same with most teams at our level and above, the tier-two region. I think we've signed up for Stake Pulse 2, and potentially we might also get invited to some Logitech one. Those are the immediate LANs we're probably going to. So we'll see what happens then.
We've got, I would say, a fairly decent schedule, as best as we could have considering we don't have any top invites to tier-one tournaments or anything. So we'll see how it goes. Just need to focus on taking it game by game really, and just winning whatever we can.
100 Thieves
Nicolai 'device' Reedtz
Håvard 'rain' Nygaard
Jack 'Gizmy' von Spreckelsen
William 'sirah' Kjærsgaard
Alex 'poiii' Nyholm Sundgren
Lukas 'gla1ve' Rossander
Monte
Alexander 'kakafu' Szymanczyk
Håvard 'rain' Nygaard
Jack 'Gizmy' von Spreckelsen
Spirit
Dmitry 'sh1ro' Sokolov
Boris 'magixx' Vorobiev
Andrey 'tN1R' Tatarinovich
Myroslav 'zont1x' Plakhotia
Danil 'donk' Kryshkovets
Sergey 'hally' Shavaev