NRG came to Barcelona for the StarLadder StarSeries Fall, hoping to earn as many Valve points as possible and close the gap in the race for a Singapore Major spot. They currently sit ninth in the Americas VRS rankings, only 36 points ahead of SportsBetExpert behind them.
Although the team's situation is far from easy, nitr0 is not too worried. After the StarSeries Fall tournament, NRG will also attend iBUYPOWER Masters FLM and FRAG University, and he believes the team will still have plenty of opportunities to consolidate its ranking.
"There will indeed be a bit of pressure, but honestly, we still have some good Tier 2 events coming up. I'm pretty sure we can beat a lot of the opponents ranked ahead of us, so I'm actually not particularly worried about these things," nitr0 said in an interview with HLTV on media day.
In addition, this "Captain America" also talked about the changes hallzerk joining and Jeorge returning to the lineup have brought to NRG, the current training environment in North America, and the first-round matchup against MOUZ.
Q: This is the first Tier 1 event of this caliber you've played this season. How would you evaluate the team's preparation so far? What kind of form are you in heading into this tournament?
nitr0: Considering the quality of practice we were able to get, I think we're in pretty good shape overall. Since hallzerk joined the team, this is probably the longest stretch of practice we've ever had. Although we could only scrim against North American teams, we did have a pretty solid amount of prep time since FRAG St. Clair ended.
We have time to fix a lot of mistakes, build chemistry, improve the roster and expand our tactical playbook and things like that, so overall it feels great. But in North America it's really hard to truly test our level.
It will be a bit different after coming here, because we will be facing top-tier teams instead of always playing against North American teams.
We had already noticed when we played Liquid that our tactics were put to a greater test. Facing stronger teams, once you make a mistake, they will obviously punish you more severely, and that is the biggest difference we felt.
Even just playing against Liquid is already completely different from other North American teams. So the most important thing right now is to see how we hold up when we truly face a test at this intensity.
Q: You face a huge challenge right from the start, with your first-round opponent being MOUZ, one of the most closely watched teams at this tournament. How do you see this matchup?
nitr0: They are a very strong team, and in my opinion, their recent roster changes have been great as well.
We've faced them before in China. At the time br0 couldn't play due to personal reasons, we had daps step in, but even so we still took a map off them.
Among all the tier-one teams, MOUZ is a team we know relatively well on a tactical and psychological level. So if we had to pick from these tier-one teams, I think they are a good matchup for us.
We need to bring out our best performance, give our best effort, and play our best game to have a chance to beat them.
Q: You just mentioned that MOUZ's roster changes were good, and you made changes yourselves as well. After training together for a while, what changes have the additions of Jeorge and hallzerk brought to the team? How is this NRG different compared to last season?
nitr0: hallzerk fit in very easily because he had previously played for a North American team like Complexity, and he had accumulated a wealth of experience playing with EliGE.
EliGE is the teammate I have worked with the longest, and the two of us share the most experiences together, so a lot of the time our ideas are very close. I can feel that hallzerk is very similar in many aspects like match philosophy, terminology, and so on, to what EliGE and I built together back in Liquid.
So from this perspective, integrating him into the team was really easy. He has always been very consistent in his attitude, personality, and in matches. Overall, he is a very good teammate, and I am very satisfied with him.
As for Jeorge, he has improved a lot since we moved him to the bench earlier, which is great to see.
Clearly, he is working harder now than he did during the previous roster era.
Now all of our pistol rounds are prepared by him. Because he is the least experienced player on the team, giving him this kind of "homework" is actually quite good, as it makes him feel like he is also contributing something to the team. That is very important for a person.
Everything is going very smoothly at the moment, both of them have brought a lot of positives to the team, and the overall atmosphere within the team is very good right now.
Q: You mentioned that the atmosphere within the team is really good right now and that a lot of things are gradually coming together. But at the same time, you're walking a tightrope in the VRS rankings, fighting for a Major spot. Does that bring you pressure?
nitr0: There will indeed be a bit of pressure.
But honestly, we still have some good Tier 2 events coming up. I'm pretty sure we can beat a lot of the opponents ranked ahead of us, so I'm not really too worried about these things.
Q: You mentioned these second-tier events, which can help you keep climbing the VRS rankings. But what are your expectations for a tournament of this level like StarSeries Fall?
nitr0: Now we just take it one game at a time.
We must secure every win we possibly can, because we currently don't get much VRS boost from LAN events. So winning any match here will be very important for us, and very important for qualifying for the Major.
This is our main goal right now: to win as much as possible here, give our best effort, and show the best we can.
We also hope to leave this event with no regrets, because when you're in our current position in the VRS system, you don't often get the chance to compete in tournaments like this.
So any victory we can secure at this tournament will mean a great deal to us.