JT: "We think we're one of the strongest teams here and we want to prove that"

Complexity's in-game leader shared his thoughts on the team's run at ESL Pro League and their start in the Americas RMR.

Johnny "⁠JT⁠" Theodosiou's squad have begun their campaign at the PGL Major Antwerp Americas RMR on a successful note, picking up their first win in the Swiss format after an opening matchup against TeamOne.

After the match, we caught up with the South African in-game leader to ask him about Complexity's trip to Europe, which most recently saw them eliminated in the group stage at ESL Pro League, with their only win coming at the expense of one of their Americas RMR rivals, Evil Geniuses.

You've been in Europe for a bit now playing ESL Pro League and so on. What have you been up to? A while back junior said you were doing really well in practice, has that kept up?

We've been doing pretty well in practice most of the time, but this time around we haven't had as much practice because we've been traveling around a lot. We got to Pro League the day before it started and we had some good practice while we were there.

Then we had two more days of travel to our next bootcamp, so we haven't had that much practice but when we do practice it has been efficient, it has been good, so we're coming into this tournament confident because we've been playing well against the European teams in our practice games. We think we're one of the strongest teams here and we just want to prove that.

You struggled a bit at BLAST Spring Groups and ESL Pro League, at least in keeping up with the best teams. Did it lower your confidence at all?

I don't think it really ruined our confidence or anything like that. We knew after those games that most of the time we were losing them because we were playing under pressure. The team doesn't have much experience in general, a lot of the players are new or played their first LAN at Pro League, or one of their first BLAST events.

It's a work in progress, we know from our practice and the players we have on the team that we can be really good, we have the potential to be really good, so the more reps we get on LAN, the more reps we get against tier one teams, we'll eventually get there. The games weren't too bad, a lot of the games were close, a lot of the maps were close, it was just the little mistakes that got to us because of our inexperience, nerves and that kind of thing.

You're still in Europe, obviously, but you're playing American teams now. Do you have a bit more confidence going against them, at least being accustomed to some of the teams that are here?

Yeah, definitely. We have this thing in our team... We're pretty much the NA destroyers in my opinion. We have Grim and junior that had like 1.3, 1.4 ratings every time they played in North America. So when we play these Brazilian teams or these tier two NA teams, we're extremely comfortable. At least those two players.

Coming into this tournament we know to play our own game, it works against these guys, let's just keep playing our best and the wins will come. We have the players to win this type of event.

You talk about some of your teammates putting up big numbers, but you had a pretty good start to the event yourself against TeamOne. It has been said that you're not a big fragging IGL, so how are you feeling after this one?

Pretty happy with it, pretty happy with our performance. floppy and myself had a good game, but we expect to win against these teams so we just need to make sure that we keep it up for the next games.

In the last interview junior did with us, he said you were up there with Liquid as the best team in North America, drawing quite a few comments about it. What do you have to say about that?

There is some merit to what he's saying just from the way we've been playing in practice and the way we play against Liquid and Evil Geniuses, when we do play them, although at the end of the day it's not about how we play in practice or how we play Liquid, it's about what place we come in at a tournament.

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junior: "Right now we are the best NA team, us and Liquid are 50/50"

Those players have a lot more experience than we do, they've won tier one tournaments, as well, so when we play these tier one LANs they might play better than us because our inexperience gets to us. But I think that in due time we can say we're better than them, although I think it's close, it's very close between us. We have very good games against them and we'll just have to see what happens.

The goal here is qualification, but have you guys talked about going for that one coveted Legends spot at all?

We haven't really spoken about the Legends spot. We just want to get stickers. Only Grim has been to a Major, but we really want stickers and to participate at our first Major.

Are there some nerves, seeing the possibility of being at a Major so close? Is it in the back of your heads at all?

I wouldn't call it nerves, but there's some pressure like we need to win now. But I don't think it's affecting the guys badly or anything like that, I think it's good.

You said that you played with a bit of pressure at BLAST and Pro League, whereas junior said that there wasn't pressure from the organization, and that everyone was very reassuring. How do those two worlds combine?

There's not much pressure from the organization, they just want us to improve as fast as we can. That's fair, because we're a young team. I think some of the pressure stems from players coming from old teams like Grim from Liquid, he wants to prove himself; junior from FURIA, he wants to prove himself; floppy from Cloud9, he wants to prove himself. So this is our next chance for a tier one event and if they can play now, they can prove themselves as players. I think that's mostly it.

To close things out, tell me about your progression as a team and where you think your ceiling's at. You're up there against the North American teams, playing Liquid and those guys well, but where do you see yourselves going and where are you at in your progression?

I try not to focus too much on where I see us in the future, but I think we definitely have the potential to be one of the top teams in the world — not only NA. We're trying to work towards that and as long as we keep our heads down and keep practicing, I think we can get there.