Blog:Irish Pro League 2017 Finals: Steve "ArchEnemy" Duncan & Daragh "Neekz" Coady Interview
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Irish Pro League 2017 Finals: Steve "ArchEnemy" Duncan & Daragh "Neekz" Coady Interview
Irish Pro League 2017 Finals: Steve "ArchEnemy" Duncan & Daragh "neekz" Coady Interview
This interview was audio recorded on the evening of the 2nd of September.
Here at the end of day one of Celtic Throwdown with ArchEnemy and neekz from Nobodys. How’s it going guys.
neekz: Good man.
ArchEnemy: Yea, not bad, not bad.
Good first day?
neekz: Good first day. Three – nil so happy all.
Everything as expected? Did you guys expect to have any trouble today?
neekz: Eh no, we didn’t expect any trouble today.
ArchEnemy: No it went good. I think we lost a few too many rounds today but yea…
neekz: What happened to us man is we got to fifteen – ten, fifteen – nine in like every game and then struggled to get the sixteen. There was one against different gravy where we were fifteen – six up and then it just came back, back, back till’ it was sixteen - twelve. ROUGH!
Do you know who you are playing tomorrow?
neekz: I think we’re playing the lowest seed because we got the top seed. Won all our games. We came into the LAN seeded seventh.
Did you expect anyone to do any damage against you guys when you got this five together.
neekz: Not really, no to be honest. With the lads, if you have Phil, Conor and CINDER you’re always insane like. They’re after coming back from the Gfinity series so its like..
Top three didn’t they get?
neekz: Conor and Phil came top three.
Can you guys give us an introduction as to how far back you go maybe for the newer viewers. How you got into CS and why you're still here, etc.
ArchEnemy: I’ve literally been playing for like fifteen years man. Just always been my go to game and the scene has always been properly competitive from 1.5 to now and it’s always been very similar. Now I think the only issue is it’s more mix orientated, especially with the Irish scene.
Have you been going to LANs the whole time since 1.5?
ArchEnemy: I’ve been going to LANs since I was seventeen so its thirteen years.
neekz: What was that one you came third in?
ArchEnemy: CLUKs, it used to be the old EPIC lan (CentralanUK 21).
Central LAN UK
ArchEnemy: Yea Central LAN UK yes. So I’ve played at a decent level across the board. I’m obviously not as good now being a bit older at the age of thirty but yea man, you can’t beat going to LAN. You can’t.
Is that the first FPS you got into was CS?
ArchEnemy: Yea, it was literally the first and only FPS I got into. No other FPS compares for that proper competitive base. I’ve never played any FPS similar to it.
You’ve made it known that you’re off to New Zealand soon enough. Is that your closing off the chapter was CS or are you going to keep going down there?
ArchEnemy: I think I might have a wee look at the scene over there and see what the deal is, but you never know. I do want to remain over there but you never know. You might see me sooner rather than later, whatever way it works, but I’m definitely going to keep playing. There’s no doubt about it.
Any real great memories from all those years from maybe events or something you did online?
ArchEnemy: i33 has to be. Not too say that I’m absolutely amazing or anything but I’ve always been in a higher tier than most.
That was the one Dignitas won wasn’t it?
ArchEnemy: I believe so, yea yea, but just being able to go and meet everyone. All these names and people you talk to. Just putting a face to a name. Small LAN or big LAN, but that LAN was something else. I think I was drunk for the entire week. It was a good LAN. More like a piss up than a LAN so it was.
How about you neekz, similar story or…
neekz: Eh, I started playing CS when I was sixteen and I actually met Ross and Martin in a net café..
Martin Nee?
neekz: Martin Nee, in a net café in Galway. I’ve been friends with them since I was playing CS then. We all made teams. We were sponsored by a local net café back then as well. We went into the net café to practise as five for free like. But none of us knew how to play the game properly so it was a bit of a waste. If we knew what we know now it would have been a different story. My first LAN was i34 and it was a good LAN. There was one LAN I went to when I was eighteen, I had just turned eighteen and I actually got kicked from the team that I went with two months before hand but we still went as a mix. Another guy called Sleven, Sean Leonard, he was from my town as well.
ArchEnemy: How do you spell sleven?
neekz: S-L-E-V-E-N. Sean was a gas boy. He played CS religiously, one hundred hours a week and you were always trying to keep up with him. He was a sick AWPer back in the day. If he was playing now he would have an absolute field day. There’s loads of players that had they kept on playing, they’d make this LAN so competitive.
ArchEnemy: Oh yea, one hundred percent. A lot of the old school people dropping out made it…
neekz: Since I’ve been going with the guys it’s been pretty much plain sailing. I think it was G7 that we lost two maps.
G7 was Croke Park?
neekz: No that was G6. G6 I actually went to that LAN with a mix. I didn’t know any of them. I went just to get drunk, came fifth… so it wasn’t too bad. It was actually the lowest placing at an Irish LAN I’ve had playing CS.
ArchEnemy: I think the lowest I’ve had was second.
neekz: I came third at the majority of Source LANs, or second, and I’ve always been losing to you and Phil. Me and Whindanski never played Source together.
Was there a dominant team back them or an equivalent of Nobodys?
neekz: There was three teams. There was Anomaly…
ArchEnemy: Yea, with Menengroth.
neekz: Any team with Menengroth, a mix team even, it was good… until they flopped. They flopped at an iSeries. It was funny. Whindanski always had a mix going. I always had a mix going. No matter what, every game we’d be on the losing side. Every game was overtime, sixteen – fourteen. This guy defusing through the – was it you or Andrew?
ArchEnemy: No, it was Andrew.
neekz: Defusing under the train. We got one round-
In the tunnel on train?
neekz: On the old train on CT side train, they defused under the train and he was like ‘Oh no we didn’t defuse through the train’, and we only got one round, so they decided to pause and then play on, and we were on eco. But I five vs. one clutched, and I went mad at ye. But yea I played EPS in Source, I came second in EPS in Source when I was playing in a mix team with Hughsy and ritch, Richard Gibbs. All people who played in London Mint, wEZ that played in Birmingham Salvo, and Shaney and Sliggy. I played all the group games and the semi-final. I didn’t play the final…. Sucked.
Since CSGO has had a scene in Ireland pretty much the hegemony has been Nobodys since Nobodys came into existence. Do you guys just think it’s going to be business as usual at every event, or is a team ever going to be put together that has a chance?
neekz: To be honest you have players like nox and (Inaudible), he’s insane. You’ve players like lainNy, he’s fucking crisp. You have so many youth. That FoX Gaming team, they beat us in the qualifier for this.
ArchEnemy: They’re patient man.
neekz: They’re patient. We literally knew what we had to do. We all said what we had to do, and none of us could be arsed to do it. We came in and wanted to just kill these people. It was a lack of respect that just caught us.
ArchEnemy: Yea, one hundred percent. That’s exactly what it was.
neekz: A lack of respect just caught us off guard.
ArchEnemy: The Irish scene’s getting really big now. Ireland’s always had a small scene compared to CSS and stuff, but Ireland’s getting a big scene now. It’s getting bigger now and some of these players now, compared to two years ago. Some of them are massively improved.
neekz: The likes of doof, Smooney.
ArchEnemy: doof and Smooney are literally the people I’m thinking about. You look at how much they are improving. They will only get better. You never know… people like that stick together and the Irish scene could slowly creep up on the UK scene.
neekz: They’re doing the right thing now. They’re gone into this UK FPL and they’re going to get known in the UK scene now. So it’s the best thing for them. For some reason, I don’t know why but Irish teams as a full can’t handle UK standard CS. Just as a five. They can handle them in twos, one hundred percent, but not in five. For some reason it’s always been a thing.
ArchEnemy: But it’s getting there.
Do you think the lack of teams is hindering it in any way? Do you think we’d already be there if we had proper team structures?
ArchEnemy: I feel like the Irish scene is in a place right now where these players need to mix and they need to find out who they gel with. It’s still in that kind of open season between the top fifteen to twenty players who all play with each other. Once they find who they gel with, and who they gel well with, that’s when it’s going to come in. But right now in this mixy kind of phase we’re going through I don’t think it’s an issue. I think it will probably benefit the scene in the long run.
neekz: But I suppose it’s time like we can actually lose maps. Last LAN we went to (together) G8, the most rounds someone got off us was nine.
ArchEnemy: I think we lost less than fifteen rounds the entire LAN… and even at that we we’re showing no respect, and now there is times where you’re like ‘Right guys, we buy up, we play this round properly to finish the round’.
neekz: Yea actually putting our thought process through it Like we got it close every round and I just made the call to pause it right before the last buy round.
ArchEnemy: Was the cobble? That call? We just knew they were going B. You just knew, Tobin’s team. We’re gonna pause, they’re gonna go B, and you knew it. They faked A, I said don’t move, they’re going B. They go B. We win the game. Best call. Best call.
Do you have any final words for anyone in particular, shoutouts, any final words for the CSGO Ireland community since you’re off to New Zealand.
ArchEnemy: No, just keep doing what you’re doing. I see the scene going somewhere, everything takes time, but as long as you are willing to put in the time I don’t see why it can’t go a lot further.
neekz: Yea, basically the same. Everyone is getting better, better, better, learning how to play the game. It’s more of an Aimer (oriented) LAN than it’s ever been.
ArchEnemy: Definitely.
You can view ArchEnemy and neekz player pages for further details. You can also follow them on Twitter @TPO_ArchEnemy & @nkzilla respectively. We will have more interviews from One Tap Lan 3 which takes place next weekend.
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