Blog:One Tap Lan 2017: Michael “cooLeR” Dowling & Gustas "nLINE" Varnagys Interview
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One Tap Lan 2017: Michael “cooLeR” Dowling & Gustas "nLINE" Varnagys Interview
This interview was audio recorded on the morning of the 5th of August prior to the tournament kicking off.
Im here with nLINE, cooler, on day one of One Tap Lan 2017 before the games have started. How are you feeling guys?
cooler: Feeling great, confident going into this lan. There’s not the top dogs conoR, Whindanski and CINDER here so there’s a good chance.
Are you both on the same team or different teams?
cooLeR: We’re both on the same team..
nLINE: ..for once, we’ve been looking forward to playing with each other other for ages, and finally the dream has come true.
What’s your full lineup?
nLINE: It’s Nox, craitY and Tobin.
So a pretty strong mix. Well the whole team have joined us now. Do you want to go over each of your roles in the team.
cooLeR: We literally have no roles. We’ve played one game together so far..
Tobin: ..16-0
Are you calling for the event?
cooLeR: We’ll see what happens in the game, it will probably just be a group calling thing.
nLINE: It’s a group effort, like we will try to take mid on maps and if anyone has any ideas we work from there. Unless it’s craitY because he usually just speaks in Polish and we just let him do his thing.
cooLeR: He just screams Kurwa bitch and …
nLINE: He says Kurwa A, that means we go B. Kurwa A (High pitched & Confused) then we go A.
How do you call a B fake craitY?
Tobin: B Kurwa B.
craitY: B or not to B.
Did you guys get here last night then. Have you been on the beers?
cooLeR: Tobin’s been on the lash, he’s still probably drunk. (Picture of Tobin with Captain Morgans shown).
So you’re all feeling good for your games. Who’s your first opponent?
Everyone: Popo..
nLINE: He’s an infamous retaker. At the time the Irish retake server was up, Popo was in the server like 24/7. Popo’s like a mix of (inaudiable) and he plays retakes a lot and I haven’t seen a lot of him lately.
Are you all setup? Any hardware problems?
cooLeR: We’re all setup, but one person forgot a DVI so we’re using one of Tobins.
How do you feel about the BYOC vs non BYOC events?
cooLeR: Well, for these events.. they’re smaller, not many sponsors, but if they prove that they can run this lan well they could get the non BYOC PC’s, but for now it’s fine, even though it’s a trek I think its worth..
nLINE: If people want to play they will show up no matter what , BYOC or not.
Do you think anyone would have the balls to cheat in a BYOC at lan?
cooLeR: Yea, definitely, people will try.
So, you’ll have your eyes out and about when you aren’t playing.
cooLeR: Yea, once they’re not watching me it’s grand.
nLINE: I’m already walking behind everyone and checking you know.
cooLeR; But there is many different types of cheating, like not just software type cheating, there is also listening into peoples comms, trying to peek over at screens.
Are you guys looking out for any teams in particular at this event?
cooLeR: No, not really. We’re pretty confident going into this. We’ve looked at the teams and I’d say, Gravy.. that’s probably it. Nobodys, that’s not even the full Nobodys lineup so we don’t really count that.
Do you think of it as an opportunity given that like you said conoR, Whindanski and CINDER aren’t here.
nLINE: I think it’s the most competitive and even LAN there’s been, because usually when you go to Irish LANs there is one clear winner which is Nobodys..
cooLeR: ..No but Nobodys the past couple of LANs have been showing the cracks in their armour, so to speak and teams have been getting closer.
nLINE: Some teams have started getting closer to them, like ex-Unity, Mr. cooLeRs team but however teams are not able to stick together so I don’t know how they will be able to get better.
cooLeR: Well, my team wasn’t able to stick together due to me and personal problems.
Was it just people getting frustrated with each other?
cooLeR: It was basically with my team we weren’t able to get the practise in that we wanted and that would frustrate people, made them lose motivation. And then with people needing to get jobs, me basically, I wouldn’t have time for practise because most of my jobs hours are night shifts and that was conflicting with our practise schedule. It was basically a decision that I should leave; Even though they were doing really well, we were doing really well.
nLINE: You were playing UK cups a lot and doing pretty decent.
cooLeR: Yea but we were getting frustrated a lot in those games and it showed a lot of our weaknesses which we could have worked on but there just wasn’t enough time for us to work on them.
Are you looking to ever get back on a team like that?
cooLeR: I would be looking to get back on a team but if I look I’d be looking wider than the Irish scene, because right now no one top tier in the Irish scene so to speak is looking to play in an Irish team. They’re all looking to go further, so it’s very hard to get a full Irish lineup.
Do you think there is even any point in going really hard to dominate the Irish scene, because at the end of it you still might not beat Nobodys. Is it worth it?
cooLeR: If you are able to do well, like we were able to show that we could compete with them when we had LainNy on the team we were all working together, we were working against their stupid fucking pushes, all their individual plays and it was working and I guess confidence gets in the way of that when you started rolling on them but it’s not worth just dominating the Irish scene. You need to be able to push beyond that, constantly improve. You can’t just sit and hope that no one else overtakes you, in the pro scene it was Fnatic for the longest time ever. They were just doing their thing and then people strategically overcame them and they haven’t been on the top since.
Are you on a team yourself at the moment nLINE?
nLINE: No, after GamerCon my team kind of fell apart, both the Swedes left and fREDDEMANNEN was living in Ireland but he had to leave to go back to Sweden. I’m just playing for fun mostly.
Any plans to get back into it?
nLINE: For now I’m just gonna keep my eyes open, but I’m not sure if I’m going to stick with the Irish scene as well. I might just move to the UK scene or whatever and see what happens basically.
cooLeR: I might just grind Faceit like what LainNy did and get noticed. He grinded it a lot and now he’s doing pretty well for himself.
Do you guys have a bar you hasethit for this event?
cooLeR: No we’re just going in and saying fuck it, let’s win it. Basically we just need confidence and if you don’t push for the top, what’s the point in pushing at all.
nLine: Win or Lose, we lose, but at the same time it would be nice to win. It’s the most even LAN ever so.
cooLeR: Even if the other Nobodys team was here I still feel like we’d be able to because they have played using the same style for so long. Everyone has been copping onto it. As I said, chinks in their armour are showing and if we just keep hitting those chinks the armour is going to break.
We’ve talked about Nobodys a lot, nLINE you actually played for them for an event, G-7 which you actually won. Do you think there is anything special they do or is it just good players shooting heads?
nLINE: I think it’s just good players playing smart Counter Strike and not overthinking. Sometimes when teams start playing together they start overthinking stuff and go to deep in the strategy and expect x, y, z to work and then when something goes wrong the team is caught off because it’s not what they have practised, and when you play for a mix, even if it doesn’t go right it’s a mix, you have never played before so you adapt quicker, you make your own snappy decisions and that can cause the downfall of teams.
cooLeR: Yea, but that was like my type of calling, I never really went deep into strategy like I didn’t enjoy it. I felt mid round calling was my calling. I’d be able to adapt really easily, but I need the teammates to feed me information so I can make an educated guess or decision, which is why I think I succeeded for the most part as an IGL. We did some strats but it was really because we were playing smart, we were playing together and when we didn’t play together we would lose rounds.
If we come back to the event itself, the last Irish CS event was GamerCon. Not only was it a bit of a disaster in that it didn’t finish the game you were playing. They actually pulled the plug mid game.
nLINE: I was about to destroy Unity Gaming.
cooLeR: It was actually me and Gus that were playing against each other at the time. They decided to give Nobodys the default win of First place which was just for winning the upper bracket. It’s a stupid decision but I can see where they are coming from, because I felt that any team could have beat them at that LAN. Especially DEG and Unity, two amazing teams. Obviously mine was better.
nLINE: debatable..
cooLeR: Debatable but yea, once the power was cut we couldn’t do anything else.
nLINE: We couldn’t even finish the game we started, the semi-final.
cooLeR: We had to split second place.
This is a lot quieter, a player oriented event, whereas the last one, ok it was non BYOC but you had people coming in every ten minutes trying to get on PC’s.
cooLeR: Yea they should have had it separated, a wall or tape for the players area.
Would you prefer BYOC in this environment or non BYOC in that environment?
cooLeR: This environment, the way this event is set up now is good.
nLINE: It’s a struggle to bring your own stuff here, but once you have everything set up it’s actually way more chill. You can walk around, talk to people and not have to worry about your setup because everyone here knows each other, they’re friends.
cooLeR: You don’t have to be afraid of some random person just walking up and taking your stuff. I’ve heard that people have … Laptops were taken at that event and everything.
I think someone posted on the Facebook group about a few mice he took home.
cooLeR: I would have taken them home too, because the event was so shite, it wasn’t worth the money that you gave.
Did either of you ever get your money back for attending that event?
cooLeR: I did..
nLINE: Did you actually?
cooLeR: I only scanner the player ticket so not the event ticket. I was one of the lucky ones who got my money back, and the winnings.
nLINE: The security at that event was so bad. On the second day you could have walked to the front and just walked in, no one even checked you.
Has there been any internet / power problems so far for you?
cooLeR: There is some internet problem which is basically you cannot connect to TeamSpeak or Discord so we had to setup our own LAN TeamSpeak, which is being hosted on Tobins computer and everyone is connecting to it. There was some problems with some of the Wi-Fi or something because when you were trying to Steam you need your login steam details and key so I couldn’t connect on my phone which was the only problem I was having, but I sorted that out.
nLINE: Other than that it’s run pretty smoothly. Some delays and problems are to be expected and they have been dealing with it better than GamerCon and the early G-Series events. GamerCon had six or seven hour delays.
I think it was two games a day for my team..
cooLeR: Well we only got one game in..
nLINE: We got one and a half. We were half way though the second game and we had to leave and finish it the second day which is pretty crazy.
Any last words or shoutouts?
nLINE: FiggYs if you’re listening I will knock you out at this LAN again. You will go home early.
And what if he only sees this after LAN?
nLINE: See you next LAN. You’re going out in groups again.
cooLeR: Goodluck to everyone. We don’t need it, that’s all.
nLINE: Luck’s for losers.
cooLeR’s Twitter is @cooLeRcs_ and nLINE's is @nLINEcsgo.
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