X10C’s Crws sat down with press after their loss against Envy to discuss his thoughts on the game, and how X10C had failed to translate scrim success.
It was a tough match for X10 CRIT to kick off their Champions run, as the Thai team fell to Team Envy 2-0. The game was played from practice rooms in a Berlin hotel, due to Victor "Victor" Wong testing positive for COVID-19 several days ago. X10C's map pick of Breeze was lost 13-8, and Ascent was a similar story at 13-7. Envy star Jaccob "yay" Whiteaker had another good performance, while X10C struggled across the board. Thanamethk "Crws" Mahatthananuyut spoke to press after the game about X10C's preparation and what went wrong in the match.
Scrim culture and failing to transition success to the stage
As Crws put it, simply arriving in Europe and beginning to scrim was a big change for X10 CRIT.
Q: Has the quality of practice partners in your region improved since Masters Reykjavik?
"It improved a bit, but to compare to NA and Europe, it's totally different, it's just a different picture. It is just better here. Everything is well prepared: the scrims website, how we book scrims here, the teams here. It is still better here, but then we still got better scrims back in SEA by scrimming with the Chinese teams. They were really good. Before coming here the scrims were a bit better than what we used to have, because we scrim with a lot of Chinese teams and a bit of Korean teams."
Even with the culture change, and having more competition, Crws said X10C's scrims were still going very well behind the scenes. They just couldn't translate that to success in their official match today.
"I think the main point for us is just, we just need to play like how we scrim. And it was a difficult task when we played against Envy. So I don't think it's hard if we're able to pull out the executes we prepared and the strats we used in scrim... there was no pressure but then it was a bit sad where we couldn't convert the rounds just like what we did in scrims."
Q: You mentioned how you couldn't play up to the standard that you showed in scrims. What exactly happened within the series that led you to believe that?
"It was because in the first map, I was pressured by yay and they got a pick off early from me, like most of the round on defender, and it was hard for our team to execute when I wasn't there in the execute. Because usually I will be the one to start out the execute and entry into the bombsite, but then me getting picked off early really took a toll for the team, and it made the flow of the game different when compared to when we scrim. So it was my fault where I wasn't aware of the pushes and I died plenty of times in the first map, but in the second one, it was just that our trading wasn't as good."
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X10C's and Southeast Asia's performance
Discussing the day's match against Envy, Crws rejected the idea that playing from the practice room instead of the main stage affected their performance.
"It wasn't much of a difference," Crws said, "But it was just our gameplay that wasn't on par to what we did in practice. That was the main point where we didn't do well as we expected to."
Crws also dispelled the idea that winning eight rounds against Envy was a success.
"We think we could have done a lot better," he said. "If I play my normal game, we could've gotten a map early, and the results would be different. I was off in the first game, so it's quite hard on me right now, but I just think that we should just focus on how we play against this, and I don't think there's anything to worry, because if we get to play our game, then I think we'll actually beat them."
When asked about Southeast Asia's performance as a whole at Champions, Crws said he was mostly disappointed, while praising Team Secret for their success against Gambit. And ultimately, he endeavoured to do better against their next opponents.
Q: What are your thoughts on SEA's performance thus far in Champions? Has it gone the way you expected it to?
To be honest, both of the Thai teams, I think we could have done a lot better. We could have shown better gameplay in both teams. I think we are not up to par, like, we couldn't really show our full potential yet. But then I think Team Secret did a really good job compared to us. We are still lacking, and I hope this doesn't happen against our next opponent, and I just hope to do our best.
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