I managed to talk with Qrtz leading into SCS about a variety of topics. From his time at Mirage in the NAL to his thoughts on CL playoffs and the future of Arial Arise.
I’m gonna start way back with Mirage. So you didn’t play Stage 1, even though you were technically on the roster back in 2021. And that particular roster places 3rd in Stage 1. And then coming into Stage 2, You did play but Hotancold wasn’t there, and you guys placed I want to say 7th or something, it really wasn’t the best stage and then like your time on Mirage ended. What went wrong with this project? Because it seems like given how long Mirage suffered, it wasn’t just a single thing going wrong for this team.
Yeah, I think there’s obviously a lot of issues with the team. I think the performance wasn’t great. I’ll start with myself, obviously, because I think a lot of blame for myself for that stage because I got dropped right after so. I’d say it took me like about three or four months to get a visa. During that period of time, I wasn’t necessarily scrimming, and I was going through some stuff in my life. So it made it so that I didn’t necessarily play that much. And when I got to finally play in the NAL, I wouldn’t say I was washed, but obviously I came back from just a break and I wasn’t playing up to my full potential. I was also very young at the time. So just meshing with the team was kind of hard.
And I just had to fill the spot of Hotancold, who just came out of a great MVP [Stage]. So it was kind of hard to fill the shoes, and then a lot of internal issues within the team, and me meshing with the team, it wasn’t necessarily working perfectly fine. I think like now looking back at it, it’s been a year and a half. So I’ve obviously grown a lot. And I realized that I made a lot of mistakes going into the team, really kind of immature. We did start the Stage kind of well. And then we had a loss against Xset that really cost us like the possibility of going to the Major. And from there, it was kind of just our season was almost done, I would say. But I think we actually- like the first half the season was actually pretty good. And I was pretty happy with the results. But yeah, unfortunately, just issues just came and then…Yeah.
Playing on that stage [The venue stage]. How is that? Because I’ve heard, I’m seeing some stuff where people are saying it’s very, very cold, or it’s just not very comfortable to play on that stage. Is it really that much of a struggle to play there?
Yeah, definitely. The cold is definitely an issue that you have to get like accustomed to. But it was really nice. For me, it was the first LAN experience that I had. You’re playing with, like the teammates close to you and stuff. So it was really cool for me, I really enjoyed the experience. You can get really hype, you can yell at the other team, you can kind of do all that stuff. And that’s pretty cool. I really enjoyed that. But yeah, I’d say the only downsides of it is like, well actually, there’s two downsides of is that 1) you have to wait like a lot in between, like when your game actually happens and stuff. So like the stress comes falling in and stuff. And then 2) it gets really cold. Or there’s one side of the stage that gets really cold. And unfortunately, if you’re on the wrong side, then it can, it can definitely just mess around, you know, if you’re just not used to it. Especially in Vegas, you know, it’s really hotter. And our AC, like halfway through the stage broke, when I was on Mirage. So like it was really all during practice, like sometimes we would actually scrim with like no shirts on and then you’d get on stage and it’s the complete opposite and it’s really cold. So that was I mean, that was, that’s something you get used to.
Talking about Guerra, the coach of Mirage, when he was announced coach for the org because the team was going into the NAL, he outlines his philosophy of ‘support players are better than we think they are. We’re going to take these support players and use them as like a core for this team’. And he did this very publicly. There’s a whole video. How was working with him and that philosophy and approach to the game?
I think working with Guerra, I think on that team was probably I’d say like the best teammate even though it wasn’t really a teammate. He really helped me a lot during my time there. Obviously I was moving from Canada and it was my first time going out of my house, so he helped me a lot. Like a ton for eating, just- I mean not just, that sounds kind of weird saying for eating, but like for just taking me places. Just sometimes he would buy me food and I would have to pay him later and stuff you would really just like be a big brother to me during that time. And inside the game I’d say like, I kind of agree with his mentality. And also during that time on Mirage, like we had Dream on support, which I think Dream is one of the best supports in the league. So he was really helping us a lot. So it just kind of made sense. Like, obviously support like, the ideology of saying that supports were much better, I think like that stage Dream was really- I wouldn’t say maybe carrying us, but it was really just like he was…
He was definitely one of your highlights
Yeah, he was definitely one of our highlights and just just being like a, like a central voice I guess of our team.
So it was Dream IGLing? Or I believe Nyx was on the team at the time as well. Was it kind of like a two person system?
Yeah, Nyx was like IGLing for most of the stuff. But Dream would call his executes, right? And Dream would call us out on what we would be doing wrong, and Dream would kind of adjust the defenses and tell us how he wants us to do stuff and what we would need to do. He would just make sure that everyone is taking accountability, what we’re doing right and what we’re doing wrong. So Nyx was the one IGLing. But Dream was also a pretty big voice on the team during that time.
And then, after Mirage you joined 1Shot for 2021 and then chose to take a step back going into 2022. What kind of compelled you to make that choice? Why did you step back from 1Shot?
There were some reasons going into it. I thought like, basically, they (Ubisoft) announced that there wouldn’t be any relegations till 2022. And in my head at the time, I thought, I’m on a team of 1Shot, which is, I think the best team I’ve played under. We were just really good working very well together. More than on Mirage. And it was meshing very well, but I wasn’t playing the roles that I would get picked up from if I had to play NAL. So I wasn’t playing my most comfortable role. But the system was working very well, obviously, because we had good results on the team. And so it was just meshing. So I was just kind of doing the roles that the team wanted me to, or that I had to do. But I knew that I wouldn’t get picked up by an NAL team playing those roles. Because I wasn’t necessarily, it wasn’t like a role that I was just really comfortable on, or the role that I necessarily believe I could do best on. Right?
So that brought me on to doing that [stepping back from 1Shot]. And I got a chance to work on another project with different people. And the project looked very good on paper. And I really liked the idea. It was with Aero, Jolten, Beastly, and I think we were looking for a fifth. I mean, first of all supposed to be Whimpy but then Whimpy went to Parabellum. It was like some weird stuff. But it was like on paper, like what I thought would be a really good project. And I was like, if I’m gonna play in CL for another year, I’d rather play it on a role that I’m comfortable on so I can showcase what I can truly do, than play on a team where I’m not playing the good roles. And then yeah, for like a whole year anyway, as a team we wouldn’t go to Pro League. So I’m just gonna try to shine on this team and also believe that the team could be really good. We also had the support of an org backing us up with Gaiming Gladiators for us too. And it was also like, I played with those guys for four or five months, I think, on 1Shot and I just thought like, Okay, I feel like I need a change. Right? And I feel like I could redo what I did with 1Shot on a different project, maybe with different people.
Yeah, cool. And then. So after your time in Gaiming Gladiators, which didn’t go as well as you’d hoped, because you clearly came into it with very, very high expectations and your team struggled. But you then joined Arial Arise for Stage 3 of 2022’s Challenger League. I think it’s fair to say that you guys didn’t have the best Stage 3, but you also definitely didn’t have the worst. I mean, you were top four, like, but it was, I want to say even win/loss. 4 wins, 4 losses. So going into playoffs, you weren’t really seen as one of the top dogs, especially considering you’re going up against Luminosity. What did you do to prep going up against LG to just close out that Bo3?
Yeah. Yeah, we definitely definitely were the underdogs in that match. But we prepped, I mean. So our support staff, I think is one of the hardest working support staff and the entirety of CL. So I can’t say the best necessarily, because I haven’t really teamed with the others. But they prepped us very well with counters, a lot of counter strats and just the philosophy of just not playing into their game. We know they’re very aggressive. But if we just kind of sit down on defense and hold crossfires, most of the time we’re going to win. And then on attack, it was mostly like we wanted to control them of course by doing minimals and just not overcomplicating the game. Because when we complicate it usually that’s where they were better than us. And we played them earlier in the season, like I think a week before the game on Oregon. And it kinda like it ironed out some of our issues, realized we played it wrong against them. Right? We played too much, way too much like into their own game and not enough into ours. And we tried to over prep it.
So when we came to this game, we’re like, we’re just going to simplify. We have the counter strats we have, we know our strats work, we know it works. So let’s just not overcomplicate things. Let’s just do what we talked about. This was not necessarily go on crazy stuff, let’s just do minimals and just play trades properly. And then we’ll win the game.
The week of prep that we had going into this game, I’d say it was very bad. It was one of our worst weeks as a team right before going into playoffs. And it was pretty demoralizing because we’re like, we’re thinking like, Oh, we’re underdogs in this playoff. We’re about to play against the number one team all year in CL. And it’s not going great in practice. Because the teams we’re playing against were very different than them [LG].
I mean, we played like a hell of a match on Bank which came like, I think we had finished 8-7 on overtime match point. So that was a crazy game and then ended up losing Club and ended up closing it on Villa. So it ended up like kind of working out for us. And we’re really happy about it. And that I think that really set up our confidence for the next game the next day, because obviously, the week of scrims was pretty bad, right?
As a team we were kind of on a downhill trend because the overall stage started very well. And then near the end stage, we started losing games that we shouldn’t be losing. We started just kind of falling off, and it could see the whole mood of the team, the whole attitude, it was just not necessarily great going to the playoffs. So winning that game was very- winning the first map was very important. I’d say that Bank map like it was ours to win and once we won it, it just set us up for the rest of the weekend.
So that being said, Was it really easy or really hard to bounce back from the 7-1 Clubhouse loss going in?
I’d say like, I’d say it was easy. We’ve always been a good Villa team. Like that’s just one thing that we are good at is Villa for some reason. I don’t necessarily know why too much, but I just know we play well on it. But we also were very confident going to Clubhouse as well. So when we lost it, it was kind of a shock. And I was thinking in my head, I remember during that passing in my head like, it’s actually crazy because we had like a whole week of scrimming pretty bad, our Bank was, we won it but like, they could have won it too, you know? We finished 8-7 like it was very, very intense. And I was like, we could have actually just lost 0-2 right there and would have ended our season, just losing 7-1. We have nothing to lose, you know, we have nothing to lose and everything, everything’s on the line. So let’s just play our own game. You know, I remember telling the team, like, whatever happens happens. This is Siege at the end of the day. We’re also playing Challenger League, we know there’s no relegations. There’s no stress to have, let’s just play our own game. We’re going to Villa. We know what we got to do to win this game. If we lose, we lose. But let’s play and see what happens. If we lose, like it’s just what happens. You know? That’s just how Siege works. Sometimes you can’t win them all. But let’s just at least lose playing as a team.
You guys banned Osa a lot in playoffs. She was tied for the highest banned attacker in the entire playoffs with Nøkk. What was the idea behind that?
Yeah, I’m gonna be honest we kind of just didn’t want to deal with it that much. I mean, Osa was just like one of these ops that we weren’t necessarily using too much. And we knew these guys [LG and RTV]. were using it a lot. And we’re like, we can throw them off guard by just banning it and we’ll have to see how they adapt to it.
As far as the finals are concerned, obviously beating Luminosity puts you in the finals against RealityTV. How do you think the match went in the Grand Finals against RTV?
I think it went pretty good. I’m gonna be honest, I think our expectations coming into that match, they [RTV] were undefeated. Literally hadn’t lost a map in like three months right before we came into it. And I said earlier, like our practice, we just as a team, we weren’t looking great coming into playoffs. That’s just kind of what it is. But the fact that we won the previous day, that got us pretty hyped up and then on the day of it, we were like, Let’s just give it all we got. And let’s just see if we can win it. Let’s just see if we can take it at the end of the day. The stakes aren’t that high. We don’t really know what the 2023 seasonal advantage or whatever that is is, so let’s just give it all we got. The map ban I think was pretty favorable for us. We started on Chalet, if I remember correctly, and this was a map that we’ve been hiding for playoffs specifically and we didn’t get to use it the first day so we were like, this is our map to win. Right? And I think the map went pretty well for us. I think we should have won or should’ve went at least like overtime or something like that.
It was definitely closer than 7-4 makes it seem.
Yes, there was 1v3 clutch from Tristan and a lot, a lot of clutches from them overall. I think we played pretty well on that map. We had the opening picks, we were just kind of losing the late game rounds and that was like that was the realization of like, okay, we can do this. Like sure, we lost it, but they definitely don’t look that unbeatable, right? And we go to the second map which I think was Bank right?
Yep
And this was a map that we played them literally a week before, on Bank and it didn’t go well and we lost it. So we adapted, I think, pretty well off of what we wanted to do. This was like the complete opposite that we wanted to do for LG. With LG we wanted to play more minimals, when in this game we want to play way more spread out and just do typical clears and just win the gunfights head on. Right? And we went there, and we did just that. And we won 7-2 that map. I was pretty surprised by it because we struggled against LG the day right before on that map. And these guys were really good at Bank. They told me that they weren’t losing that map, like, ever. Even in scrims. So I’m kind of surprised how it went. But that really set us up like very well.
After that map, we were really, really, really hyped up and really focused up because we were going on Villa, which was our best, I think was our best map. And at least personally, I always play very well. I was very confident going into it. And then shocker I think we get 7-2’d or something like that. So that was really shocking after that, like, again, we were back against the wall. We just lost our best map 7-1, right? Which was like, Okay, what do we do now? And we’re going on Skyscraper. Which we know wasn’t our best map but we also knew their Skyscraper wasn’t that great because we remember they played against 1Shot and they didn’t look good at all against them. So we knew that they were definitely beatable on that map. And we definitely just come short. I think that was also pretty close too.
It was a 7-5. Do you think you would have won if it went to Theme Park?
Yes, I think we would have carried the momentum and I think we could have actually won. Theme Park was also one of our good maps and they were too comfortable on it because in the last game of the season they played against Unemployment and didn’t look that good on it. So I actually think like with momentum, it would have been like a really close fifth map. But unfortunately, we just kind of choked on Skyscraper.
I also find this very interesting because when I interviewed Fett, the coach of RTV, he said the exact same thing about Chalet, we’ve been hiding this pick for playoffs this entire time. So it’s funny to hear that you both came into it with that intent. Did you do any specific prep, anti strat prep, or anything for RTV? Or was it kind of like we’re coming in with a general game plan, but we’re not gonna hard counter, hard prep against these guys?
No, we definitely prepped against these guys as well as LG, because we kind of expected them going to playoffs. The night of Saturday and Sunday, our coach and our coaching staff as a whole did a whole bunch of prep work on some counter strats and stuff. Nothing too crazy, right? We were confident in our own strats. And also I do want to say because we played RealityTV pretty late in the season, so we already had like a bunch of prep work on them made. So we kind of just use that prep work that we were using in those strats that you just kind of play. So that was kind of good. And that was just well done by our support staff to just have a strat on that. But yeah, we definitely were ready with counter strats.
You guys had some very specific bans in the finals, like Smoke on Villa, Lion and Thorn on Skyscraper. Were these very specific target bans or was this just kind of like, screw up RTV, because we don’t use it that much?
A little bit of both to be completely honest. I think after Villa we saw Mr.B had a very good map on Villa. And I think he was playing Thorn. So we were like, we’re just gonna ban it against him. Like, he’s playing well on it. And we also didn’t have a set ban, right? So it’s just like, we can be more fluid on what we want to ban. And we thought that was kind of a good option. For the Smoke ban on Villa, I’m going to be completely honest, I don’t necessarily remember why. I think mostly it was because we personally didn’t play that much. We’re more of an aggressive type of team, so we like to have our Smoke player on maybe an operator more like Alibi. So we can make more plays and play more with the team. Play more aggressive. So yeah, I think that’s why we banned it.
Speaking of the Smoke player Tonez, he got a bit of flack during the regular stage in playoffs for going for players a lot of time. But obviously there’s more to the story than that, like what did he bring to the team?
He brings a lot of explositivity to the team. I mean, he’s very unpredictable to the enemy team. When he sees play, he just kind of communicates it and goes for it. And then sometimes it really opens up the round. We have to deal with a lot. I mean, he has no fear and is playing our hard breach, playing our support role, but if he sees a play, like, regardless of what situation it is, he’s just gonna go for it. And it can be good and pretty bad at times. But he and the support staff worked, I’d say, pretty hard during the season to kind of just make sure that like, those kinds of plays would happen when we need it and not necessarily all the time. And he kind of controls himself on it.
But yeah, Tonez was not necessarily our IGL per se, but he was definitely the guy that was setting up executes and just kind of calling like, what he wanted done for the team. He had some pretty good ideas on how to just surprise people and those little micro plays they wanted to do. So he definitely brought a lot to the team for that, that Stage 3, and even coming into playoffs. And there’s times as well where like, you guys don’t necessarily see it, but we comm him to make certain plays. And he makes it. And then it’s like, it looks bad on him on the stream because he’s being told to do something. But he’s the one who did it, but it was like a called for one of his teammates or for someone else. So definitely like sometimes it’s not like it’s not all.
It’s not all on him?
Yeah, the blame can’t necessarily just go on him because at the end of the day, it’s a team decision. We ask people to do stuff and sometimes, obviously it makes you look foolish and when you do something, but it wasn’t necessarily your fault. You know, it wasn’t your call.
Do you think his playstyle would be better suited to be on a different role other than hard breach? Or do you think the reason why it can work is because he’s on that support?
Oh, that is a very good question. I think that role actually fits him pretty well, because the fact that he’s unpredictable, yes, it makes him sometimes unreliable, but it also makes him really good. Because he’s unpredictable to other teams, right? And I think this role fits in very well with the right system. And he’s proved it with many teams that he’s been in the past where just him being able to go for crazy plays when his team needs it just is something very good. It’s just with us, I’d say, during like, the last end of the regular season, there were a couple of games where it didn’t work very well.
We’ve kind of touched on them a lot in this interview already. But the coaching staff, SmiTaSous and Dauntless were brought on for Stage 3 and playoffs and I’ve heard from a lot of different people that they do some good work. So what specifically did they bring as coaches? Because there’s so many different kinds of coaches, there’s like the mental coaches, the prep coaches, the people who break down strats and give you counter strats. What did these two bring to the table?
I’d say a lot of prep work against teams. When we brought them on, like, every single week we’d have, like, the four maps that we could potentially play that week, sometimes even five, and then we would have strats for every single one of these maps to counter teams that we would play against. They would watch the vods for every map and stuff. So that’s like, an enormous amount of work for them to be doing. And then they’d be doing vod reviews with players. Sometimes they’d be just overall, like during the scrims keeping us accountable, just making sure we’re doing the right stuff all the time. And to keep people in check too.
Were they keeping egos in check and making sure everyone’s mental was in a good place?
Yes, yes. They were just kind of making sure that everyone’s mental was like, in the right headspace. And if something wasn’t right or something, they would just go make sure everything’s okay. Overall, like a really solid coaching staff. When I was on 1Shot and Gaiming Gladiators we thought having coaches weren’t necessarily that useful for the people we had on the teams. So obviously, for me, it was kind of like a different system. Because it was a year that I didn’t have a coach on, but very useful. Sometimes we had clashing ideas. I’d say specifically like the coaching staff and Tonez did not necessarily have the same vision of the game. And myself too, I think the stage was pretty exhausting towards the end and so sometimes we got into arguments. But overall like a very good coaching staff, very good job from them throughout the whole stage. Very solid and just keeping us accountable even when you know, we weren’t at our best.
Glad to hear it. And of course like players and coaching staff have ideology clashes a lot, so that’s not particularly surprising to hear. So like with Jay and Read stepping back from the Arial Arise roster what is next for this team? Because you’re making at least two roster changes.
Well, next for us right now, we’ve been kind of rebuilding for the past two weeks, three weeks. I think Freak and I have been getting offers for different CL teams but we have decided both to just kind of stay on the team and rebuild it together and rebuild it with some good players, solid players and just have a really solid roster going into SI Quals. Because that’s our goal, You know? We want to make SI and we know we can do it. We know we have if we pick up the right people and the way we work we have a chance to potentially make it. And I was pretty close- well, pretty close yes and no, with 1Shot the year before. So I kind of just know how SI Quals work and what it takes to just go through them. But we’ve decided to rebuild the roster. Obviously, we’ve got SCS going on, which is gonna be a little bit of a test for us. We want to take that pretty seriously. And then we’ll go into the SI Quals.
But right now we’ve already picked up two players, but we’re making three roster changes with Tonez leaving, or we’ve kind of decided to step away from him for now. We could reverse the decision, but as of right now, it’s kind of what we decided on, we think the ideologies are clashing a little too much. And the way that we want to, like build this new roster, we think it would be better with a different mindset, or just a different way that we want to play and approach the game. But obviously, as I said earlier, I think Tonez is a very good player. I think he needs to be on a specific team that allows him to play the way he plays for it to be good. And I think we just decided to go in a different direction with it. So no bad blood, I think between him and I, or between him and anyone on the roster if I’m being fully honest. And I think he had more issues with the support staff. I think that’s where the base issues came on this team. Wish him the best, obviously. And then for us, just kind of just finding the right players that make this team good. But we’ve been cooking up so definitely don’t don’t miss out on what’s about to happen next in SCS and SI Quals. I think we have a really solid roster going into it.
So with that said, Who is the IGL for Arial Arise going forward? Because, I might be wrong on this, but I believe Read was taking that role previously. So who’s kind of leading the charge now?
This is more of an ongoing question at the moment. We don’t necessarily know how we want to do it. But let’s say the main idea going forward, potentially, we have like this kind of five man system that kind of we’ve seen Xset having, where we don’t necessarily have a set IGL, but we have a bunch of people that can shotcall and can understand how to play the game and just kind of play very well around each other. So we don’t necessarily know yet. It’s been kind of hard. Could be Freak, could be potentially one of our new pickups. We will see what’s going forward. But I think we’ll be fine. Even without a set IGL I think we have the people on the team to kind of make it work.
What’s next not just for Arial Arise, But what’s next for Qrtz? What are your goals going into, obviously, SI Quals, but also beyond that? SCS, next year, Challenger League if you’re there, next year NAL if you’re there, what’s next?
I mean, obviously, the goal I think for every CL player, I think if your goal isn’t to play in NAL and potentially go for Majors, I think you’re just doing it wrong. I think you shouldn’t be there. If that’s not your goal. That obviously for me is like the goal right now. I really do believe in the chances that we have in making SI with this roster, the roster we have. So obviously this is the next step for us. We want to make SI, but if I’m speaking more broadly, I mean, obviously, I would like to get a second shot at NAL. I know my time there. I mean, obviously, I know I didn’t play great. That’s just kind of how it is. But I also wasn’t necessarily mature and had a lot of issues outside the game, which I truly believe I have fixed over time. I have matured on it. So hopefully getting a shot back at NAL. But for now, since it’s not going to be happening for Stage 1 next stage should be just to kind of prove ourselves with this roster in CL and just kind of hopefully do what like a little bit of what RealityTV did this season, where they actually had a great season as a whole team. That’s just kind of what we would like to do with Arial, what we’re trying to build here.
All right. So to close out the interview, anything you’d like to say?
No, but I wanted to thank you for having me here. I appreciate it. And I just kind of wanted to thank Rusty, who is the org owner for just believing in us and supporting us. It’s a pleasure to be working with them and just Arial Arise as an org. They’re really a great team, really close to, like, the Siege scene in general. So it’s really cool to see them involved and really good to have their support.