Pinroll is the coach of Arial Arise Academy, a team of promising under agers that recently placed 2nd in SCS 7. We discussed the run at SCS, the role of IGLs and coaches, and more.
So here I am with Pinroll, the coach of Arial Arise Academy, who recently placed 2nd in SCS 7 after a very close match against OXG in a Best of 5. Pinroll, how’re you doing?
I’m doing well.
The first place to start is SCS 7 because it’s not only the most recent event, but also a really impressive result. A 2-3 scoreline against Oxygen esports, an NAL team, a top four NAL team, it’s really impressive. From your point of view, how was the event? How did it go?
In total, it was one of the more challenging events for us just because of the roster changes that happened at the beginning of the season. So the time that we wanted to spend sort of adding things into what we had, we really couldn’t, because we were switching rosters. I think we did it like 2 times in about 3 weeks. So that was just kind of difficult, because it’s difficult to implement new stuff during the season, because the games are so back to back to back to back. So you’re really just practicing for the next game, figuring out what maps you want to play. You can’t really add too much new stuff in.
So it was definitely challenging for us. But luckily, we kinda get away with our playstyle just sort of relying on our gun skill and relying on the players that we have. Not necessarily needing to do too much over preparation or having too deep of a scrapbook. It was challenging, but we definitely got through it. I think we could have performed a little bit better, especially towards the tail end. But yeah, it was a good competition for us.
Let’s start at the beginning of SCS and just work our way chronologically, you picked up Neo for SCS. What made him the ideal pickup? Because Spiker was IGL, correct?
Yes, Spiker and Ashn shared the role. But in terms of pure IGLing, I would say Spiker’s probably the IGL.
So Neo was picked up purely just as a player. No, shotcalling responsibilities or any of that stuff. Why Neo?
I mean, the biggest thing, we just felt he had really good mechanical skill. He also just gelled with the guys really quick. Everyone liked him, which I know that sounds super shallow, but at the end of the day, that’s really important. You have to have people get along. You have to have people that are willing to sit in a call with for 4 hours, right? We really liked him in terms of the vibes that he brought, we thought that he was mechanically super gifted.
The biggest thing is, we just needed to put him in positions that he would succeed and just give him the time to catch on because we knew that he could mechanically keep up. So as long as he understood the system, understood how we want it to play, which would take a week or so, we knew that he would be a good fit for us. And the roles fit too. He was super flexible, which was nice.
Flexibility is always super desirable. We’ll start with the losses and then we’ll move into the wins because you did not make it out of the group stage without a bit of a struggle. As you talked about, having to figure out the team right before the event and having trouble adding new stuff, you lost to Wichita Wolves and LG. Give me your thoughts on those 2 matches.
One, that was the first game of the season, if I remember correctly, so we kind of just came off of all the changes – Not an excuse. I hate when people say that. I hate when people use the excuse of, “Oh, we didn’t get the practice or whatever” because it is an excuse at the end of the day – but we did just come off of that and I think we kind of underestimated them.
Every other tournament we’ve been in up until now we’ve rolled through and really haven’t had to try too much to be completely honest. Like the most recent SFCL, we didn’t really practice all throughout the whole tournament. And that was T3 teams so we figured, first game in SCS against a T3 team, we should just be able to roll them. And it just didn’t happen. So we underestimated them.
LG was absolutely heartbreaking. That was so upsetting. It was really really upsetting and I was super frustrated after Clubhouse. I’m sure I’m sure you remember the game, but we should have won that game 100%.
We took them to Bank first I believe. We had a good week of Bank, we had a couple of pro scrims on Bank so we were really prepared for it. And we think that we played really well, even though it wasn’t one of our best maps and it was their best map at the time. Leaving that game, we were like, okay, we lost but that’s their best map. And that’s one of our worst maps and we took them really far on it, we had a really good competitive game with them.
So we figured going into the next few maps, we were going to pretty much dominate the rest of them. I think Chalet was next and we did dominate. We did like 7-3, 7-2. And then Club, we’ve always been confident on it. But Club is also one of those maps where it doesn’t really matter who you’re playing, people can get rounds off of you because it’s just Clubhouse. Like, Club, Villa, Oregon, Kafe are kind of like that. Where it’s not a specialty map, everyone knows how to play it. But it just came down to that one CCTV round where we had I think we were 5v3 and then 4v2. We just threw it. We just threw it away. It was really bad. It was really bad, really upsetting.
That one was crushing because that was to get into playoffs. If we won that game, we would have gotten right into playoffs and we wouldn’t have had to have played iF afterwards. So that one really sucked when that happened. And I remember during the round, we were up 4V2 and someone in the game said, “Don’t throw this, we have playoffs right here.” And then we threw it. Yeah, it was rough. But it’s all good. We learned from that. We played way better afterwards, because we kind of recognized how shittily we played in that moment.
That brings us to the iF match, which was a Best of 3. You guys won it and that was to get into playoffs. How was that match? How did that one play out for you?
The one the map I most remember was Chalet. That was a very frustrating map, just because we played it really, really well the game before. We looked really, really good on it. And from what I remember, in the calls, we got kind of troll-y during the match. After that, we just lost a lot of momentum. And then Villa was way tougher than it needed to be. So I just remember that series being harder than it really needed to be for us.
Because I think we came off of the LG game pissed off that we didn’t make playoffs and we were kind of upset that we had to play another game. Especially since we just didn’t think that iF were too strong of competition for us. So we didn’t go into it with the best mentality. But we still managed to pull it off. We still managed to bring it back. But that was another game where we were, the LG game and that game were two games where we were like, okay, if we want to make a run in playoffs, like we anticipated that we would, we really need to button up a lot of stuff. So it wasn’t a good game. But it was an important game for us. Definitely.
From those two matches and the way you described the loss versus Wichita Wolves, is there a challenge with his team? Because there’s obviously so much talent on it, is there a challenge to keep the mental focused in and honed in to stay competitive and stay serious when you’re going into some of these matches?
I’d say that’s definitely part of it. You know, that’s definitely part of the process, is making sure that we stay focused. Because like I said, in the T3 leagues, we kind of rolled through all of them. We haven’t had a league like SCS where we had such strong competition. So I think that’s definitely part of it. I wouldn’t say that we have weak mental by any means. We definitely have a winning mentality.
It’s nice, I’ve coached a lot of teams and I’ve never been more confident in a call that we’re gonna win the game. You know what I mean? Just the way that we’re talking to each other, the way that we think about the game, we’re always ready to win, we always expect to win. So that’s really nice. But staying focused is definitely important. Game Day it’s usually not a problem. The biggest problem is sometimes in scrims we’ll get a little unfocused. So it’s really about keeping focus there. But other than that, it’s part of it but I wouldn’t say it’s too big of a problem for us.
Okay, and this brings you into playoffs where you beat S2 and Biologic. And then your last two opponents are NAL teams, you play a close Bo3 vs Parabellum. Let’s just start there, because that’s your first experience playing a NAL team on Match Day. I know a lot of people say that, “Oh, well, I have a lot of experience scrimming against T1 teams.” Match Day is something different, right?
Yes. But I will say that I think that we perform better on Match Day than we do in scrims because of that focus factor, right? Like, we know that we don’t have tomorrow to practice this stuff again, we got to do it now. You know what I mean? We get very focused on Match Day, but yes, I totally agree that match day and practice is completely different.
Did anything stick out to you in the match versus pB? Was there anything unique because obviously, they weren’t playing with their normal 5? Spiritz was subbing in for Packer. Was there anything interesting about that match that stuck out as like, “they’re doing something really wacky,” or “we had to make a major adaptation to work around something they were doing?”
The biggest thing for us was, we recognized that if Spiritz didn’t do anything, then they wouldn’t do anything. I’m pretty sure he carried them through most of that game. And he carried them through the game before that as well. I mean, pB have been in a rocky place recently. They’ve been up and down in terms of their performance. I know that at the beginning of SCS and SI Quals there was a lot of stuff going around with pB, so we kind of figured that they would be a little shakey.
I mean, obviously, they’re still a pro team so you still respect it. But we went into the game thinking we were going to win it. We weren’t nervous about that. Especially because towards the tail end of SCS, we had very, very good scrims to play. We had really good practice against teams that we think are better than pB are, to be completely honest. So we weren’t too afraid of it. And we found out pretty quickly that if Spiritz wasn’t carrying them, then they couldn’t really do much. So in terms of adaptations, it’s difficult to adapt around that because you can’t adapt around a single player.
It’s like, “Oh, hey, I’m taking a gun fight. Oh, it was Spiritz. Win condition met or win condition not met.”
Exactly, yeah, you need to just recognize that. So we found that if we get those early picks, especially if Spiritz was involved, we could play super passive throughout the rest of the round. That would be the biggest adaptation I guess, but that’s not really an adaptation.
We’re at the finals, you’ve beat pB, you’ve beat everyone, you made it through the group stage despite some struggles. You’re playing against Oxygen with some big names, right? FoxA, Vert, Dream, Nuers, Sweater, they’re all scary. They’re all really frickin scary. Take me through this match. What was going on here?
Okay, so we had really good practice that week on Border and I don’t think we pulled it out all SCS, so we wanted to save Border for the final specifically. It sounds crazy but we anticipated being in the finals, we thought the whole season that that was going to be the final game. That we were going to be playing OXG. We were ready for it. It’s not to discount any of the other teams, but we thought off current form, and just off how we play we thought we were the second best team in the league. So we were ready to go to finals. We were fully ready to do it.
We were definitely anticipating playing OXG so the fear factor wasn’t really there. Because we knew that this was going to be it for the whole season. So we were really ready for Border but it just didn’t go our way. Border is…I don’t know. Border is a map that’s different from the other maps we were talking about before. Like the Clubs, Oregon, Villa Kafe, where it’s not super default. I consider it a specialty map where if a team’s good at it, they’re really good at it. You know what I mean? I think they just caught us off guard there to be honest. And we had good practice but it just didn’t convert into the game.
So you lost Border 5-7, and then you won Bank 10-8. What was it like using the infinite overtime? Because that’s obviously your first time using it, right?
Probably not, because I think most grand finals are infinite overtime. But in terms of that season, yes, obviously, it was the first time we used it. And that was just a crazy map. That was just a really, really crazy map. And we were, like I said, Bank at the time wasn’t really a specialty of ours. We still had good prep on it because we had good practice all week on it. We knew that we were going to be going to Bank, Border, and Chalet. Those were the maps that we were really focusing on in terms of prepping that week. We had good practice on those.
It’s always difficult in those games because you worry about endurance. But we also thought that, we didn’t know how hard OXG would be scrimming for SCS, we didn’t think that they were going to be playing too much. But we were. We were double scrimming. So we figured that if we can, 1. In the whole series, push it to five games, we have a good chance. And in the games, if we could just keep playing and keep winning rounds and keeping them in the server, they’re gonna get frustrated because they haven’t been playing all week long. Not as much as we have at least. And that was obviously an assumption that could be completely wrong but that was our mentality going into it.
Bank we just stuck around, we kept bringing back rounds, kept coming up with new ideas. That was the one thing about that whole series, we were very adaptable. Because we knew it was going to go at least 4 maps, right? If we wanted to win it, we knew we were probably going to have to win it in 5 or 4. We knew they were going to take at least a map off of us. We can be confident, but we shouldn’t be stupid, you know?
Most other games, we can walk in and be like, oh, is it gonna be a 2-0. But this game, we knew it was gonna go for a while. Bank was a great map, that was really fun. And then we went to Oregon, I don’t want to talk about it because we just got smoked. And we kind of knew we were gonna get smoked. Pro team on Oregon, what are we going to do?
And then Club, Club’s just really consistent for us and it’s one of those maps that we feel that we can always pull out a win on. And then Chalet was definitely a shootout. Chalet was tough. But Chalet was fun because we were constantly trying to come up with new ideas to bring out like in the middle of the game. During both timeouts, we came up with completely new ideas in terms of what we wanted to do in the next round. I think they worked both times. So one of the things, we were just super adaptable, especially on that map, which is really nice.
That’s also a big experience, because that’s not just playing against an NAL team, that’s playing against an NAL team in a Best of 5, infinite overtime. Definitely a unique experience that you would not be able to get in like almost any other environment except like SI finals.
Totally. It was nice for us because we had no pressure. We weren’t even supposed to get a map off of them. They hadn’t lost the map all season long. So for us, obviously there’s pressure because you want to win, but at the end of the day, just go out and have fun and see what we could do because no one’s expecting us to win. So the only thing that we could do is look good in people’s eyes, regardless of what we do, you know?
Solis was allowed during this entire event, during all of SCS. Now that you’ve had not just scrims with Solis, but also Game Day reps, what do you think about her placed in comp and where she fits into a meta? Is she overpowered?
Overpowered I don’t know. I don’t like saying things are overpowered because I think that you should just learn how to play around it. Because at the end of the day, who cares? If it’s overpowered, cool, get over it. You have to play against it anyway. Until the devs fix it you got to play against it. Do I think she’s overpowered though? I don’t. I kind of like her as an operator. I mean, I would still say that Azami is more overpowered than Solis.
Really?
100%, you get 5 shields basically. But I mean, she’s [Solis] really strong. And she’s going to be in comp. She’s one of those ops, now that the game is getting a bit looser and less dependent on utility as it was a year or so ago, you can be super flexible with your lineup. So I don’t think it’s ever really a bad idea to bring a Solis. It’s one of those ops where it’s like, oh, we have an open flex op that we can bring, why not bring the Solis?
I think it’s nice because the game has increasingly shifted towards the Attack since the util meta has gone away, and I think Solis at least sort of brings that back. Because if you’re sloppy with your drones, then you’re gonna get screwed. If you’re sloppy with your drones and you’re not watching your flank you’re gonna get screwed. Which I kind of like, I’m in favor of the game being slightly Defender sided, I think it should be. So anything that shifts the meta a little bit back towards the defense, I like personally.
On the topic of shifting things towards the Defender side, what do you think the latest update does with the 1 speed ADS?
It’s tough for me to say because I don’t really play. I don’t play too much so that’s more of a micro-based player thing. I like it, because it slows the game down a little bit. And I think that that’s the thing that Siege has going for it, is that it’s a game that is equally about util and strategy as it is about aim. At least it should be, I don’t think it actually is in the current state of the game right now. But I liked slowing down. I think it privileges people who are disciplined, which is really important. And I like it for our team because that’s one thing that sometimes we struggle with. So it forces us to be a bit more disciplined.
But I mean, II know that a lot of the operators have also changed movement speed and whatnot, like Mute going to 3 armor. Those things I think are kind of ridiculous. I think that they should just make everyone 2 speed or they just shouldn’t have that thing in general. Like, why even have it? Because I could say, oh, make everyone 2 speed but then it’s like, okay, well, why even have it in the first place?
So in terms of those changes, that’s what I think. I don’t really know too much about the ADS stuff. I like it because it slows the game down a little bit. In terms of the operator movement speeds. I just think it should be taken out of the game. I just think everyone should be equal.
I’ve got two more topics to kind of talk about and the first one is the IGL and coach role. You mentioned previously that Ashn and Spiker were like co-IGLing but what can you tell me about Spiker’s IGLing? How does he lead?
One of the things that’s really nice about how he IGLs is he’s willing to allow other people to call as well, which is really important, especially for the way that we play. The way that we play is very dynamic in terms of what we want to, we want to have an idea of what we go into the round trying to do. But we don’t want to allow that to get in the way of us seeing opportunities. And the only way that we can capitalize on those opportunities is if everyone’s allowed to say what they think that we can do. Right? He’s good in terms of allowing other people to speak and allowing other people to call and trusting that call.
But he’s also good at calling in his own right. One of the things that I like about Spiker is he’s very good at micro calling, where it’s like, okay, there’s a small situation that’s not like an overall macro idea of how we want to play the round out. Let’s say like, a 3v2, and this is what we have available to us, he’s good at making an idea right then and there and figuring it out. Which is super, super important. Because I think a lot of IGLing in Siege is focused specifically around like, what’s the macro goal of what we’re trying to do? But sometimes IGLs fail in like those micro moments, right? If their plan gets messed up, they’re screwed. But he’s very good at being very adaptable in those situations.
Okay, and so, stepping back from Spiker and just talking about the role as a whole, what do you think an IGL should be? What is the ideal IGL for a team?
Oh, that’s a good question. What do I think the ideal, in terms of what kind of characteristics they have? Or what role do they play?
Role wise, what do they do, what traits do they have that helps the team? Is it for mid rounds? Is it the macro stuff, leader of men type beat, wherever you want to take it.
Well, one, I think that mid round IGLing is way more important than macro IGLing. Especially with how the game is now I think you have to be very adaptable now. You have to be very fluid, you have to be very, I don’t want to say fast. I’ll say explosive. You don’t need to necessarily be fast, but when you have intel and you have an idea, you got to react on it really quickly. So I think that mid round IGLing is really important.
And it’s upsetting that a game like Siege, I feel like the understanding of what a good IGL is misguided in terms of it’s more focused towards the macro stuff. Whereas if you go to Counter Strike or something like that, it’s all about mid round calling. I would say that, I would say also role wise, stop playing support. If you’re an IGL I think you need to be with the push. I think you need to be sort of a flex player. Not a flex player but I just don’t think that your hard support should always be your IGL.
So more like the way Biologic plays? The role he fills as that Flores, always being on util removal, and always being part of the pack, when they push?
I don’t know if Bio would be the best representative of it. I don’t really watch too much Bio, to be completely honest.
That’s fair, just the first guy that popped into my mind.
I’m a huge BDS fan. If people know me, they know that. So like the way that Elemzje and Efac manage it where like, Elemzje is sort of more on a supportive role and then Efac is more on an entry and they’re both calling. I think now you have to have multiple callers. You can’t just have one for an IGL. And I think that those callers need to be on the front of everything. They need to be at the front of what they’re doing. So I think an entry/second entry IGL is a good idea personally.
And that’s why Ashn has some of the responsibility and is co-IGL?
Exactly. Those people need to be willing to call. That’s one thing about entries, is some entries need to be much more vocal than they are. We think of an entry and we think automatically, just aim. And yeah, it’s super important. But if you can communicate and call, it’s huge, so big because you’re the space maker. You’re doing everything for your team so you’re probably seeing the most stuff. So yeah, I think the IGL should be on one of the forward rolls, not on hard support.
Then kind of on the flip side, what do you think a coach should bring? Because there’s so many different ways to view it. There’s the tactical coach, mental coach. What should a coach bring to a team?
It’s very dependent on what the team needs. I mean, me, I don’t like to be super, I don’t want to use the term power hungry, but I’m not someone who like, it’s my way or no way. I don’t think that that’s the best way to approach it. I think that you’re there to help and you’re there to support. Like I’d rather call myself a support staff than a coach. I know that sounds weird. But you’re there to support, you’re there to help them do what they need to do.
So for us, they like doing prep. The team likes doing prep and figuring out stuff for themselves. So I’ll help them with it. But if they want to do it I’ll leave it to them because they’re ultimately the ones that are playing. So if they want to do the prep, awesome, right? I’m obviously going to help and contribute where I can but I don’t want to be a my way or the highway kind of person. You know what I mean?
I think that’s many coaches’ wet dream to be honest. Like, oh shit, the players are prepping for themselves? I don’t even have to tell them? Awesome!
It’s awesome. I’ve never had that before. So it’s nice to have that and it’s nice to see them really want to do it. I think, 1. you have to have some sort of strategic idea of the game. I think that’s the biggest thing that you could bring. The biggest thing that you could bring is new ideas in terms of how to play sites or attack, that kind of stuff. But it’s really dependent on what the team needs.
I like to be flexible with what I bring to different teams that I’m on even though I’ve been on the same team for a really long time. But it’s also just one of the biggest things, is keeping their focus. I find that is the biggest thing that I could do for this team is ensuring that they stay focused and stay on task.
One of the biggest things that a coach could do is goal set. Set goals for what people need to be doing, because it’s very difficult to self evaluate for some people. So having that person outside, that can say like, “Okay, this is what we need to be focusing on.” Providing a roadmap for the team. What are we practicing? Why are we practicing it? And what are we looking to gain out of it?
Okay, last question. And then we’re gonna go into the meme question and any shoutouts you got. What do you think about the comp landscape for T2, and particularly for T3/under agers? Because I’m gonna be honest, I had trouble researching for this interview, because Liquipedia had very few tournaments on Arial Arise Academy or any other T3/under ager team. So what does the landscape look like and is there anything that could be done to improve it? If it does need improvement at all?
I’d say on initial glance, bleak. And to improve it, money. It’s difficult because in terms of Ubisoft support of the scene, it’s slim to none, right? Especially with T2, no one knows what’s going on with T2 right now. It’s super difficult to understand what’s going on with it so it makes people less motivated to do it. Because when people don’t see an end goal, it’s like, well, why am I doing it in the first place?
Supposedly BLAST is now going to be working with Ubisoft in terms of organizing the scene, which should be good, because BLAST is awesome. I’m a big CS fan so I’m a big fan of BLAST. They always put on good events, they always have good funding, good talent. So that’s always good.
It’s just super up in the air. I mean, I think the biggest thing that can be done with the scene is having a firmer idea of what exactly is going on and not leaving people so up in the air. Like right now we’d love to be practicing and playing, but at this point there’s nothing for us to practice for. It’s difficult to just get on and play when you don’t really have anything to play for.
But money. Money is the biggest thing. And I know that that sounds funny, it’s a funny answer. But at the end of the day, it’s also very true. People are going to try way harder if there’s money on the line.
I’m laughing but I’m also very much in agreement.
Even at the pro level that’s true. They make money but they don’t make money like other esports do. Which there’s a lot of reasons for that, but I won’t go into it for this.
So now we’re into the meme question, which I’m starting to ask everyone at the end of the interview: is there anything that you think is underrated or out of meta that definitely should be in the meta? My go-to is always Echo shotty. I’m the Echo shotty simp. But is there anything like that that you think nobody knows about but it’s actually secretly heater?
What a question, I don’t know. I think Echo shotty is a good shout, I’m not gonna lie. I think with the way that the game is played right now in terms of playing really fast, I always want to bring Blitz more often. I want to bring Blitz way more often than I think is good. So I don’t know if that counts.
There’s a lot of things that I wish were in the game that would be cool, small things that they could change to make cool stuff. Like I think Thorn traps should set off Goyos. I think that’d be really cool. For plant denial or something, you put a Goyo behind vault door and then put a Thorn trap in the floor or something. That is way far away from the question, but something like that.
But yeah, I think Echo shotty is a good one. I mean, we may even see Solis shotty. Jaeger shotty too dude, that shotgun is really good. The M870 is really, really good. We tried to run a cigar hold and put Jager in there with a shotgun and I thought it was a good idea, but they didn’t like it.
I think I was watching the Fnatic match earlier this morning and I think Magnet was literally holding Kafe cigar with Jaeger shotty. To close out, is there anyone or anything you’d like to shout out?
I mean, Arial obviously. Arial is a great org, the best org I’ve ever been under. They do a really, really good job. Everyone on the team, obviously Ashn, Ambi, Neo, Spiker, Oozie, shout out to all of them obviously.
Shout out to Spiker especially because he was really cool about everything this season with SCS. He could have been an ass about it and been immature and thought about all the stuff that happened at the beginning of the season and not came back and give it his all but he did a really good job, and he’s a really awesome player. Any T2 or T1 team out there should definitely give him a shot because he’s really good. He’ll bring a lot of really nice stuff to your team. Make your team better. But shout out all those guys and that’s about it.