The British Counter-Strike scene has never been in a healthier place — more teams are being picked up by organizations, more players are getting paid, and Fnatic is now its biggest team. One of the up-and-coming teams in the scene is Into The Breach. I was able to catch up with their in-game leader, Adam9130, to talk about his team’s future, the future of the scene, and his own aspirations.
In the short period of time that Into The Breach has been together, you have beaten Endpoint in a best-of-three and made it to the grand final of the ESL Premiership. So given more time together, what do you think the next goal to reach is domestically or internationally?
To be honest, I don’t really like to set goals for any team. The way I see it is if you set a goal there is this limit when you hit that goal and players are likely to get complacent. So the way I see it is you just treat every official differently, you treat every official like you’re going to win it, you’re playing to win it and you don’t fear your opponents. Because if you fear your opponents the odds are you’re going to lose. You go into every game and you just want to win and for that reason I can understand from an organisational point of view, why you would want to set goals but as an IGL, I don’t like to set goals. I’m never gonna tell any of my teams “I’ll be happy if we get to the semifinals. I’d be happy if we get to the finals”. When we lost to Endpoint, I almost felt that the boys weren’t disappointed. I’ve lost games before where I could tell people were angry and disappointed, but losing to Endpoint 3-0, it felt like the boys weren’t disappointed and I suppose that pissed me off a bit because I hate losing. I hate losing more than anything. So yeah, I don’t set goals. I make sure we go into every game, I don’t care who it is, if it’s Astralis coming off winning the Major back to back to back. We play to win. I don’t care if there’s 0.01% chances of winning an official game because a team is better than every aspect of the game. You play as a winner and you don’t fear your opponents.
With Endpoint being relegated from ESEA Premier to Advanced, what do you think the future of the UK scene looks like?
I think it is probably better than it ever was, considering Fnatic is technically a UK team. I’m fairly certain they’ll pick up smooya, I don’t see why they wouldn’t. If they didn’t, the only reason I can think of is because players don’t get along but with the three players that they have in that team I’m sure they were disappointed that it didn’t make the Major but of course that wasn’t with a smooya. I do think they’ll make the next Major and I do think that this Fnatic team, if it stays together, you know longer than the Cloud9 team did, then it will be by far the best team that UK CS has ever seen. That’s all you can ask for right? As a UK CS fan.
The other element of the UK scene is having lots of young up-and-coming players and organisations, forgetting about Fnatic, how much is that impacting the UK scene?
The way I see it is the only UK team that has ever really broken out, like properly broken out from as starting at a low level is Endpoint and how long was MiGHTYMAX in that lineup for and they made it so far. So, full respect to Endpoint as an organisation and all those guys there.
As somebody who had a grassroots breakthrough into CS:GO, and then going on to the LDN Esports roster. What do you currently see as the best way to break into the CS:GO scene? Would that be with a grassroots team like you did, academy rosters, or sitting in a sixth man role, what do you see as the current best way?
Honestly, I think it’s really situational. I remember for me I was a quiet little virgin entry-fragger when I started CS, if you heard my voice back then you’d be like this is a different person and I was 18 when I started playing competitive CS. I saw the game in a completely different way and then I remember I played for one IGL and then every other IGL that I played for when I was still starting out, I thought, I can do a better job than these guys. I can call better than this and I know I can, I might not like it, It might take away my fragging potential but I know for a fact I can do a better job than these guys, That’s why I became an IGL, not because I wanted to but because I knew in my head I could do a better job than everyone else that I could play with. Say if you’re an AWPer, you know you’re good with an AWP so you think to yourself I’m just gonna become the best AWPer I can, it was the same for me. I knew I could IGL better than all these people. Fair enough. I know I can frag too because there was a point where I could frag way harder than I can now but I knew I could be a better IGL and what’s missing. There aren’t a lot of IGL’s in the UK scene that can elevate teams. For example, understanding how to make space, how to make teams freeze in certain situations and how to end in certain situations. So for me I would just say; think to yourself what am I good at and what can I do to the highest level but at the same time you also have to enjoy it to a certain amount. Don’t get me wrong, I definitely think now that I’ve IGL’ed for so long I actually think is probably my favourite thing to do but when I started it, even for the first year of doing it, it wasn’t my favourite thing at all, it was stressful and it is stressful. But when I broke out into the scene I was calling around myself because I genuinely felt like I was the best in my team and that’s how I broke out. I just called around myself and then when I started to play with players, for example, L1NK, mezii, Russ, even frazehh and Kray and I saw all these talented players, that changed, I could go “I’ll call” and I’ll literally jump around my corner with my knife out because I know all these guys would get the trade. I’d say you still have to be selfish but at the same time people will know what they like to do in the game and what role they like to play and what role they think they can develop into and I guess for me I knew there was a lack of IGLs an that was part of my reason into becoming one. If there’s a market for it, do it and make yourself marketable to other teams.
The way to break into the scene, for me at least, was to play a lot of PUGs to be honest. There was a point where I would literally PUG six or seven times a day; when I’d come home from college, I’d play non-stop sometimes. In PUGs I found out; one I like to call and I like the entry or I like to call and I like to lurk, it was one of the two. So I’d say like when you play a lot of PUGs you figure out what you’d like to do, but obviously PUGs aren’t officials but I do think they can help you understand as a player who is starting out especially, the kinds of things you like to do.
How much of reaching your potential in CS is down to mentality, or is it external factors, or even your in-game leader?
Players can go as far as they want to, I believe that no matter who you are, it is all about your attitude, and your commitment. On Into the Breach, Tadpole’s at college, so a lot of the time you can’t practise until late, dobbo is studying from home, so he has to dedicate a lot of time to studying. You have me, CYPHER and isk who are pretty much free full time CS. Of course you are going to have restraints. This is the hardest thing in CS, is balancing everything. Balancing life with CS, it’s the hardest thing about trying to become a pro. I’ve said in interviews before, the best player you could ever talk to about balancing that kind of stuff is mezii. The guy balanced University, a relationship he’s been in since he was, I think, 13 or 14 and CS. So he’s balancing those three without even missing a day of university, keeping in mind I was at university, not in a relationship, playing CS and my attendance at uni was dreadful. So I don’t know how he managed to do all three. To me, it was crazy. The good thing is mezii is a nice guy, if any of my team ever need advice about balancing, whether that be dobbo or tadpole, they could always message mezii and he would help them with it.
Do you feel like this current iteration of Into The Breach has the ability to be a tier 2 team, or the potential to elevate themselves to a top team?
Of course it does. If it didn’t, then I wouldn’t be playing with them. I’ve told the players on this team, they need to look at themselves when they’re getting into the server and know that they’re better than everyone that they’re playing. They need to say to themselves; I am better than all the opponents I’m facing. I’ve said to them that if you genuinely go into a server, you don’t have that mindset, you’re not working hard enough. It is as simple as that. You’re not working hard enough. At the end of the day, they’re not practising in a toxic environment, they’re practising in an environment where everyone is friends. I can understand if they are playing against a top team and against somebody that they have fanboyed over for years, because they’re relatively new to playing at a decent level. But for example, if they’re playing against a team like Endpoint, I don’t want people to be scared, I don’t want people to be nervous and I don’t want anybody to feel like they’re gonna lose us a round that could be important to the game because there should be a point in CS where all the posts you’ve played, all the demos you’ve watched, everything you’ve done is the thing that is going through your brain when you’re an official. It shouldn’t be that you’re nervous because you can lose the game right now. That’s what should be going through everyone’s heads.
Moving away from team goals or expectations, I wanted to know what your personal ambitions for CS:GO are?
To [play on a] team with NiKo. I’m kidding. Am I kidding? I don’t think I’m kidding.
I suppose I’d have to go back to my mentality when I was on Vexed, because that was when I really knew what my ambition was. I was in a team where I felt like everyone was a second family. Which might sound weird, but everyone was just so close, we were all friends, we could all talk about anything. If we made mistakes there was no awkwardness about it, we could just tell each other, It was that open? For me, all I could dream about was just playing and going all the way with those guys. I want it to be the same again. That’s my ambition, I want to go with a UK team and go as far as we can. I don’t like to put a limit on things in terms of how far we can go because what’s the furthest we can go? Top 50? Then we make the top 50 and then what? Top 30? Top 20? You go as far as everyone wants to go. Potential is the amount of effort people are willing to put in and their attitude. Skill exists of course, but when you look at tier one and tier two players, the skill isn’t that different. Unless you are s1mple, NiKo or ZywOo. The skill isn’t that big of a difference, it is everything else. Whether that is your effort, your attitude, how you talk to people on your team, how you communicate, your reactions when you lose around that you shouldn’t lose, your reactions when you win around that you shouldn’t lose, how you pump people up, how you’re always focused, things like that and just being the best that you can be in. Not just CS, but in life. For example, I do think just going outside and taking a break from CS, maybe going to the gym, can make such a big difference on your game. Just from people I’ve played with in the past, they can get really tired from CS. I noticed from myself that going to the gym and generally taking time out has given me more energy. It gives you more longevity. That is something that everyone who plays CS should try and do. I’ve gone off topic but of course my personal ambition would be making a major, winning a major and everyone in the world would put that as unrealistic but I don’t like to say what’s realistic and what’s unrealistic. Let’s be honest, 18 months ago if somebody told you Fnatic would be a UK roster, everyone would say that’s unrealistic but here we are.
To end off the interview I only really have one final question, do you have a favourite for the Major?
I’m gonna look like a clown saying this but I can’t because they’ve won back to back to back Majors but I’m just going to go with Astralis because they’re the best team of all time and I don’t care what anyone says you can never count them out. I do think it’ll probably be another Major like the last one where people counted them out and thought this is gonna be Liquid’s time but then Astralis surprise picked Vertigo and the rest is history. So I would not be surprised if they surprise pick Ancient and had a quad man boost or a five man boost that just killed everyone. I’m not going to count them out. I think zonic, g1ave and the whole team as geniuses, so Astralis. But if I had to go with another team, I’d go NIP. It’s hard to support some teams because for me some teams have players that are just dickheads, and I hate them. cadiaN, I’m calling out cadiaN. Guy’s a cunt I don’t care. Honestly, people stick up for that guy. He [shit talks in chat] during [practice games], how weird can you be. To [shit talk] in practice, grow up you actual 12 year old who has actually cheated with a coach; grow up. Honestly, I couldn’t care less, I would say that to him — to his face. There are some people who are just dickheads, robiin included. That guy, every single LAN I went to, would just randomly type and shit talk like, grow up man. One time when I was on the back on Vexed at an iSeries, I [shit talked] him and then ever since on every official — every official — he muted me. Love it. I’m rooting for the smaller teams though, Copenhagen Flames. Love an underdog.
Editor’s Note: This interview was conducted prior to the start of the Major — Astralis and Copenhagen Flames were not yet eliminated.
