autimatic: “Even if the stats say that I was playing decent, I didn't feel comfortable”

Heading into the latter half of the 2022 season, Evil Geniuses decided to pull the plug on their previous roster following a difficult first half of the year and overhaul the entire division.

Bringing in Major-winning trio autimatic, Jake “⁠Stewie2K⁠” Yip, and William “⁠RUSH⁠” Wierzba at the beginning of the year didn’t have the desired effect, with the North American side struggling to find any success of note amid heavily-publicized differences in views between Stewie2K and their previous coach Damien “⁠maLeK⁠” Marcel.

In response to the disappointing results, EG decided to launch the Blueprint project by bringing in two more teams in EG.PA and EG.CD and after months of talks went on to undergo changes in the main roster as well. Only autimatic remained from the early 2022 additions and the organization signed K23‘s in-game leader Sanzhar “⁠neaLaN⁠” Iskhakov and promoted Jadan “⁠HexT⁠” Postma from the Blueprint project.

Making their first appearance with the new roster at BLAST Premier Fall Groups, Evil Geniuses had to play the first phase of the event without autimatic, as RUSH temporarily stepped in for the best-of-one seeding matches.

But before he left to deal with personal issues autimatic sat down with HLTV.org for an in-depth interview about the difficult first half of the year and starting over with the two new players as well as head coach Daniel “⁠Vorborg⁠” Vorborg heading into the rest of 2022.

The last seven months have been a rough period for you. Was it as bad as it looked from the outside?

At the start of the team I didn’t really recognize how things were unfolding. I was so focused on CS and just getting comfortable again and learning the meta that I was not paying attention to everything happening around me. Looking back, it was definitely a pretty tough time for the team. I think that there were a lot of clashes and it was pretty dysfunctional, I would say.

What do you think were the biggest reasons why it didn’t work out from the start?

I think the biggest reason why it didn’t work out was just that everyone had different views on how to play the game. On top of that, maLeK and Stew also clashed a bit when it came to how they saw the game, so we were never really able to come to some common ground and we never really got to the point where we were seeing the game the same way.

You’re touching on something there that was pretty heavily publicized at some point when EVY came out with that interview and Stewie responded. How did it feel to see that unfold at a point where you guys already stopped playing and all this started happening around you?

I tried to stay out of it as much as possible. Yeah, a lot of things happened that probably shouldn’t have happened, but we were a new team, we felt a lot of pressure. I think it definitely contributed to the way things happened. I just tried to not be impacted too much by it.

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Do you think Stewie made the right call to step away after all this and to take a break from competing? How did you react to that as a long-time teammate of his?

Playing with Stew I could definitely feel that he was getting burnt out, just from all the traveling he did on Liquid and now he has to really be a huge leadership figure within the team. I think it definitely took a toll on him, so taking a break, if that’s what he needed then that’s what he needed and I support him. Whatever he needs to come back to start competing again, I think he should do it.

If there was one positive to take away that the community was looking at with EG was your form, coming back from VALORANT. We didn’t know what to expect in terms of whether you’d be back at the level you showed before. How do you feel about how you played individually since then?

Even if the stats say that I was playing decent, I didn’t feel very comfortable. As I was playing, I was still thinking a lot and every decision I was making was something that I had to think through in the moment. That’s not really something you want when you’re competing. You kinda want to have the reps and to know what you’re supposed to do, so I felt like I was thinking a lot while I was playing. I think this time around a lot of the things that I was learning back then are more engrained in me and I’m thinking a lot faster on my feet. I feel more comfortable now than I did before.

AWPing was quite a bit topic around you before, with you switching from being a rifler to an AWPer and then stepping away from the game. Now, being back in a rifling role, how do you feel about that and taking that on? At some point, I remember you were pretty set on being a full-time AWPer.

I think the whole AWPing phase kinda gets blown out of proportion, in my opinion. If you look back at my AWPing phase, we had decent results and I think I played fairly well. Maybe I didn’t play as well as I did on C9, but at the same time I was picking up a new role, and for the time that I had been doing it we played well and I was improving at a rapid pace.

Obviously, we didn’t have the same team as C9, and a lot of times if your team is winning or if your team is playing really well, it’s a lot easier to play well and that can contribute to the stats. I look back on that time and I think that I learned so much that I’m willing to take the hit in terms of accomplishments just for the lessons that I learned when I was trying to AWP.

Did you want to come back to that? What do you think about where your strengths lie?

Coming back, I didn’t really have a preference as to if I should rifle or AWP. In VALORANT I actually played both, so I was just able to play either role. On this team we obviously have CeRq, so we didn’t need an AWPer, and I was totally willing and able to give up the AWP and not even think twice about it.

Moving over to Evil Geniuses’ response to the results with the Blueprint project, from the outside this is a fairly difficult thing to understand, just how deep it goes, what the scale of it is, and how exactly it works in the teams. What did you make of it when you first heard that this was a thing, that there were going to be 15 players on a project and it was going to get fairly fluid at some point?

When I first heard of it, I didn’t really know what to think, because it’s such a new concept that they’re trying to implement. I still don’t really know what to think, but it’s something that they’re trying to revive NA CS with and they’re trying to support the CS scene. It’s just one of those things where we’ll figure it out as we go.

Does it create any sort of additional pressure on you, knowing there are quite a lot of other players that could potentially get picked for the main roster and play at the biggest events?

I don’t feel any pressure personally. I feel like if there are players that are better than me and would be better for the team, then they should take my spot, but that’s also kind of fuel to try to be better than them. For as long as I’m playing CS I’m gonna give it my all and try to be as good as I can be, and if I’m not good and someone else can provide better results or contribute more to the team, then so be it.

Moving on to the recent changes that happened in what I’m going to call the main lineup – first of all, how much input did you have on the changes that were made?

For every player that we were looking at I was asked for my thoughts on them. If I didn’t know them, I would watch them play, I would watch demos of them or watch their team play for neaLaN, for instance. I would just try to provide as much feedback as possible, but in the end it was EG’s decision and EG was the one coming up with the options. I just tried to give my two cents, and if it was helpful that would be good.

What did you think of neaLaN?

I watched a few games of K23 and they definitely had that CIS style, where they are very solid and they like to play the round out, and that’s something that we were trying to do on the old team but that we didn’t do well. I definitely think that it was good to bring him in, I like the way that he sees the game, I kinda see the game the same way, so I think we’ve been able to be on the same page pretty fast.

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What about from a communications’ point of view? Has it been any issue?

I think that his English is pretty good, but there are some times where it’s a hectic moment and it’s hard to understand what he’s trying to say when there’s a lot going on. Other than that, he does a pretty good job of explaining his thoughts and we can have pretty deep conversations about the game and there’s no problem there.

Could you see the team play more of the CIS style, or taking some pointers from the CIS team and that kind of a mindset, to play more slow-paced CS?

It’s definitely something that we don’t necessarily have to copy one for one, but I think it’s something that we should understand, and we can implement some principles from the way that they’re playing. If we’re able to do that, it’ll be easier to play against other teams and recognize what they’re doing.

What are your first impressions of HexT?

The only word that I can really use to describe him is that he’s electric.

Care to elaborate on what that means?

He’s just a young kid with a ton of energy, and that’s something that we definitely need on the team.

How quickly is he picking up the meta and catching up to the rest of you guys?

I think he’s doing a really good job in trying to be a sponge and learn as much as possible. You can only implement so much in a short amount of time, so we’ll see over the course of the next few months how he does and how much he’s able to retain and apply. For now, I think he’s doing a really good job of just trying to learn, which is the first step.

You were talking about needing to energize the team. I’m curious about how that’s going in particular after the first six months I imagine were pretty disheartening and demotivating. Have the changes helped freshen things up again and get the motivation up?

We took an extended off-season to figure out the roster and to figure out what our next steps were. Having that time off was really helpful for everyone to miss playing again, so everyone now is really excited to be back. Especially with the new lineup, we have a pretty good dynamic between the coach and the IGL and I think we’re improving every day. That’s the main thing that’s motivating.

You mentioned the coach, vorborg. He’s not necessarily been viewed as a strategic coach and from what my understanding he’s been more on the managerial side rather than a guy that will come up with solutions in-game. Is that the right idea? What is his role inside the team?

That was my perception of him as well, which is that he was good at managing personalities but didn’t have the in-game expertise. That’s what he told me as well when I was talking to him, but after the last few weeks of practicing and him leading the reviews and the team discussions, I think that he actually lied to me. He has a pretty good understanding of the game, more than he let on. While he is a really good coach in terms of managing personalities, he also has a lot of strategic knowledge, so I don’t think that that perception of him is totally accurate.

One of the biggest criticisms of the previous roster was that the firepower was lacking at that point, with Brehze and CeRq not being at the same level that we had seen them in their peak years when they were still with NRG and then EG. Do you feel like that was true, first of all, and do you think you’ve addressed that with these changes?

I think that the firepower criticism was not accurate. I think Brehze is still mechanically as good as he’s ever been, I think CeRq is still mechanically really skilled, I think I’m skilled mechanically even if some people might not think that. We all have the capability, but a lot of times if the team is unorganized and dysfunctional, it’s a lot harder to show that.

If you’re always put in unfavorable situations, it doesn’t really matter how good your mechanics are, you can’t really bail yourself out of every unfavorable situation. While we didn’t show great firepower, we didn’t really put ourselves in the position to do it, and that was caused by a lot of other things.

It was announced that you’d be skipping the first stage of BLAST. What’s going on with that?

I don’t wanna say too much, but something happened back at home and I need to be home for the first stage of BLAST. Coming back the main thinking is just that we have the RMR coming up, so we just wanna get as much European practice as possible, so as soon as I take care of everything happening back at home, I’m gonna come straight back and we’re gonna get back to work.

What’s the approach to this tournament, then, considering the team has to play with RUSH, who I’m assuming they didn’t practice with?

That’s a tough question. When we were under the assumption that I was gonna play, we were obviously aiming to play the best that we could and get the best result that we could. But since something came up, we’re just gonna try to get as much practice as we can and we’re gonna try to catch RUSH up to speed, and they’re just gonna do their best.

I wanted to ask about what you see as realistic goals in the short term?

I think for now the goal is just to build a solid foundation. That consists of just being aligned with how we wanna play the game, being aligned with how we wanna operate and the processes that we’re gonna use to get aligned and to speak the same language in-game. Establishing those sorts of things and focusing on how we can improve day in and day out will result in the results that we want. I don’t think that it’s a good to approach to set a goal of making a final or anything like that, I think those things should just come from good work.

Has the organization made clear in any way that there’s a certain time period that you have to achieve something?

Well, if we don’t achieve it, then we have 20 players so, so we can mix and match.

Action resumes at BLAST Premier Fall Groups on Thursday, with Evil Geniuses facing off against Ninjas in Pyjamas in an elimination match after placing last in their group in the first phase.