We had a chance to catch up with Erik “Da Bears” Stromberg of Complexity’s CS 1.6 Team and here is what he had to say.
How excited are you and the rest of the team for the upcoming Kode5 event? The seeds have been announced and your first opponent will be Frag Dominant who you guys recently played in ESEA. How much are you looking forward to that rematch?
Da Bears – We are all very very excited to be going to a 1.6 lan It’s been a while for me and some of the other members. I miss it so much and I can’t wait to play again. The match we played them on Mill we didn’t practice much at all. The last 2 months we’ve been plowing the main 4 maps and getting our chemistry down. So playing FD on a good map should be a great match to play especially when it’s on lan!
What is it like being on the same team with Sunman again?
Da Bears – Its great to have experience playing with Justin again, he’s a great guy and fun to hang out with. He comes to Chicago every once in a while to hang out with his GF. So when hes down there I drive up to see them and hang out with him. Friends is what I’m all about in CS. I love my friends to death and I enjoy playing with them.
What is the team’s practice schedule like currently?
Da Bears – Right now we are currently playing from Sun-Thurs 7CST to around 1 AM every night. We have been working really hard to be prepared and to show up at this lan to win it. When we aren’t scrimming we are all usually on vent talking about the game, how we can improve our setups and learning from our mistakes.
How is the experience of being on a team managed by Jason Lake so far? Looking forward to having your chair kicked from under you at a certain upcoming LAN?
Da Bears – Ha! Its always great to have a coach figure behind you keeping you energized and mentally sharp. There will always be times where if you lose a bad round, your mental game just takes a dump. Having a person behind you to remind us that we need to keep the intensity up and maintain a positive attitude will be a huge asset to us. It all starts with attitude and everything else will fall into place.
What do you think is the source of whatever setbacks the team has had? Is it that you guys simply just haven’t readjusted to the game of 1.6 in the fashion that you hoped or do you think it is more that there are simply a higher concentration of hungry and dedicated teams in the US scene now and, as a result, you guys will just have to take your games to another level?
Da Bears – The biggest problems for us were re-learning the angles of the game. In source, there wasnt really any angle holding. So playing that game for 2 years messed up our old 1.6 skills pretty badly. But in the recent months, we as a team are improving a lot every day. We are getting more comfortable with the spots we play and with our teammates. Eventually it will come down to limiting our mistakes, and right now in practice we are learning so much on not what to do lol.
What, if anything, have you guys been trying to do differently as individuals and as a team to improve on your overall performance?
Da Bears – We study demos, pub, pug talk about what we are doing wrong. Everyone also comes up with strats to bring to the table to mix things up and to incorporate every play style we got. The biggest thing though is how we cut back on alot of the other games and daily activities in our life to prepare for this tourney.
What is your honest take of the current state of the CS scene?
Da Bears – Very immature. I look at the Euro scene and I see great people respecting everyone. When I look at the American CS scene, all I see are bratty kids thinking they are the best cs players with no respect for anyone else. Also, the cheating is getting out of hand. So many people have smoke sprites and what not when they play. It gets pretty annoying to try to practice against other teams. On a positive note, its good to see the level of competition getting better, and you still see some of the players still trying to get to the top.
How did it feel losing to Method in the super, top secret aim map one on one you two had? You plan on getting payback anytime soon? He seemed pretty happy with the win.
Da Bears – I let Mikey win to boost his morale, he knows that im the better aimmaper 🙂 We will have our rematch at our bootcamp before Kode5 and I’m bringing all the beef!