So, how did you manage to end up on the team that would eventually go on to win the Complexity Cevo Challenge?
Lin – That’s actually a good question, and to be honest, it was completely random. I took a long break from gaming in general and came back to play in the CEVO-P placement tournament. After my team was knocked out of that, I stopped playing CS and only played DOTA for a little while. One day I asked Ryan to play and he said “Sure, I have a few friends that want to play as well” and that’s how I met Anthony (dreamer) and Marc (nutters). Then on the morning of the second round of matches I asked Anthony “DOTA?” and he said “We can’t, we have C3 matches” then, jokingly, I said “Let me in on that” and within a matter of minutes I was on the roster not knowing what I got myself into at all. It turned out for the best though. I was looking for a reason to start playing CS competitively again and then came 5 reasons, Complexity, Anthony, Marc, Dan, and Ryan.
Would you say you that you had a high amount of familiarity with each member of the team prior to your joining?
Lin – Not at all, especially not in CS. Anthony and I played about 50 TDA games together and that’s all I knew him for, for not being able to solo middle without us losing the game. Marc also played DOTA games with us he’s not quite as bad as Anthony is. I didn’t know Dan up until 5 minutes before we were about to enter the server for the first match. The only person I really knew was Ryan, I’ve known him for a while now, we’ve been to alot of the same tournaments. Not to mention he was a total 3D.NY CS fan boy, every event we went to we would randomly have Ryan Pham in our hotel room playing games with us for whatever reason.
What was your first thought when you heard about the C3 challenge? Were you, immediately upon learning of its announcement, considering entering with a group of players to see if you could win it all?
Lin – Actually Andy Rector saw the tournament announcement first and came to me asking to make a team for it. I was originally going to play with Rector, Ksharp, Royle and we didn’t even decide on a 5th. We just waited too long for Kyle to make up his mind to play and missed the deadline for registration. So maybe it was for the best because I don’t think I could have won the tournament with those guys 🙂
How nervous did you get when I accidentally messaged you over Aim during your first match against GB on Inferno causing your computer to get alt tabbed in the middle of an important round and would you say that it brought you good luck? I mean, you can’t argue with the results can you?
Lin – Not so much nervous, but it was second round on inferno where we were saving and I killed someone and was about to shoot at the other one when I got IM’ed. I think we could have won that round Optimus! It could have brought us good luck considering you did it last night again and we won a few scrims. I guess keep up the good work! No, I can’t argue with the results.
How excited are you to have won the opportunity to represent the Complexity Brand in such a fashion? It’s one thing that you and the rest of the players will be under contract for Complexity, but another entirely to have won the opportunity to do so in such unique fashion. If something similar to this has happened before, then I can’t remember it.
Lin – I am extremely excited to represent Complexity. The brand that Jason Lake has built is world class. I’ve been around the scene long enough to know what a priviledge it is to play under the Complexity tag. The opportunity that Jason Lake, Alex Conroy and Jason Bass have given us is once in a lifetime and we won’t let any of them down.
Who is Alex Sanders to your team and why exactly are you and your entire team out to get this particular individual?
Lin – To be honest you’re totally asking the wrong person. Anthony made the name, I think he should be the one to answer it.
The kinds of opportunities that can be opened to your team as a result of winning the C3 challenge are virtually uncharted territory. What are your hopes for where this team is going once the contract is up? Are you guys already decided on entering next year’s competition to represent the Complexity Brand for a second year in a row?
Lin – Of course it would be nice to compete under the Complexity Brand for a second year, I think in order for us to do that is we need to show not just Jason Lake, Alex Conroy, and Jason Bass what we can do, we need to show the whole world. There are alot of doubters out there right now because 3 of our guys aren’t known and haven’t been to many LANS, but I know that we can do it, it will take some work but these guys have the skill and hunger to achieve greatness.
How much preparation did you guys do for the tournament itself and what was preparation like going into the Grand Finals?
Lin – DOTA games for warm up. Just kidding, well, half kidding. To be honest, we didn’t have much preparation at all going into any of the matches. We knew where we played and we had an outline of what we were going to do. We never went too in depth on any of our strats, we just relied on our team work and communication.
It’s pretty early I suppose, but has your team had the opportunity to play against the Primary Complexity CS 1.6 team yet?
Lin – We’ve had a few chances and I’m sure that it would benefit both teams if we continue to play each other.
You know what Jason Lake’s intensity is like at LAN Events. Are you looking forward to a good chair kicking to get the old blood boiling? Keep in mind also that this arrangement has a hidden bonus because if you guys are still out to get Alex Sanders, Jason use to be a linebacker and is fairly well equipped to deal with minor, or obviously in your team’s case, major annoyances.
Lin – I’ve never had anyone kick my chair, but if that’s what it takes to win, go nuts Jason. You can jump kick the back of my chair if it get’s our intensity level up. As far as Alex Sanders being an annoyance, I have no idea, I don’t know the guy. You would have to ask Anthony haha.
Just how relieved were you to avoid having to play against the buzzsaw that is my world class team that nobody has ever heard of in the first round of the C3 challenge? Perhaps we can scrim against you guys sometime to see how we would’ve fared were we actually able to field 5 players. 5 versus 5 iceworld. What say you?
Lin – To be honest, extremely relieved. I’ve seen those ESEA stats and my skill level isn’t anything near what it use to be. Give me a few months, maybe years, to get it back up there and we can play. Iceworld sounds perfect.