zews' interview to cypersport.pl

Evil Geniuses coach Wilton "zews" Prado spoke in an interview with Cybersport.pl about the new roster. The Brazilian said that Michal "MICHU" Müller could have joined the roster in early March when Ethan "Ethan" Arnold announced his departure from CS:GO, but Owen "oBo" Schlatter took his place.

It’s been over a year since you started working for Evil Geniuses as a coach, but there hasn’t been any reshuffling in the lineup until now. Did you consider changes before, and if so, why didn’t they become a reality?

Changes didn’t become a reality because we weren’t looking to make any at the time. Plain and simple. It’s part of the job to keep our eyes and ears open at all times, but I personally would’ve never joined EG if I didn’t believe in the lineup and its potential. 

In my eyes, EG CS:GO was just going through a rough patch and I saw something special when analysing the chemistry in the roster…

So you can see in my mind it was simple. I had my goal and full focus went into extracting, to the best of my abilities, the best in all my team and making it work as we were and, at least for the time, it worked out amazingly. 

So to answer your question plain and simple,  we weren’t looking at making any changes until recently, at least not voluntarily. 

Starting with the Ethan change, how did the whole situation look from your perspective? Was he the one who took the initiative to leave the team?

Ethan was an integral part of the core roster for 3+ years and there’s no way his departure wouldn’t come as a blow to us. But, I will say that it didn’t come as a surprise. CS:GO, along with the rest of the world, had their entire lives turned upside down early last year with the start of this pandemic and all the shifting dynamics… 

As an NA based team it got a bit trickier when we had our scene uprooted to Europe midway through the pandemic in order to be able to compete against the full playing field as most of the teams were from that region. It was a choice we had to make that included many sacrifices and risks and I understand how these changes on top of everything else that is/was going on in the world can affect each and every one of us in personal and unique ways depending on where we are in life – be it nationality, personal relationships, losing loved ones in the pandemic etc. 

He did what he believes is in his best interest and I can’t fault him or anyone for fighting for that. 

In his place you brought in oBo, who having parted ways with Complexity was inactive for a few months. Did you think long about this choice? 

Of course. There were a few other options we were looking at the time but felt ultimately oBo had the pieces we were looking for and he was the one for us.

Did you have a feeling that it wasn’t the end of changes at the moment of oBo’s transfer? Was tarik sending any alarm signals then? 

No signals from tarik, but considering our lack of results and everything that had led to that point, it would be unwise not to at least consider that things may continue to change.

When did you first become interested in MICHU? 

MICHU caught our attention earlier on as he was one of the options when looking at replacement options for Ethan.

It’s no secret that MICHU practised with OG for a few days, but in the end he didn’t join the team. Did you have any alternative plan in case things would go otherwise? 

Like I said before, we always have to keep our eyes and ears open, but we were confident in MICHU’s choice to join us. 

Why did you decide on MICHU, despite the fact that players like Xeppaa or Floppy, for whom English is a native language, were on the market? 

It’s important to keep in mind that just because someone is „in the market” doesn’t necessarily mean transfer is viable for many reasons. 

Personality, in-game roles, native language, perceived attributes, willingness to join, hunger for the game, etc. are all factors that we weigh as a team when looking at replacing someone and ultimately we have to trust our instincts … that’s not to mention one of the biggest aspects in the „business” where we have to weigh in buyouts, prior legal commitments to organizations, willingness of those orgs and so on.

MICHU advertised himself as an entry fragger, in the announcement video you confirmed that he would be playing this role. However, it looks like this information is outdated, because MICHU has recently said that he will play more passive and oBo will take over tarik’s tasks.

What is the reason behind this? 

Players aren’t limited to playing one role or style. Like I said, sometimes these are perceived attributes, be it by ourselves or themselves. Simply, we are working things around so that we have the best setup that highlights our strengths and abilities and we will continue to tweak, always aiming to improve.

During pandemic Europe has become the hub of the CS:GO scene. Is this where you plan to spend most of the season? 

Oh man, I don’t think anyone knows with 100% certainty yet. Many teams/organizers have plans, but we have to see how it all plays out… I think we all just want LANs back (laughter). 

Every reorganized team needs time to find its own identity and this will probably be your goal for the next couple of weeks. What’s next? What would Evil Geniuses like to achieve in 2021?

That’s exactly it. 

Short term: finding our identity and how we want to play. 

Mid-long term: my goal is and will always be to win.

It takes a lot of time and a lot of hard work but as a good friend of mine says, while there is 1% chance I won’t give up. In order to do that we have to be the best version of ourselves and that’s what we will work on building day by day. Just have to keep it small goals.