Twister: “The technical issues that we had did affect us mentally”

Twister is best known for his time on the Ninjas in Pyjamas (NiP) roster back when they were known as Black Dragons. Then, he had helped the roster reach the grand-finals of the Season 6 Pro League Finals before being dropped during a disappointing Season 8 run. Six months later, he joined the FaZe Clan roster in advance of the Six Invitational 2019 as their head analyst and coach.

At the Six Invitational, FaZe Clan were one of the favourites to win their group and make it into the playoffs. However, while they did defeat Twister’s old roster of NiP, they fell to both Team Reciprocity and Fnatic in two close, three-map affairs and were thus knocked out in the group stage. The roster, however, has now qualified for their fifth Pro League Finals in a row as they finished at the top of the leaderboard in the Latin American region.

“As some people were already speculating, today I'm going to a boot camp in Canada with the guys from Faze Clan. I'm expecting very high for this championship being my first Six Invitational and I intend to do my utmost to help these guys reach the top of their game!”

SiegeGG spoke to Twister at the Six Invitational 2019 to ask him about his team’s performance there, as well as his thoughts on the newest operators to the competitive rotation -- Kaid and Nomad:

Could you summarise where things went wrong in this tournament?

I believe we had a great run in the group stage with three close matches against two good teams -- Reciprocity and Fnatic -- but that little bit that we lost, I believe, was ‘cause I should be on the stage with the boys to help with the mentality and for some clear thoughts to the team that was missing during the matches. In some rounds, it was really missed and I believe in some rounds it could be better.

Were you not on the stage due to ESL rulings or was it a team decision?

It was an ESL ruling because they had just registered me into the team after the transfer window had closed. That wasn’t meant to lock coaches as well, but this time the same thing that happened to Gotcha (Evil Geniuses’ coach, during the Season 8 Finals) happened, and they couldn’t make an exception as they had applied the rule before. Hopez (Reciprocity’s coach) and I had to stay off the stage.

Would you describe yourself as a coach or as an analyst?

I believe right now I am doing both because the team needs a coach on every screen, on every match they play they need me to stay here and help them with what to do, and what the team is doing and what they need to do to win the round and the match. As for the analyst thing, I’m pretty much dedicated to studying the games and the team and how they play, and I believe right now I’m doing both. But, it’s not a good thing to do because every big team now has a coach and also has an analyst to split the jobs, but I love Siege and I love doing both, and I hope to help my team more in the future.

Can you name some of your team’s strengths here?

I believe we had a lot of improvement in our communication, it was a big fault of ours (previously). We are losing rounds, losing clutches, and losing information during the rounds due to the communication but we had a bootcamp here in Montreal and, actually, we tried to fix everything and we did better in this tournament, and I believe we did better than we would have done if we didn’t have this bootcamp. Now, I think it’s time to focus back on the Pro League and focus back on playing against the Brazilian teams.

You’ve dropped a number of points due to external circumstances, has this hurt your own mentality?

I believe the technical issues that we had did affect us mentally, and I believe that some of those matches we should have won, and when we look back at it and we see that we didn’t win because of external issues, it’s hard for us to process it and try to better after it. Every time you see the points on the scoreboard and we see that we are down there, and we should be a little higher, it’s a bad feeling and the boys don’t like it at all, but I believe we’ll have a good second half (of the season).

Who do you think is your biggest threat in Latin America right now?

Note: This was answered during the mid-season break two months ago

Right now, the biggest threat in Latin America is actually... three teams. Immortals; as they had a great campaign at the Six Invitational here but did not get that far as we did, NiP; they’re playing good in LATAM but right here they didn’t have some great games but they’re good at home, and finally, Liquid, obviously, ‘cause they have a great team and good players, and they are almost in the top of their groups, so I believe these four teams will be fighting each other for the (top) two spots in Latin America.

How do you think Kaid and Nomad will change the meta?

Note: This was answered prior to either operator joining the competitive rotation.

I think they will change the meta a lot because other teams were making strats and scrimming with these operators before Ubisoft announced they would be banned for three months and they went in the fridge and then nobody used them. Now, teams are taking the strats back out of the fridge and putting in the work, and I can say our game style will change a lot.

Do you think the teams that didn’t go to the Invitational would have the advantage due to having more time to practise with the new operators?

I believe there’s a little bit of an advantage, but we can’t complain about that as we are playing here and taking all this experience, and we can bring good stuff back to our national events. So, I believe the experience you get here counts more than this extra time you can play with the new operators.

Is there anything you’d like to say to the fans out there?

I want to thank all the fans that support FaZe even when we’re losing, even with this bad performance that we are having, you always support us. I want to say a big thank you to you, and keep cheering!

 

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FaZe Clan will play two games in the BR6 league against ReD DevilS and NiP before their big appearance at the Season 9 Finals in Milan next month. You can learn more about the roster by checking out our interview with cameram4n below and keep up to date with future interviews as well as the full coverage of the BR6 and Pro League Finals right here at SiegeGG!