“Grat woulda hit that” and Gratisfaction did have a chat with us at IEM Sydney about his team, the rise of the Australian scene in Counter-Strike and Grayhound Gaming’s surprise upsets against SK Gaming and FaZe Clan.
Grady: You guys didn’t make it to the big stage where everyones playing, but you did get to take on some international teams – so how was that experience?
Gratisfaction: It was pretty good, it gave us a good measuring kinda thing. Now we know we can compete with the world’s best and we actually beat SK which was pretty sweet and then FaZe made it to the finals so it makes us look good as well.
If you are going to lose to anyone, lose to the winners?
Yeah exactly, if they win the whole thing then it looks good on us. We only get eliminated by the grand finalists.
The last tournament just before this one, LetsPlay.Live Alpha Invitational, what was it like to be back in New Zealand for the tournament.
It was really sick going home. Got to see my family there for the first time in 7 months, which was really cool and just playing on home turf with fans in the streets basically – it was pretty sweet.
What was it like to go and see, to me the SkyTower…is now an esports arena?
Yeah I know I didn’t expect that. It is probably the most recognized thing of Auckland City, maybe even like New Zealand and playing in there was insane.
What is the setup like in there? Do you think it is going to take off in terms of using that studio?
Yeah for sure, they got PCs setup in separate sound-proof rooms, the PCs are really good, the space you have on your desk is really good, and they’ve got a really professional production crew. So I think it will remain the studio for now.
Hoping for a Season 2 and you can get back there?
Yeah for sure, I’d love to go back to New Zealand again.
Talking about New Zealand, is there much of a local scene?
Not really, when I first started playing I played some 1.6 CS players, kinda old, they have been playing for quite awhile – my brother was one of them. There’s a few players sprinkled throughout, but there are only a few dominant players from New Zealand at the moment.
Because we talked to LONS and we talked to him about a potential all Kiwi lineup. Do you think that’s an opportunity?
Not currently, most of the players from New Zealand that become good are all AWPers. If you had a lineup of just AWPers it wouldn’t work properly.
If you are in New Zealand and you are looking to take the step-up, is the first step to move to Australia and look around there for opportunity?
If you’re an up and coming New Zealand player you can probably just play from New Zealand like I did most of the time. I’ve only just moved to Sydney 7 months ago and that was just because I wanted the good ping, good internet life even though Australia is not the best for that.
Good internet life in Australia?
I found myself a nice little place, NBN, 90 down and 40 up. Living the dream.
The 1% of Australia that has NBN?
Yeah exactly. Yeah, it’s not copper.
I asked all the other Australian teams – other than yourselves, and we will exclude Renegades, who do you think is the top Australian team?
It would probably have to be ORDER at this point. Tainted Minds have had a poor showing as of late and so have Chiefs, but they made it to IEM at least. Yeah it would have to be ORDER.
If it is a bit of a confidence boost, both the other guys I’ve asked have picked Grayhound.
That’s good, I like that.
One of your team members has already played in an IEM Sydney tournament, did he have any tips for you guys? He was a part of one of the big upsets last year.
He didn’t really have any tips. We didn’t really have much time to pracc with him, maybe 3 weeks, but we’re all chill so it’s good.
Popular question from the internet; How is it to get all of this exposure from The Big Rig?
(laughs) Yeah it’s pretty funny aye. He has basically turned into a living meme and he is loving it as well. It’s good stuff.
We’ve got ESL Pro League expanding over into the Asia-Pacific region, Dallas coming up – what’s that like?
It’s pretty sweet; qualifying for Dallas, getting to travel the world playing professional CS. It is a massive competition as well, huge prizepool, we get to play against the world’s best again in about a week’s time. Hopefully it stays and we can qualify for it again next time around.
So what your expectations heading over to Dallas?
We are just looking to “upset” more teams, take away some wins, maybe get to the finals if we can. That’ll be main goal.
Thanks a lot man.
Yeah sweet, cheers for having me.
