DaZeD: "All valve has to do is keep hosting high quality tournaments and we'll see player numbers rivaling dota2 soon."

This article was originally published on GameSpot's sister site onGamers.com, which was dedicated to esports coverage.

Sam 'DaZeD' Marine is the in-game leader of North American Counter-Strike: Global Offensive team iBUYPOWER. Bouncing back from a disastrous Dreamhack Winter campaign, DaZeD's team shocked the world with a lower bracket run at the ESEA Invite Season 15 LAN finals, knocking off Titan, arguably the best team in the world, in the final.

The former Source player spoke to me about his time playing with the core of players that now make up rivals compLexity, the progression of his individual game and in-game leadership approach throughout CS:GO and the implications of his win in Dallas.

I read that were you at a CAL-m level in 1.6 but quit and later switched to Source around the time of CGS. Was Source naturally a better fit for you as a game?

Well, when I played CAL main in 1.6, I was around the age of 13-14. My teams were always going deep in the playoffs but I never managed to play an invite match for 1.6. After the friends I was playing with decided to stop and play WoW, I lost interest and didn't play CS for a couple years.

When I decided to start playing again, I knew nobody and just bought a new PC that could run Source, so it seemed like the natural progression to switch to it. I saw that there was going to be a LAN close to me, so I picked it up and starting playing. It was a bit easier, I instantly came in and became an invite player a month or so after playing. I don't really know about the fit, I was pretty good for being 13-14 and playing 1.6, so who knows what I could've become had I stuck with it.

How would you characterise your competitive Source career?

I think Source kind of sucked for me to be honest, because I wanted so much more to be able to prove myself and be put in the best possible situation to succeed, but unfortunately it never really happened. When I first started playing I didn't feel I had the talent around me to succeed like I wanted to, and then by the time we had a great team and had the talent, with x6, I only competed at one international (ESWC) and took third place.

It just left me unfulfilled competitively and wanting more. Domestically, with x6, it was us and Dynamic, and internationally I felt if given time we could've been the best, but unfortunately we never got the opportunity to prove ourselves after ESWC 2011.

Area51 was three of the current coL members, you and tck. How would you describe the setup of the team? Does the current coL style bear much resemblance to it?

Area51 was during the infancy of CS:GO. The setup of the team was myself/sgares calling, semphis being the wildcard, hiko lurking and tck just being a solid all around player, doing whatever dirty work we needed done. We mainly focused on having 3 set strats on t side and really just hammering them out as much as possible during practice and relying on those strats during matches. That was what I wanted with Area 51/Quantic, so that was kinda how it was done.

With coL, I think it's much different and free flowing for them, but at the same time the game has evolved a lot and changed. I think players are a lot better at the game itself now, which allows for more freedom as an individual, which coL thrives under, because they have very high caliber decision makers.

In the last months of 2012 your team had the 3rd at ESWC and then won ESEA LAN relatively comfortably. You got attention at ESWC for a potentially MVP calibre run individually, so where did you yourself as an individual player at the time and where was that team headed if sgares hadn't gone inactive?

Well, as an individual player, during ESWC I think I was the same as I am now. I literally just do the same things consistently and over and over again in this game, and I've been doing it since I started playing. Had sgares not left, I don't really think much changes placement-wise. It's impossible to say if we improved with frozt or not, but in my opinion we probably did. I don't think we beat VeryGames and place second behind NiP with Quantic that ESEA LAN without frozt. But who knows really, just kind of an impossible question to answer, because we replaced a fantastic player in sgares with a fantastic player in frozt.

How do you personally balance being the in-game leader and trying to have an impact on the game individually?

Well, on t side I just try and put our team and my teammates in a position to be successful, generally speaking that is going together and not worrying about your deaths. Because if we're going together your death can be a meaningful one and just setup a frag trade for your teammates. And if you trust your teammates to win the 3v3's post plant etc. who the fuck cares if you die. I think most of what I say is "YOU GUYS BETTER FUCKING GO! DON'T BE PUSSIES!".

As an individual, I really just try and make the game as easy as possible for my teammates, that is really what I focus on. On CT side that usually means being in the right spot at the right time, throwing proper nades, gathering information, and not giving the t's a 4v5 scenario. On T side that can mean a lot of different things, but generally it's not being a pussy and running through shit even if you are a sacrificial lamb setting up for a trade.

What were the strengths of the team at Copenhagen Games? Was there anything missing that held you back from a top four finish?

Our strengths were everything but our anti-ecos. We literally lost every anti-eco we played versus and it cost us beating out Virtus Pro. I don't think we would've beat NiP, but we should have placed top 3 rather than 5th/6th had we not blown those rounds. I'm haunted by that shit... fucking p250's.

At ESEA S13 LAN you were close to being eliminated entirely by the Polish ESC team, losing in the upper bracket and then being down 9:15 and a map behind in the lower bracket series against them. How did you get into that situation and out of it?

I honestly have no clue how we pulled out that win. They were just a really strong team and put us into a dire situation. We were outclassed on inferno, then on mill when we were down 9:15 and shit was looking bleak. I literally just said "fuck it", started running up catwalk every single round and it just worked. Once we pulled it into overtime we managed to win. We took it to a third map, which was dust2, and won pretty easily, but yeah, we pretty much just pulled that win outta our asses.

Your team were "supposed" to lose to VeryGames when you got to the lower bracket final, and the series was incredibly close. Had something changed from previous encounters with VG? Is there a formula to beating them?

Well, we knew them as a team much better at ESEA LAN. We were more familiar with them and went into it with a much different mindset than before. I don't really want to divulge this information, as I play them often, but mentally we were much better prepared. So, to answer your question, yes, there's a formula, but I can't reveal it, haha.

The deciding factor though was definitely frozt and his incredible clutching/AWPing against them. He absolutely dominated and he went 58-43 in total and kennyS was 34-51, so he really outperformed their AWPer and he willed us to the victory. We all as a team had our moments, but he was definitely pulling the most weight in that win.

Earlier in that month NiP had lost for the first time offline to Virtus.Pro. Playing them in that ESEA final, had they lost anything in terms of being by far the best? Was there an idea back then of how to possibly beat them?

It was just really difficult to play against them at ESEA, because we had very little experience versus them. They are extremely unpredictable and have tons of ways to punish you. They are absolutely fearless and it really caught us off guard, because we had never faced a team that was so fearless and that had so much gun skill to back it up. I think we just needed more experience to really compete with them.

How did they differ in that sense from other top teams?

Well, they literally full commit to their strat and gameplan, where most teams will give you an extra millisecond to respond to something, they don't. It's sort of like that saying "give em an inch and they'll take a mile". We had numerous little holes in our games that they were taking advantage of and immediately the domino effect would come into play where they get the cut off and reactionary kills off their initial play. We simply had not at that point, as players, played against teams that took advantage of those tiny misplays by us, and were punished heavily for it.

Most other teams we played were playing more slowed down and less peeky. We also put ourselves in a terrible situation on inferno by losing the anti-eco on the second round, and continuing to force-buy and losing round after round because of it. On CT Nuke, it was kind of strange because we literally did the same thing VeryGames did vs. them setup-wise, when they crushed them earlier, but it just didn't work for us, instead we got crushed.

You had said before ESEA that you were gonna try and play more aggressively, on an individual basis, as opposed to the more passive strat-calling style you'd used at CPH Games. Was this reflected in the ESEA result?

I pretty much always have that mindset, but it's so difficult to actually do that as a strat-caller, because I feel selfish, like "Yeah, we can't get it done as a team, let me just fucking do my own thing". It's just tough to try and direct everyone, and put them in a position to succeed while you're doing your own thing, so it pretty much didn't come to fruition.

I think even though I have that mindset a lot of the time, I just can't do it because it's not my role. I think I'd have to be more of a lurker, by myself, and making a decision as an individual in order to play like that. If I join a team where I'm not strat-calling and I can lurk, then I'd constantly be balancing clinching rounds, and opening up rounds as an individual, without a play called for me so to speak.

Back at that time people will look at that Quantic line-up and say you were on top of NA pretty firmly, beating both Curse and Dynamic, and your results were solid and possibly improving internationally. You said that you didn't want to continue playing with Semphis, that he made too many mistakes and was too selfish in the context of the team. Can you give me some of your thinking along these lines? Why not keep the line-up together and see how the next few months go? What were your expectations for the team without him?

Well, it is true we had a really good team, but I just wasn't enjoying myself. I felt like although Semphis is a great player, he just put himself into roles that he shouldn't have been in and tried to do too much because of it, which kind of led me to think that he's playing selfishly, when in reality I think he just wasn't put in the correct role.

Besides that, it was just a lot of little things that irked me. For instance, when we are practicing I am playing like it's ESWC Finals and trying my hardest, but he would get scrimmed and it was like as soon as something gay happened to him once, the gloves were off. He's rushing down mid on inferno every single round while I'm holding a passive ass angle at banana, playing seriously. Stuff like that just really annoys me TBH. Then again, at the same time, it's not like I was an angel. I'm constantly bitching at people to play a certain way, and have plenty of my own faults, but I just felt there were a lot of little things on both ends that made us not get along. There was no like final straw or anything.

My expectations were that we'd simply replace him and pickup AZK or swag, who I had my eyes on. Obviously that didn't happen, coL was formed and frozt/tck didn't want to start over, so everyone moved on in their own seperate ways.

In the Summer you announced you were stepping back from CS:GO and going to compete in console tournaments. You cited Valve not supporting CS:GO enough as a reason to. What can you say about your console adventure and why you eventually came back to CS?

Well, I think Black Ops 2 is one of the most fun and cool games I've ever played, honestly. They have this game mode, hardpoint, that is not only tactical, but extremely fast paced and fun. Overall, it was a very enjoyable experience, but I'm glad valve started supporting CS:GO and that I'm back, because the new COD:Ghosts might be the worst game ever made. Coming back was an easy choice once Dreamhack was announced. All valve has to do is keep hosting high quality tournaments and we'll see player numbers rivaling dota2 soon.

Everyone but you in the Denial/iBUYPOWER line-up was on Curse at some time, with them being split between Curse and Dynamic previously in CS:GO. What did you envision for that line-up? Had playing against them before given you an idea of how the team would work?

Going into iBP I knew we had an insane amount of talent and individual skill, it was just a matter of getting everyone on the same page, building chemistry, and working together. I've played against the guys I'm teamed with for a number of years, so I was extremely familiar with all of their tendencies, strengths and weaknesses, as players. Going into it, I definitely had the wrong idea of what we needed to do as a team to succeed, but I have a much clearer picture now.

Before, I was too passive in what I wanted everyone to do, and, in my defense, it is very difficult to come into a team with a solid core of 4 and take complete control without being apprehensive at all. Now, when we play, I have slowly realized I need to be extremely detailed in every action I want all five players to complete, and not only that but keep everyone's head in the game - positive and focused on winning and not dwelling on the past rounds. ESEA LAN taught me a lot about the team and what type of atmosphere we need to be in order to be successful, so I'm going to be bringing that intensity and positive energy when we play because my team really feeds off of it, Which is like a complete 180 degrees from how I usually act, to be honest.

Everything seemed ideal going into Dreamhack, going 4-1 in maps vs. coL in the online tournament before, doing so well in scrims in Europe etc. Then the event itself was a disaster for your team.

Well, playing against coL before and after Dreamhack is like a playing completely different team. They were honestly terrible before their bootcamp, and so were we. I remember after the coL tourney sgares and I were both talking about how poorly and awfully our teams just played, it was seriously pathetic how badly both teams performed in the coL tourney.

I wouldn't say we were unbeatable, but we did beat most every team we faced, yes during meaningless practice maps. But the way we beat them wasn't consistent CS, at that point in our team we didn't know how to grind out rounds, we were reliant on winning pistol and first gun, and we weren't really winning off well refined strats and takes revolved around trade kills. We were winning because we were all making huge individual plays, which don't really transfer toward LAN, mainly because the other team isn't going to fuck up as much.

I saw this happening, and in the back of my mind, during bootcamp, I was thinking "no way this is going to work on LAN", but then I'm saying "but in practise we are dominating everyone and if we play like this on LAN we will win the event". So what could i say? "Stop raping everyone? We aren't winning the right way?" So I kind of just went with it and wanted to see if we could replicate it at Dreamhack.

After the first day of ESEA it would have been easy to say your team looked far from potential event winners. Your map win over Titan was close and then they beat you heavily on the other two in the upper bracket. The perception is that you guys tried your regular strats, with you calling on day 1, and then kind of said "fuck it" and went with a looser approach on the second day. Is that accurate?

After we beat Titan on map one, we went on towards dust2 and literally people didn't even go in their correct spots. It was probably the most frustrating thing I've ever gone through in my life. We didn't even have a guy watching upper B tunnels, literally people weren't even going to their default designated positions. It was just a mess, and after we lost dust2 my attitude was pretty terrible, I was so incredibly raged I was shaking. To lose because the other team is better is one thing, but to not even give ourselves a chance to win is another.

After that, the next day we regrouped, I went over every pistol we would do and told everyone in detail exactly what we want to do vs. every team. I made sure I let everyone know their jobs and roles on every take. I just became extremely vocal and direct and told everyone exactly what they need to do, because I knew exactly what they other teams were going to do, and it showed. We took almost every pistol, and then on CT side we revamped how skadoodle was playing outside and it changed everything for our team.

We definitely went with a looser approach on dust2 t side and adreN had some really key input regarding that, but everything else we just did was our normal shit, but instead of me calling "alright do our middle take!", instead I was saying "okay do our middle take, you, eric, double flash for todd, me and kev throw flashes here and here, then ska throws another and we all peek when ska's pops. Then, as soon as that happens, kev you rush here and I flash for you. After that, hold control and wait for pushes." So it kind of changed from me just saying what to do, to being very detailed, which is apparently what we 100% need.

After Dreamhack it was expected by most that coL was the NA team with the best chance of beating Titan, and the best NA team overall. Your lower bracket series vs. them was close, how do you think your teams match-up and what strengths can you have when facing them?

Well, any time we play coL it is going to be close, because both teams know each other so well. We match-up pretty well, because when teams know each other so well, a lot of the game revolves around individual skill, which is where my team shines. Strengths-wise we just have some really good players on my team, who can make some huge plays and really just win rounds that we have no business winning. I don't think we have any specific advantage over them over any other team though, so our strengths vs them are the same as our strengths vs any other team.

Was Titan different in the final from previous times you've played their team?

I don't think so. A lot of people say they just played poorly vs. us, but I've played them many times before and they are always incredibly tough to beat. I just think that when rounds get very chaotic they aren't at their best, and for whatever reason when the rounds are chaotic that is when my teams are always at their best, and that is the deciding factor of the matches I think. Oh, and them letting us choose Season twice.

From the other side people are going to say iBP played the game of their lives. How much of what we saw in that final was replicable and how much was people playing at their peak level?

Well, I think I played very poorly as an individual that day, besides one CT half on inferno, so there's that. I mean we won through extremely bleak odds, we were down big rounds and grinded back. There were many times during that series against Titan and vs. coL we started a map down 6-1. Before, we could only beat good teams if we had the perfect storm of winning first gun round and pistol, and then we'd crush. But we were never able to fight through adversity and grind it out.

I don't see how you can say we played the game of our lives, because we grinded shit out. Had we won like all the pistols and first gun rounds and barely squeeked out a win, you could call us lucky, but we grinded for the wins.

You were someone who was critical of molotovs early on, what do you think of them now?

Tough to say, definitely not as bad as they were. I think they are at a good spot now. I'd prefer to play without them though, but I know that's not happening, so I think they are balanced as of now.

In your reddit AMA, long before you joined up with Denial/iBP, you said about "Curse bases their gamestyle off making individual plays rather then a team orientated strategy based off trade killing." Is that still a component of your team now?

Like I said during the bootcamp question, we were relying on that strategy and it was working fantastic during it, just not something we can replicate on LAN. Having these guys around me, who are just ridiculous individual players, really puts you at like a false sense of what works and what doesn't, because during bootcamp no matter what we did we were just crushing. Even though I had a feeling our playstyle wouldn't translate at Dreamhack... like I said, it's really difficult to change shit that we are dominating with during practice. So, after Dreamhack, we all discussed it, we switched some roles, and really just tried going away from that style of play completely, yes.

The final words belong to you.

Thanks for the great questions first off, and second off thank you to iBUYPOWER for their continued support. If you guys would like to learn from me check out http://www.netcodeilluminati.com!

Photo credits: ESEANews