SAGE: Trigger On The Stand - 1/3

- Hey Michael, so you have just returned from a maybe disappointing third place finish at Dublin, I can only imagine? Talk us through the event if you don’t mind.

Trigger: Ye, ehm, Hello first off. It was actually a good event, it was our first event as a team and we actually saw that we should have done better than third place, so maybe yes a bit disappointing of course. But in the end, we fucked it up on our own, because we played really bad in the group stage. Of course we can blame the pc's when three of us had 125fps most of the time, but not all of the time. Also mark having a huge hangover, so he was unusable in that game. That's why we lost versus Infused, it was our fault, so we drew the Anexis slot in the Semi Final. Most people would say it was the best match of the entire event, 13-11, 13-11 and 10-13. Some really intense games, but ye, we had a really good time. We know we are on the same level as Anexis and so this is a really hopeful event for us and we want to do it better.

- So are you perhaps a bit disappointed that Infused aren't here, to maybe take revenge on that Dublin Esports Event loss with better circumstances here?

Trigger: Ehm, ye let's say a little bit. Of course they are good players and a good team as well. But I'd say that on the second day, after the group stage day, we would have beaten them really. Not easily, but comfortably I'm sure of it. We should be better than Infused, we should not have lost that game. They played really good, we can't blame them for our loss, but we could only blame ourselves for having lost that game.

- This is perhaps a bit off-topic, but with COD4 moving towards Single Elimination Bo3 some 2 years ago, but COD1 & COD2 were all Double Elimination Bo1 and especially in this case, where you had a mistake in the Group Stage, you were out of the tournament and perhaps might have preferred Double Elimination? Is there maybe a good reason to bring back Double Elim?

Trigger: I really love double elimination and I don’t think that Single Elimination should be played. I mean, a lot of teams pay out of their own pocket and will not play that many games after they are out of the tournament after only 1 Playoff game. They want to play as much as possible. If you play Single Elimination and you make one small mistake, you are out and there's nothing you can do anymore. So ehm, double elimination, you made a mistake or you were not so strong on one map, you can still recover and use a second chance. Also I think that in these days of COD4, we have been playing the game for four years now or whatever, some changes would be quite good now. Like Double Elimination, mr15, something like that would help make the game fresh again. It gets a bit boring over the time. I mean, if you look at it, there's plenty of time and Double Elimination should be possible.

- So looking back at Dublin, are you happy to have attended the event? Do you think it was a waste of time and money, or good learning grounds?

Trigger: We learned a lot, really. Okay, in the group stage, we didn't quite learn a lot. But in the playoffs, we learned a lot and we had a huge comeback against Team-fuZion. We were down 5-11 and won 8 rounds in a row to win the match, it was amazing. Also as I said, it was our first event and with that line-up, we have only played some 4-5 weeks and we learned so much in order to adapt into the game and have gotten more options to use in the games, after having talked it over. The team spirit was really good and it was not a waste of time, definitely not. It was a really expensive event, though, and also only having 12 teams is a bit disappointing. It was not a waste of time, definitely not, because we learned a lot and picked up interesting things. It was more a bootcamp than anything else.

- Would you recommend other international events to attend Dublin Esports Event, if they manage to fix some of their problems or will this have been the first and only event in Ireland according to you?

Trigger: It's a two sided coin, I'd say. On the one hand, you have a really good set-up LAN with KosH and his crew putting in a lot of time and effort in this event, I enjoyed it and the location was also quite good. On the other hand, you have a really expensive country and really expensive hotels, even though they had some good deals worked out, but still. It was really expensive for everyone and with less teams, it's not that useful to go there if you are "wasting" money on it, basically. But it was nice, if it would be 24 or 32 team event, if they could handle it, and people would show up. I'd really want to attend, because it is just a good feeling to play there and they put in a lot of effort. It was worth it, but I am a bit disappointed of all the teams who did not attend, the teams who usually have the financial backing for it.

Trigger taking charge on Dublin Esports Event as well

Trigger: One week before Dublin Event, my pc burned, so I didn't have a pc at home. So we did not play the entire week before the event and we didn't play this week either, as I couldn't be arsed to get an entirely new pc. So no, we did not play at all and also everyone arrived quite late on Monday and for me, I already had to go to Enschede on Wednesday night because I missbooked my flight and I didn't have the time and energy to get a new pc for 1 day of practise. We have a laptop with us, brought some demos and as I mentioned, we tried out a lot of stuff and have come up with a lot of new options ingame etc...so we can adapt to the games better. Versus team Infused for example we were down 0-6 and then called the timeout, which was way too late, but we had no ways of countering them, because we did not have any options in our heads of how to adapt. Right now, we have them, even though it was just discussed orally, it will be better. So ye, we did not play a lot in between, but all the talks, in the hotel and during games, really helped a lot as well.