zEnith in the confession booth - i36 & LAN79

Moving on to i36 and LAN79. Going through the tournament undefeated, Reason faced YoYoTech Dragons in the i36 Upperbracket semi’s after a very close 13-10 game versus Veritas. You eventually lost with a 11 to 13 score. Do you think that overconfidence cost you the match, playing versus a team that until then were not considered a top 10 team? Or was the team just not playing great overall, looking back at the close game versus Veritas?

"To be honest we were playing pretty shit. We didn't have any teamwork at all. Nah, I wasn't overconfident, I predicted yoyotech to do good. We just never played as a team in the match against them and never adapted. We lost 9-3 on attack, which is pretty crap, and lost a 5v2, which was so ridiculous ... I was having suicidial thoughts at that moment. Didn't help in the rest of the game to put it that way".

One of the most discussed games of i36 was your lowerbracket final game versus Team CoolerMaster. Everyone was expecting you would reach the consolation final, being up a 8 rounds I believe. After that, things completed turned around and you lost the game, finishing fourth. Could you describe the match and what went wrong? Did it have anything to do with the loss versus YoYoTech?

"We got up 8-4 on defence and got the first 2 rounds on attack. Then lost every single round after that. Just another case of not adapting at all and not abusing certain positions on the map. It also had to be friggin crash, easily our worst map.

Nah, I really doubt it had anything to do with the previous match. Just a lack of teamwork, again."

What do you feel were the weak points of the team at i36? And how were those addressed before the start of LAN79?

"Weak points: how crap we are at crash, that's one, and our obivous lack of teamwork, which results in us dribblin. We didn't really get the chance to adress them though, because of my lack of internet.  We never really did anything new on crash as far as I know, but we chilled out and got our teamwork sorted, so we're doing a lot better now."

After an easy win over Spy and Destroy you met up with YoYoTech Dragons in the second round of the Upperbracket. This time the tables turned and Reason won in two close 13-11 games. Were YoYoTech as impressive as at i36, considering they played with a substitute?

"They were better to be honest, I think VAE was dropping 25 bombs or something. The YoYoTech games were really intense and close, as the scores show.  But ye, they were impressive. =]."

Zenith in a 1v2 situation on stage versus Giants - Picture courtesy of cod-gamer.net


Your next game was played live on stage, with a massive amount of spectators cheering for your opponents, the French team Giants. What was it like?

"It was a lot of fun, a really close and intense game! Giants were really good, they even managed to beat us on strike, because of their ridiculous A strat, which we never managed to do anything about.

It was a French LAN, french opponents. I expected them to cheer for the other team. HOWEVER, all the UK teams were cheering for us, which really got our motivation up after the loss on strike and who knows, we might have lost without them being there supporting us =]."

All hell probably broke loose when you lost the second map in overtime. What followed was another extremely tense game, ending in a 13 to 11 score in favor of your team. Toughest match of the tournament? Do you feel you guys could or should have ended it in overtime?

"Yeah citystreets ... such a random map to be honest! We got 9-3 on defence, and yet again we could not finish it before it got way too close. Don't remember what Giants were doing, but it worked and whatever we did, didn't work. Except our amazing "LETS JUST GO A" strat, which won us the game!

Hmm, overtime on strike ... Nah they just did their dumb A strat again and Raigeki was raping us with his dumb m4. Diablo was in a 1v1 against rukkae I believe it was. Someone from the GIANTS team made the crowd start shouting and stuff so Tom was unable to hear anything at all, which lost us the round =]. So us winning in overtime was not very likely .."

The mapscores of the Upperbracket Final versus Team CoolerMaster were never reported. Could you tell us how everything went down?

"We were pretty confident going into the match against TCM. They picked strike, one of our strongest maps. We were exchanging rounds back and forth and won the map 13-10, but it was very close.

The quote of doom: "We've never lost on Strike before" (C) TWIST, probably why they lost that map I think =D The second map was backlot. Im not quite sure what TCM were doing, but we were just running around and raping them on A and our defence was strong as well so we won 13-6."

Reason Gaming on stage at LAN79 - Picture courtesy of cod-gamer.net

 

Commenting on the LAN, D1ablo mentioned that loud techno music was being played during certain games and that later a couple of games were switched in the lowerbracket, which meant that Giants and H2k did not immediately meet. Could you explain the situation and give your view on things?

"When we were on stage we had techno music being played on our side of the stage. The reason for this? So we would not hear the shoutcaster. We DON'T speak french, it's annoying, it's dumb. I'm pretty sure lighters, who was sitting closest to the speaker, couldn't hear anything at all and couldn't call because all we would hear was some french techno.

Oh yeah the play-offs. The admins were just changing the play-offs to suit themselves, meaning French teams would not meet each other. It was so blatent and really annoying ..."

Except for the techno, how was playing versus the top French teams, H2k, Giants and oXmoze. Did their level impress or surprise you guys?

"It was fun, I rate H2k and Giants highly, so I was not surprised at all. Vazy is a outstanding player and it's obvious he can make his team go far =] The Giants line-up consists of many known French players, who have done well in the past, so yeah I was definately impressed!

oXmoze .. we luckily didn't get a chance to play them on LAN. Played them online, which ended in them ragequitting, because they didn't like us rushing them or something like that."

You finished 4th at i36 with a lot of lesser skilled teams attending, but took first place at LAN79, with more recognized names and a higher level of play overall. Your thoughts?

"We got to play BO3 at LAN79, which is soo much better, because COD4 is quite random. We were a lot better as a team at LAN79. But yeah, every LAN should use BO3 =]"

What are your overall thoughts on both events, the organisation, location, competition structure etc? You earlier mentioned Reason might not be attending i37, due to most of the team not liking the event.

"LAN79 was obviously French biased. I liked their competition structure though and the stage was awesome. Unfortunately it was in the middle of nowhere and we had to drive by bus for 20 hours to get there, which was quite depressing.

I-series: expensive, bad competition structure, awful location and it lasts way too long. The only positive thing is they're not english biased =p, at least I think they're not .."