Q1: You made some major changes to your roster during the mid-season break. What has adding Shuttle and supr brought to the team that you were missing before?
Ranger: I would say that adding Shuttle and Seth in the place of Geo and Bryan helped solve some of our mentality issues and get us back into a good mindset going into the second half of the season. Supr in particular brings a lot of in game knowledge and helps a lot for the prep work for the team. No matter how we use him or which operator we put him on, he always tends to frag out and brings a lot of firepower to the team. He rarely makes mistakes and brings a lot to the team.
Supr: I joined because I’m the best. For Shuttle, he brings a lot to the team; also he is a chicken tender connoisseur, which is very important.
Q2: After a very strong performance in the first half of the season, it took you awhile to get back on your feet during the second half. What steps did you take to pull yourselves up to that second place spot and secure attendance at the S8 Finals and SI 2019?
Easilyy: We were trying to play with a style that is more effective against other regions. However, after not having a lot of success with that sort of play style, we went back to our original style and started winning again.
Supr: Also, I’m the best. Ranger is the worst.
Q3: You’ve recently moved into a gaming house. Do you feel like it has been helpful in your preparation for events like the finals and eventually Season 9? Do you feel like you get more done living together, or that living together can be distracting at times?
Easilyy: Moving into a gaming house makes it easier to prep. You can make sure that everyone is watching vods, paying attention during dry ones. Also, it’s a better environment because it helps us to keep positive vibes and bond as a team. So that really isn’t as distracting as much as it is helpful.
Q4: Walk us through a typical Rogue boot camp day.
Ecl9pse: I just woke up; it’s 11:30 AM. Typical boot camp day for me.
Easilyy: The day starts, I like to hop up out of bed, immediately start playing music while I take a shower. Since we just moved in I don’t have food, so I’ve made the choice to eat McDonalds three days in a row. After we eat breakfast, we meet up at the office (which doubles as Ranger’s apartment) and we hope Ranger is awake or that he left it unlocked. Once we finally get in we chill for a little bit until we’re ready to scrim. Once it becomes time to scrim, we ask Ranger who we’re scrimming, and he lets us down.
Supr: I wake up, crack of noon, if I don’t then Easilyy has to wake me up. I immediately hop out of bed and turn my swag on. We sit down together at the dining room table and go over the day’s events. We listen to Taki Taki as soon as we get into the kitchen every morning. We take our food to the office (making sure to leave our dirty plates on Ranger’s counter) and we start our day, hoping we have a scrim ready.
Ranger: On a serious note, our average day of bootcamp consists of a combination of VOD watching, dry runs and scrims. The closer we get to the end of the bootcamp the more we tailor our practice toward a our first opponent, Nora-Rengo.
Q5: Your match against Nora-Rengo is one of the most anticipated rematches of the Season. Without giving too much away, what are you doing specifically to prepare against for them?
Easilyy: What we did for Nora-Rengo was watch their vods; understanding that with their region, they’re limited in regards who they can practice. They don’t have too much experience practicing against international teams since they haven’t made too many plans. We’re planning to play against their specific play style, instead of having a generic play style, since they play differently from other teams.
Tyler: Everything we know about different teams changes with Nora-Rengo since they’re specific play style is so different from other teams.
Q6: Assuming you defeat Nora-Rengo again, who would you rather face off against in the semifinals: Mock-it or FaZe? Do you feel like the support of the Brazilian crowd would play a huge role in a potential matchup against FaZe?
Easilyy: I’d rather play against FaZe because I’m pretty good friends with them and I know that they haven’t had the best success at LANs and I’d love to see them actually make it to a semifinals. Also, we played them at Paris in the group stage and the match was really fun so I’d like to have a rematch against them.
Supr: I think it would be cool to play FaZe just because what we heard about all of the fans that are going to be there, the fact that they’re the Brazilian favorites would make for a good atmosphere. I don’t think the audience would affect us as much as we’re a team that’s been to a lot of LANs, and things like that don’t affect teams with as much experience as us.
Ranger: I’d rather play against Mock-it. I think play style wise they have a style that is a lot more predictable than FaZe, making them easier for us to prepare against.
Q7: Assuming again that you’re successful in your bracket, who would your ideal opponent be in the grand finals?
Ranger: G2. To be the best team, you basically have to beat G2. They’re seen as the “final boss” of Pro League. We went 1-2 in a best of three against them with a stand-in at the Atlantic City finals this past season, I think we match up pretty well against them and we’d like a rematch.
Q8: Which teams (aside from G2) impress you the most in the global scene?
Ecl9pse: Mock-it. Everything thought that they weren’t going to play as well without Aceez, but they ended up making second place and proving a lot of people wrong.
Easilyy: FaZe, because they lost their IGL with Gohan and brought in a completely new IGL, and ended up doing better, which tells me that their team structure and their ability to trust their teammates is super strong.
Q9: Anything left unsaid / any points you want to make going into the finals?
Supr: Rogue GOAT.
Good luck to Rogue as they head into the Season 8 Finals. Make sure to follow Slashug, Easilyy, Ecl9pse, Shuttle, and supr on social media. For the latest news and updates on all things Pro League, be sure to follow us on Twitter.
