We are just going to keep working on ourselves, just keep trying to get better: NRG Victor speaks on the stresses on NRG and their goals moving forwards
In VCT Americas Week 4, NRG took on KRU Esports, taking out the LATAM squad in 2-0 fashion. With their win, NRG take a step closer to meeting their goal of attending Masters: Tokyo and Champions 2023. Moreover, after the first few weeks of shaky performances, NRG are beginning to show their potential in officials. After their win, Strafe Esports was fortunate enough to interview Victor "Victor" Wong, one of the players for NRG. In the exclusive one-to-one interview, NRG "Victor" spoke on the recent changes in the squad's strategic lineupe, their trouble early in the season and goals for the rest of the season.
Hi, congratulations on the win, how are you feeling after winning? Especially a much-needed victory for you guys.
Definitely feel good. As you said, it was a much-needed win for us. Not just for our record, but also our confidence for the rest of the season. So yeah, it was good, it was good by us.
The second map was incredibly dominant, but that first map was a bit closer. That first half, you guys were very clean. But on Defense, it looked like you guys were struggling initially. What happened there? Was it just momentum for them?
I think, on Attack, they found out that our B-site on Defense wasn’t being played. Like it wasn’t a strong bombsite for us. And they found that out throughout the game, and they abused it. Our B-bombsite was pretty much wide-open, and they managed to get a lot of post-plants there.
But you managed to close it out of course. You face 100 Thieves next, what are your thoughts on the team and what do you think you need to work on before the next game?
Same as always for us, we are just going to keep working on ourselves, just keep trying to get better. These other teams are strong too, like all these teams are strong, working hard, and trying to get better from the previous games. But yeah, it’s pretty much back to practice for us. We got a good win today and hopefully we can build off it.
You have some of the toughest matchups in the coming weeks. You will be facing Furia and then a rematch against LOUD. How would you prepare for the rest of the season? What do you think you need to work on the most?
In my opinion, LOUD is probably the remaining game that’s probably the hardest one left for us. We’re going to take it game by game, we’re not focused on LOUD right now, focused on 100 Thieves and our next opponent. But yeah, we just have to be the best we can. Earlier in this season, the game against MIBR, C9, and even Leviatán, that wasn’t our true level. And yeah, we just gotta be better.
What were the crucial mistakes you guys were making?
I think, first of all, we just had a huge role swap. Putting “ardiis” on duelist on most maps, so I think that was the biggest change today, compared to in the season earlier. I think that’s the change we made, and we’re just going to ride it out and hopefully it works out.
Talking about role changes, you obviously played three different types of roles. You played initiator with KAYO and sentinel with Killjoy. These are two distinct roles, how do you manage to switch between them, and do you think it’s hard switching between them?
How I manage, it’s all practice. And we talk about stuff, and we went over stuff that I do, which is sets which is what makes it easy. Chet just tells me I need to do this turret or this KAYO knife, and he just makes it as easy as possible on me. All I have to do is be proficient and be comfortable playing these agents, so yeah.
How comfortable are you though? You haven’t played Killjoy a lot, but you are proficient with duelists, entry roles, and KAYO. How is it adjusting to an almost passive role?
It is definitely a process to remind myself to adjust. I won’t be as aggressive on this character as compared to other characters. But what I think it comes down to is just gamesense, game knowledge…I know what my character has to do this round, so I know what I have to do to contribute to the round with this character.
You also switch between roles in a single series. Is it hard for you? Does it affect your performance at all?
Umm, yeah. I think it could affect my performance honestly. Like you said, it’s a weird thing to go from aggressive to passive, and passive to aggressive. I don’t really have a good answer, I just do the best I can.
Talking about role changes, do you think Chamber as a meta affected a lot of teams? Just because Chamber was sentinel, you didn’t have to play Killjoy. There wasn’t any particular need to pick Killjoy. Do you think that’s the main problem with a lot of teams’ roles currently?
Yeah, I would believe so. Chamber was a crutch for like a lot of teams. It filled a lot of roles. The sentinel, his OPing. It just fills a lot of holes in the comp. I think the teams that didn’t wholly rely on Chamber’s OP presence, are going to do better than the teams that did.
Moving forwards, Bind will return to the competitive map pool. What are your thoughts on the map switch? Because you were a pretty great Bind team.
Yeah, I’m pretty excited. Bind is one my personal favorites. I really like how the map plays, I’ve seen the changes, I think the changes are good. Like those changes are pretty good. Yeah, I’m excited and Icebox wasn’t one of my favorites personally, so I’m glad that’s out.
Do you think Riot should do things like change the map rotations mid-season?
There could have been a better time to change the map pool, but I don’t know what’s the best solution. Season is a long season; I don’t know what is the best. Changing map pools during the season is, yeah, kinda screws us a little bit.
What are your expectations for the season? Where do you want to see NRG? After this win, it is a really crucial win for you. Where do you want to see yourselves on the leaderboard?
Yeah, I’m not even thinking about making or being first or anything. I just want to make it to playoffs, and yeah it just all depends on us after that. If we make playoffs, we just have to…we have the chance and we have to take it.
This is not the first time NRG has found themselves in a pretty muddy situation. Even in typical competitions, you usually win the first game and then you come back from it. What is the reason for this current time? Are you looking to give others a chance?
No, no, that’s not it at all. I don’t have a good answer to be very honest. Previously, we did start slow. One of the things we started to do to beat that was, to help was- we don’t always warm up before official matches. And now we’re starting to like warm up and take the warmup seriously. That’s one thing we tried last year. In terms of slow starts, I don’t really have a good answer. I don’t know what it is. I think, I guess it just takes our players to get into the game, maybe like the first half. But I don’t think the games we lost at the start, I don’t think that was a factor. We already played games already, we were like 1 and 1 when we played MIBR, so we lost.
Obviously because of the slow starts, you are now in a position where every game is now a must-win. Do you think that puts a lot of pressure to perform?
There’s definitely a lot of pressure. Considering the games we lost, we still have many games, many favorite teams to play, like LOUD, Furia. So yeah, losing those MIBR, Cloud9 games were really rough on us. But the standard we set ourselves to, all these teams that we play next, these are teams that we know we can beat.
How do you handle the pressure of being in a critical situation?
It’s tough, I don’t really have a good answer. The four of us, the main part of us, excluding “s0m”, all of us have won a tournament before, and we’ve attended multiple LANs last year. So, I’m sure that’s helped.
Speaking of s0m, do you think he’s standing up to the expectations because he has been performing well. What are your thoughts on him as a replacement for Marved?
I’m really happy with his performance. I’m impressed. Coming into this team, our goal was to make him into a better player, because he doesn’t have like the top-level experience against the top teams, when we created the team. So that was one of our main goals, and I think he’s stepping up the plate.
Finally, who are you looking forward to battling the most? In both an international competition or a domestic stage? Which team would you want to face the most?
I’ll say Fnatic. That’s a team that we’ve never played before. We’ve never played a game against “Boaster” before. I’ll say Fnatic.
NRG has since faced 100 Thieves and Furia, dispatching them in a form reminiscent of their old selves. They next face their eternal rivals, LOUD in a battle royale showdown for the ages.
The VCT Americas Week 7 action has begun on the 13th of May. You can follow VCT Americas Twitter for all the updates on VCT Americas.
Credits: Stefan Wisnoski/Riot Games
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