Even tough Sean ”seang@res” Gares and his crew in Cloud9 managed to upset the scene and bring strong results this summer, they’ve been in a steady decline since the last major.
The opening match at the current major Dreamhack Cluj-Napoca became quite a disappointment – losing to Luminosity Gaming 16-11.
– I don’t even know if were the best team in NA any more, the in game leader tells Aftonbladet Esport.

It’s been a long journey to the top for the in game leader Sean ”Seang@res” Gares and his Cloud9. The core of the lineup has pioneered North American CS:GO since the game’s release.

This summer it seemed as if they were about to hit their big breakthrough, but after a disappointing major in Cologne their results have dropped.
– It’s hard to say why exactly we’ve gone down, Seang@res tells Aftonbladet Esport and continues:
– We’re just not getting the kills we were during the summer. I feel like I’m putting in more time than ever and we have good reads on what people like doing, their tendencies. We practice strategies so much so I can’t really say why we’ve gone downhill.
– My expectations for this event are to get to semis, I would love to get to semis. If we get there I would be content with our results probably. We need to step up our game and we need to make sure we’re not over peaking, and play better in late round situations which has been a massive problem no matter how many times we go over it. We make mistakes that we know are mistakes and that’s what we need to fix.

”It took us around 40 hours of travel time”

On Wednesday at Dreamhack Cluj-Napoca Cloud9 lost their opening game against Luminosity Gaming, but managed to win the following match against Polish up and comers Vexed.
– That Luminosity game on Dust2 was a travesty because we literally had perfect reads on what they we’re doing every round, but we were just getting demolished.

How do you feel about being here?
– It’s awesome to visit an area that we’ve never went to before. So far people have been very warming to us and everything has been nice. Nice hotel and great good.
– The only complaint I have is how long it took to get here from North America. It’s easy for europeans, but there are obviously no direct flights from America to Cluj. It took us around 40 hours of travel time to get here, which is crazy.

Does that affect your game play?
– Honestly at this point in our careers we’ve traveled so much the last six months. We are used to traveling and I hate using jetlag as an excuse for anything. I don’t think the travel has affected us.

In the deciding match of the group stage the Americans faced the Swedish giants of Fnatic. Even though they put up a good fight on Dust2 and Overpass, the Swedes proved too strong. Now Cloud9 are out of the major.

”I don’t even know if we’re the best”

Four teams have traveled from North America to Cluj-Napoca to compete in one of the most important and prestigious tournaments of the year. That is more players from the American region attending a major than ever before. Seang@res thinks this means the region is getting stronger and stronger.
– I’m don’t even know if we’re the best team in North America any more. It’s so close between us, Counter Logic Gaming, Luminosity and Team Liquid. Liquid actually should have beaten Virtus.Pro, they played freaking great. I was watching and cheering them on. That was an insane match and I think with a little bit more experience they’d win that match.

Coaching – the future for CS

Seang@res is 27 years old and one of the older players in the CS climate, but he does not think age matters at all for any of the currently competing teams. In the future, however, he is open to stepping down as a player and assume the position of a coach. He believes that’s the future for CS.
– It’s still in such a beta stage right now, as far as that goes. At home you can obviously join a server and click on everyone’s screens and really emerse yourself in the game.
– That’s what a lot of people don’t understand when commenting on forums about coaches, that you’re emersed in the game and can see and hear everything. When you’re behind a group of people – like Sergey ”starix” Ischuk in Na’vi for example – you’re not in the game, you’re two feet behind them. So much stuff is going on in your peripheral vision that you may lose focus. It’s a totally different game when you’re standing behind. I have never done it so I can’t speak to if I would be good at doing it, but I definitely think that if someone were to grow into that role, that would shape the scene of the future.

So kind of a sixth player?
– Exactly. Someone behind that’s basically making calls for people that are bad at making calls, that control the economy. A lot of the stuff that Jakub ”kuben” Gurczynski, Starix and Viktor ”vuggo” Jendeby does. They do great things for their teams and it’s literally like playing 6 vs 5.

A while back Fragbite.se revealed a rumor that Swedish super star Christopher ”GeT_RiGhT” Alesund is to leave his Ninjas in Pyjamas and join forces with Cloud9 in North America. Seang@res does not want to comment on that rumor. If any changes are approaching in the american line up is for the future to tell, right now all focus is on the major.