ENVY Stunner: "We’re asking a lot of Eggsterr, and I think he’s doing a great job"

After securing their first victory against Cloud9 in the VALORANT VCT Americas Stage 1, ENVY coach Dakota "Stunner" MacLeod gave a post-match interview to Sheep Esports. He discussed the player’s performance that night and the development of the roster so far, including all the changes made, as well as the importance of Max "Demon1" Mazanov in preparing for the match against Cloud9.

Stunner: “Yeah, I’m feeling really good after that win. I think we showed a lot of resilience in that game. Our mentality was really insane, and I think the players’ mentality carried us throughout the entire match. We played some rounds a little too slowly and a little skittishly, but we kept the ideas from scrims and carried them over into the official, so that’s good.

Stunner: We knew Split was going to be a hard map for us, and we knew there was a high chance they would pick it. But I don’t think we were too worried about that. We were very confident on Pearl and Haven, and the map veto worked really well in our favor. I think we planned pretty well during the week leading up to this match. So yeah, I didn’t say much. They were confident. They felt like their mechanics weren’t fully there during the first game, and they said, ‘We’ve got it in the next one, because they started to warm up. So there really wasn’t much to say.

Stunner: Yeah, timeouts are incredibly important. I think out of the timeouts today, we won almost every single round afterward. I’m pretty sure. Maybe we lost one because of an eco, but yeah, they’re really important. There are details that you can’t always see as a player on an individual level, and it’s hard to piece the puzzle together as a team when so many things are happening, and then you go straight into the pre-round.

I just try to guide them in the right direction, toward the steps they’re missing in the round things that we were doing in scrims that were working for us but that we weren’t doing in the match. And then sometimes it’s also mental. Maybe we lose a very important round, and you need to pause and say, ‘Hey guys, it’s all good. We’ve got this. Let’s do this instead. Here are our ideas, here’s what they’re doing, and here are the adjustments we need to make.’

Stunner: I don’t think it was too hard. We were set up for it beforehand. We knew that if we won Ascension, ion (Ayan Rastogi) and canezerra (Alex Banyasz) weren’t going to stay on the roster; that was well known. We had an idea early on of who we wanted. I knew keznit (Angelo Mori) was a strong candidate when I heard he wasn’t getting signed by teams, and I was very surprised about that.

So we went for keznit, and once we picked him up, I just needed to see his level of English and went from there. Then with him, we trialed other people for the Controller role, players like Rossy (Daniel Abedrabbo), and Demon1 (Max Mazanov). In the end, we picked up Rossy. He fit our system well at that time, and from there we kept progressing. It wasn’t that difficult a struggle. I think a lot of the guys, especially the veterans, listen to the coach, so it’s very easy to follow a game plan.

Stunner: Good question. At that moment, we already knew Max was a high-value player. We knew he was a great player, and we knew what we could get from him based on the previous trials, when we trialed him in the offseason for that last spot. During the trial, he was voicing his concerns and sharing his opinions on how he wants to play the game and where he wants to go. He can give very good direction about what he needs and what the team needs to do in order to win rounds.

I think that’s really important on this team because sometimes we have too many ideas, and having one guy who can provide a very clear direction on how to get that first kill or how to shut the opponents down is crucial. He really stepped up today. In the prep going into the game, he told us exactly how to beat them right from the start on defense, and we dominated them because of that. He’s a very vocal guy, and that’s super important. And obviously, he also has that star power.

Stunner: Yeah, it’s incredibly tough for Eggster. When you’re a Yoru one-trick, and suddenly your main character gets nerfed, it’s a difficult situation. For Eggsterr on his new roles, he’s been playing a lot of the positions he used to play before, just with new agents. For example, if you watch our old Pearl games, he was playing a lot of B, around Pillar and B Long. So we asked ourselves: what positions can we put him in that are very similar, and what characters can we put him on that play those similar positions so the transition is easier? Some of it works.

We saw the Veto last week from us, and then we decided to change it this week. I think he’s transitioning well. Yoru is the hardest character in the game, and it’s not even close. I don’t think there’s any other agent that demands that level of skill to play at a professional level. So in a way, his transition has actually been fairly easy. You go to a character like Phoenix, who is much more straightforward, you’re pretty much just swinging off your flashes. Or on Veto, you’re putting up your Interceptor, throwing it into the sky, pressing a button, and then playing off it. It doesn’t change that much.

The goal is to put him in positions he’s already played before and get him comfortable that way. It’s still a hard transition for sure. We’re asking a lot of Eggsterr, and I think he’s doing a great job. He’s doing really well in scrims, and he showed it today on stage. Last week was unfortunate, but I promise you that’s not his normal performance. He does an amazing job and works very hard every day.

Stunner: That’s a tough question. I think the best way I can put it is that we first need to understand what the meta is and what we think the meta is. Then we ask whether those agents actually fit us. Those are the first two questions: what is the meta, and do those agents work for us? If they don’t work for us, then we create something new. We can go in an off-meta direction and progress from there. As for fitting people into their roles, it’s also about listening to them. If someone says, “Hey, I want to play Chamber today” or “I want to try Killjoy” or “I want to play Phoenix”, then I’m going to try to work around them and make that happen. Comfort is king.”