ENVY Eggsterr: "I keep telling myself to slow down and breathe, and that I can kill them when they peek"

ENVY came close to pulling off a stunning upset... before letting Cloud9 escape at the end of a totally nail-biting series. Following the match, Evan "Eggsterr" Grady gave an interview to Sheep Esports and spoke about the game. Beyond the score, the Duelist also discussed his difficult adjustment to Tier 1 in VCT Americas, the pressure that makes him fight against himself, and the integration of Angelo "Keznit" Mori and Daniel "Rossy" Abedrabbo into a team that remains true to its aggressive identity.

Eggster: "No Honestly, I was very confident coming into this game. Usually, we struggle on map one, but after our last match, I finally felt like I understood it. I thought we were going to come in and win. We played really well early on, and then I don’t know what happened. Being up 11–5 and letting it slip was disappointing. The series was around an hour and a half, which is crazy.

Eggster: We knew we fumbled map one. We told each other: "we’re going to win", we just have to play our game simply. There were a lot of tech issues again, which threw off the energy. It was low effort in the sense that we kept it simple. I didn’t play my best, but the game plan was straightforward: on defense, we sat back, and on attack, we spammed a lot of rushes.

Eggster: I don’t remember exactly. I know there were two overtime rounds where I had an sniper in 2v1, and I died. I’m not sure if that was near the end or in the middle, but those AWP rounds were rough. The sniper felt good early, but after not using it for most of the attack half and then going through a bunch of overtime rounds, it was hard to pick it back up and be sharp again.

Eggster: It’s still hard to say because I’m changing a lot of things, and I’m not feeling like myself yet. Right now, it feels chaotic. I feel like I’m getting owned, but it’s more like I’m owning myself. I’m letting free kills slip through my hands. I don’t know if it’s pressure, nerves, or something else, but I’m having a hard time in Tier 1.

Eggster: It’s a bit sad because OXY (Francis Hoang) wasn’t there today for obvious reasons. But seeing guys like Xeppaa (Erick Bach), Zellsis (Jordan Montemurro), and even Demon1 (Max Mazanov) on stage is crazy. Outside the game, it’s a fun atmosphere. In the server, I’m too locked in to think about who’s in what role.

Eggster: We take a lot of mid-round risks. On Pearl, they punished our over-aggressive rotations really hard, with all the fake taps and doubling back. Any time we tried to take mid-round aggression, there was someone deep holding the space, so it was hard to get good reads. They played very well against us, but I still think we should have won the game.

Eggster: I keep telling myself to slow down and breathe and that I can kill them when they peek. But it hasn’t been coming through in these games yet.

Eggster: I think we’re still pretty similar. Keznit (Angelo Mori) is popping off the way canezerra (Alex Banyasz) used to. The biggest difference is more mid-rounding and more talking from Rossy (Daniel Abedrabbo). Ion (Ayan Rastogi) was basically quiet, so that’s a noticeable change.

Eggster: In matches, it’s been rough because I feel like I’m letting Keznit down. In scrims, we play really well together, and the results are good, but in officials, I’m having really bad games, and it’s hard to keep up. Sometimes I even flash him, and it feels awful when I’m already underperforming, and he’s doing everything. Once I get my nerves under control, I think we’ll be a really good team.

Eggster: It’s hard, but my schedule is manageable. I don’t push myself too hard in ranked lately. I save my maximum effort for scrims, because I can’t give max effort 12 hours a day. Outside the game, I spend time unplugged—no phone, no distractions, just sitting, stretching, and unwinding. That helps a lot."