autimatic: "At Starladder we came with really low energy"

Our next interview from Katowice is with Timothy "autimatic" Ta, whose Cloud9 come into the IEM stop following a disappointing run at StarSeries. The American player talked about the group stage exit in Kiev, Cloud9's surprisingly close match against TyLoo in Poland, and his great performance as of late.

Cloud9 advanced to the upper bracket semi-final after a narrow Inferno win against TYLOO, who would have been able to come back from a 9-14 deficit had it not been for Tyler "Skadoodle" Latham's 1v3 clutch in the 29th round.

autimatic accounts his recent performances to getting more comfortable with the lineup

We then got a hold of Timothy "autimatic" Ta to find out what had gone wrong at StarSeries and what Cloud9 focused on in between the tournaments to prepare for IEM Katowice. He also shared his thoughts on their Liquid matchup, coming up later today, and the level he has shown lately.

Can you first tell me about your first experience at StarSeries, which was clearly a disappointing campaign, not making it to the playoffs at least. How did you feel about that result and what did you do in between to prepare for Katowice?

At Starladder I think we came with really low energy, we were still prepping and doing everything that we normally would, but it just didn't seem like we all wanted to be there. I think that's partially because we've been going to a lot of tournaments recently and we've been spending a lot of time on the road. But for this tournament at Katowice we spent a lot of time practicing, we had like three or four days to practice since we got knocked out early. Hopefully that practice will pay off.

Could you go into more details, what you felt like was missing or needed to be fixed?

The root problem that we have is our communication. Some days everyone is communicating really well and some days people have lower energy and maybe they don't communicate as much as they normally do. That changes the dynamic of the team, because if one guy is communicating a lot and suggesting that we do this, or now he's going to flash for us, whatever it might be, then obviously we get used to that. And then if that isn't there the next time, our whole structure is weaker and not as fluid. I think that's the main part. Something that we did is we addressed it and we're working on it.

You had a fairly slow start against TyLoo here; while you were in the lead most of the time, they managed to catch up at the very end and made it surprisingly close. What were the issues after the 14-9 point?

I think we were just trying to force the issue, there were a lot of times where we would come up with a plan in the freezetime and sometimes when you come up with a plan, you still have to adapt, depending on what the other team is doing and that's not something that we did. We just tried to do exactly what we said we would do and often times that meant running through a smoke... The context would change and we wouldn't adapt and I think that's probably the reason why they were able to come back. I think we were also giving them banana control really easily, which played a huge factor in us having to force the issue.

You had a great tournament at StarSeries individually, unfazed by the results and keeping the team alive a lot of the time, and here you started off really well too. Is it simply down to form, or has something changed for you? What are your thoughts on your performance lately?

When tarik and RUSH first joined the team I was feeling really uncomfortable, because some of the roles were swapped and I felt like my role was becoming more established, whereas before I was more versatile and I could do kind of what I wanted. Now I feel like I'm figuring out how to work within my role, and also I feel like my teammates do a good job of helping me, telling me what I could do, or what they're going to do. It's definitely a huge factor in me being more comfortable. That ultimately just leads to more confidence. Yeah, I'm feeling really good right now.

Your next match will be up against Liquid, your recent loss to them in the final at cs_summit comes to mind. How are you feeling going into the match against who might be your biggest rivals at the moment?

Whenever we play Liquid it's pretty fun, because they're our friends outside of the game, like for instance nitr0 and steel I'm really close to them I feel like. So it's really fun to play against your friends. But we're still going to try to do everything we can to win. Something that a lot of teams do is they put too much pressure onto a particular match, that's something that I think we've done in the past, and that's not something that we're going to do at this tournament. We definitely still want to win, but we're going to try to play our game.

Given that only three teams make it through to the playoffs and playing in a group with Liquid, SK, and Astralis, how do you feel about your chances at the tournament?

I definitely feel good - I feel better, because we had a lot of time to practice. Losing at StarSeries was obviously sad, but it was a good thing as well, because we had more time to realize why we were losing and we had more time to practice, so like I said, I hope all that practice that we put in is going to pay off at this event.

United States Tyler 'Skadoodle' Latham
Tyler 'Skadoodle' Latham
No team
Rating 1.0:
Maps played:
United States Timothy 'autimatic' Ta
Timothy 'autimatic' Ta
Rating 1.0:
Maps played:
2018-02-27 16:12
Qatar kys_lvl99 
Expected from fluke9 player
2018-02-27 16:17
United States HighFuel 
Tired like sk
2018-02-27 16:34
Timothy "Excuses" Ta
2018-02-27 19:18
India MONKS 
"Came with low energy". Nice excuses, these guys get paid in thousands of dollars and come with low energy. Get these guys some gatorade.
2018-03-01 13:14
Belgium BIG__DADDY 
godmatic is back YAAAAAAYYYYYY
2018-02-27 16:18
gratz to first place, your mama must be proud
2018-02-27 19:08
dobu | 
Mongolia Hakku^^ 
2018-02-27 16:13
tarik: "Our confidence and our motivation are still at a peak"
2018-02-27 16:13
North America noahB_ 
C9 lost confidence ever since losing summit final to liquid
2018-02-27 16:15
2018-02-27 16:44
kissmyass | 
Denmark raaVz 
2018-02-27 16:13
steel | 
Norway S0ldat 
2018-02-27 16:13
Russia baryga007 
2018-02-27 16:13
2018-02-27 16:13
tired of course
2018-02-27 16:14
who care
2018-02-27 16:14
shox | 
France KR1MEZ 
NA Excuses LUL
2018-02-27 16:14
Germany cartii 
Yea suuure
2018-02-27 16:14
Estonia Ballisan 
yea not like they are overhyped af
2018-02-27 16:14
Nice excuse
2018-02-27 16:14
North America noahB_ 
2018-02-27 16:15
2018-02-27 16:16
Portugal PortugueseFan 
Lets go C9!
2018-02-27 16:16
G fuel
2018-02-27 16:17
Thorin | 
Germany Gev67 
Cloud9 tired
2018-02-27 16:17
Choose your excuse: 1.Lags | 2.New mouse | 3.Low FPS | 4.Low team | 5.Hacker | 6.Lucker | 7.Smurf | 8.Hitbox | 9.Tickrate. 10 low energy
2018-02-27 16:17
Portugal RKO23 
gonna make a bind with that xd
2018-02-28 10:24
Brazil vass28 
tarik: "Our confidence and our motivation are still at a peak" autimatic: "we were still prepping and doing everything that we normally would, but it just didn't seem like we all wanted to be there."
2018-02-27 16:18
2018-02-27 16:31
Brazil vass28 
2018-02-27 16:32
2018-02-27 16:32
Brazil vass28 
I like c9 btw but seems they are pretty confused
2018-02-27 16:33
Turkey who_dis 
c9 tired
2018-02-27 16:18
China chineseplayer 
New excuses team ?
2018-02-27 16:18
EXCUSES They're all like 15 ffs, they can't use that excuse like Virtus.old
2018-02-27 16:19
They're all in their 20's lul
2018-02-27 18:27
Xyp9x | 
Portugal CRMN1 
Obvious banter.
2018-02-28 13:36
2018-02-27 16:19
2018-02-27 16:20
It's not an excuse, he means they forgot their adderall
2018-02-27 16:23
2018-02-27 22:49
C9 outjebbing Jeb
2018-02-27 16:24
+1 C9 tired they had to play a bo3 every day
2018-02-27 16:31
Dont be lying to ur self. U came as a regular NA team after major fluke
2018-02-27 16:34
he mean with no adderall?
2018-02-27 16:34
chrisJ | 
Hong Kong Escher 
Already finding excuses
2018-02-27 16:36
Tarik at the beginning of Starladder: "I think that right now our confidence and our motivation is still at a peak, I think that we are still really hot right now and we are still playing really well."
2018-02-27 16:36
Bosnia and Herzegovina discoK1ng 
good excuse
2018-02-27 16:37
Norway SanQ83 
FAZE lol
2018-02-27 16:47
Germany grabke 
Autimatic bla bla really
2018-02-27 16:40
Tyloo from Poland not in Poland
2018-02-27 16:40
they were tired from their flight, cut them some slack
2018-02-27 16:41
can't smuggle adderall via plane
2018-02-27 16:43
Low effort bait by Auti
2018-02-27 16:45
s1 | 
Armenia gr1nch 
2018-02-27 16:53
2018-02-27 17:07
Czech Republic NtonyYoYoYo 
excuse af.Cloud 9 2 weeks era has begun.
2018-02-27 17:10
C9 is dogshit
2018-02-27 17:16
Russia Jheneral 
C9 tired
2018-02-27 17:22
Germany Koowwii 
Looks like C9 will start losing again. Almost lost against #30 Team..They won't reach the Semi-Final for sure!
2018-02-27 17:29
2018-02-27 17:38
Bo1:s and c9 have a chance for playoffs.
2018-02-27 17:42
Portugal BenJF 
they re tired guys
2018-02-27 18:42
2018-02-27 18:48
almost lost to tyloo nt
2018-02-27 18:50
2018-02-27 21:41
What do you expect from delusional retards.NA is known for this. lol
2018-02-27 21:44
It's just idiotic people not having the humility to admit they lost. Pathetic.
2018-03-01 15:47
After this tournament he will say they didnt wear any underwears to IEM katowice 2018 and thats why they played like retards
2018-02-27 21:43
Their excuse is ready lul xD
2018-02-27 21:54
France Deadfish 
get a life
2018-02-28 00:22
Brazil iamXPRT 
I will wake up tomorrow lol'ing this
2018-02-28 02:34
Brazil YoshidaSan 
C9 Is Tired lul
2018-02-28 10:37
Denmark Xipingu 
“Our confidence and motivation is still at a peak” - Tarik at Starladder. *Loses 2-3* “We came in with really low energy” - Autimatic. Do you guys ever fucking talk to each other?
2018-02-28 13:13
2018-02-28 20:30
Why do teams that lose in groups or ever have to make dumbass excuses? Just admit you were beaten and get to the next game. None of these guys have the humility to admit they lost a game. I mean it's CSGO, you can't win every game anymore, like NiP did. Shit happens and you lose.
2018-03-01 15:47
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