&

The ?? ??? ??? ???Irish in-game leader sat down with HLTV shortly after Viperio's gut-wrenching double-overtime loss to fnatic at the BLAST.tv Paris Major Europe RMR in Copenhagen.

Viperio were one of the more surprising teams to qualify for the BLAST.tv Paris Major Europe RMR, defeating SAW in the 2-2 pool of the closed qualifier to earn a berth to the Major qualifier in Copenhagen.

Now in Denmark, Tom "?arTisT?" Clarke's men are the lowest-rated side in the RMR A competition, even being put at the bottom of HLTV's power ranking ahead of the tournament, one that has the potential to send the first fully Anglo-Irish roster to a Major in CS:GO history.

Read more NAVI, fnatic survive UK scares in BLAST Paris Major Europe RMR opening round

Alas, Viperio made their presence felt almost immediately once play began, pushing fnatic — a team that sits close to 70 spots higher than the Anglo-Irish roster on the world ranking — to the limit in a hard-fought double-overtime affair, eventually conceding defeat 20-22. The loss will undoubtedly sting; the team even sported a 14-11 lead at one point, mere inches away from pulling off a miraculous upset victory to start their RMR campaign.

Viperio are trying to use the RMR in Denmark as an experience builder

HLTV was able to catch up with arTisT not long after Viperio's narrow defeat to fnatic. The Irishman spoke about the team's formation and their opening matchup versus fnatic, the experience of attending an international LAN of the RMR's stature, and Viperio's future moving forward.

First things first, give me a bit of an introduction since you were the big surprise of the open qualifiers, making it here to the RMR, and one of the lesser-known teams. Run me a bit through who is who.

The core of the roster kind of would originally be me, Extinct and Girafffe. We've played together for maybe three to four years. Through time we picked up Gizmy, he's been in other UK teams, like 1PIN, and Marco [MMS] as well, he's been in other UK teams. The idea of the team was to pick up some players and build our experience.

If you look at our team compared to any other team we don't have the wealth of experience. We're trying to learn as we go, it's a fun experience and hopefully we can get a few wins.

We don't have the wealth of experience. We're trying to learn as we go, it's a fun experience and hopefully we can get a few wins. Tom "?arTisT?" Clarke

Talk about a crazy experience, the first match was double overtime against fnatic. You were huge underdogs and you even had moments where you could have closed it out. Tell me a bit about going into that match, and how it went, especially coming from a losing streak as well.

The 13-loss streak in previous games, three versus academy teams, was completely strategic. We were actually saving strats for the Major. [laughs] So yeah, that's what that was, it somewhat paid off. Going into the game versus fnatic, it's a British org, a household name in Counter-Strike. It's just exciting. We're also playing against mezii, a UK player, and they have a UK coach, so it feels somewhat familiar and just very exciting.

We're all very excited, I don't think we're feeling any pressure or nerves, we're here to have fun and show everyone else that we can actually compete, like in the first game, double overtime versus fnatic. They're 12th in the world, I think. We can compete, the 13-loss streak was a completely strategical decision. [laughs]

When you come to a tournament like this, as you said teams have a wealth of experience, fnatic is playing Big Events. You don't have that experience outside of local LANs, so what's it like seeing the atmosphere here and the players that you watch on stream at Big Events?

It's kind of weird, we all sit and watch Twitch all of the time, we see these guys online. They're like celebrities, we're shocked just seeing them. It's very strange. The very first time girafffe got to the hotel he opened the elevator and electroNic was in the lift. He just messaged 'Do I speak? I'm not sure what I should say.' [laughs]

We're just kind of shocked. We're just excited to be here and that's all it is. It's a very weird experience to see everyone in person because these are our idols, the guys we watch and take stuff off of, we watch and try to be inspired to be like these guys. So to see them in front of us, they're all quite chill and it's quite fun.

How about when you sit down and play? Do you have a bit of nerves, or are you at ease?

That was definitely the expectation, we're at the most prestigious event in Counter-Strike, so going and playing we kind of thought that we'd be a bit nervous, a bit jittery. When we got the headsets on it kind of just went away, we were just in the server.

We had a bit of a rough patch at the start, but I don't think that had to do with nerves, it was just how we were playing and how the rounds were transitioning. It seems very comfortable, BLAST has provided everything we need, it's just like being at a local LAN right beside each other.

We had a previous bootcamp in Poland, as well, so we're quite used to being beside each other playing. It feels very comfortable, so hopefully it kind of helps.

It's a very weird experience to see everyone in person because these are our idols, the guys we watch and take stuff off Tom "?arTisT?" Clarke

How did the bootcamp go? Did it give you some confidence?

Not really, to be honest. The bootcamp was information overload, which is something we needed, but I think we took in too much information and then on top of that we're accepting all of the invites we're getting because we never got them before. This all comes with experience, other teams might know that, but we didn't, so we're just accepting everything and we're not preparing for enemies right.

We have this BO3 and this BO3 and then a bootcamp on top of things. We're just trying to get all of the information as possible, to prepare us as fast as we can, you know what I mean? And that's what the goal was. Looking at it now, an overtime against fnatic, it seems like it worked! So hopefully it continues.

It's a loss that almost feels like a win.

It definitely does, 100%. We came out all happy and smiling, it's like 'We lost, but we did a good job! Well done!' [laughs] You know what I mean? So it is fun. I can't wait to see who we play next or what comes next, we were all just sat there ready to play.

Do you think this is a big confidence booster for you guys?

Oh yeah, 100%. When we qualified for the RMR, right after that we went into games and we're like 'We're an RMR team, we're so much better than everyone else.' But then we just crippled our confidence losing 13 games in a row. Knowing that we can compete against the best is going to do wonders for any team that's upcoming. Hopefully it stays with us.

It's a loss that feels like a win, you're getting experience... What are the goals, or expectations, or what you want to get out of the RMR? And it doesn't have to be results, it can be anything you can think of.

The expectation was to make games competitive. I think it would be crazy for us to come here and say we're going to qualify for Paris or get into the last qualifier stage. We're here to have a good time, get the experience, make games competitive, give the folks back home a bit of a show and I feel like that's what the goal is.

Having no expectations compared to probably every other team here is probably the best we could have done. You know, we were up against fnatic, I'm sure they're wanting to qualify for the Major, their expectation is to qualify, we're just sitting here saying 'We're gonna have fun. We're gonna go A this round, and maybe we go A again, maybe we go A again, who cares?' You know, we're just here to have a bit of fun and get a bit of experience.

It's a once in a lifetime opportunity for us, we don't know if we'll be back. Having no expectations seems the best for an underdog and I think after the first game it seems to have worked.

We're here to have a good time, get the experience, make games competitive, give the folks back home a bit of a show Tom "?arTisT?" Clarke

You said you're getting more invites, accepting to play in more tournaments. Can this be a building block or a launching pad for the team?

That's what this is, 100%. We're learning each week, even each day, as we go. How things should be set, how things should be practiced, how to capitalize off of our mistakes, the best way we can benefit from a win, a loss, just everything.

We just don't have the experience in the team to know what is the next step we should do. That's the hope and that's kind of why we're accepting all of the invites and we're trying to work it out as we go. It's trial and error and hopefully in a few weeks, a few months, we're much better. But these are the correct building blocks and hopefully it all pays off.

Maybe this is a good place to talk to people in the community, other teams, other players...

Even coming into the event, before the bootcamp, MiGHTYMAX, mezii, and I think Allan Hender as well, they were all giving us advice telling us how to do a bootcamp practice schedule and stuff we just didn't know. Having all of that and hearing it from their experience and how they get the best practice at a bootcamp. If we didn't have them say that to us we would have just gone in there and maybe scrimmed ten games in a row.

We just wouldn't know what to do, so it is helpful, and being at these events and connecting with other professional players... they can just tell you 'Maybe you should wisen up and not do that.' We just don't know, so send help! [laughs]

We felt very confident against them in the server, but when we got to the match point it was just like 'What do we do next?' Tom "?arTisT?" Clarke

It's a shame you couldn't close out the series against fnatic. Do you think there were a bit of nerves? They got like four rounds in a row towards the end, they hit match point first and then you brought it to overtime. Did seeing that you could do this kind of affect you in any way?

I think it did, if anyone was watching back home they were maybe expecting us to do that. I think I miscalled, to be honest. We were trying to rush the finish and we should have just been more collected, like 'We can just close this out, what are the options?' I kind of made a decision to just rush and get the game closed, we felt very confident against them in the server and like we were making the right decisions, but when we got to the match point it was just like 'What do we do next?'

You know, it's just an experience we can learn from and we can show everyone else here that we can compete. So maybe they haven't prepared for us correctly, maybe they're just throwing us to the side, and they should prepare for us.