pre-interview chitchat]
Semphis: We revamped a lot their calls for T-side, I only had a week with them
Launders: Oh what, really?!
Semphis: Yea
Launders: You weren't with them longer than that?
Semphis: Well I did some stuff online but I got more done in the week than
Launders: Oh just as pure LAN prep

Launders: Hey I'm here with Semphis, in a unique position in CS right now, coaching and playing at the same time so I guess we'll touch on a little bit of both. I guess at first my first question for you is coming out of Cloud9, right before that happened can you maybe talk about how that went down? I know you did that interview with Thorin and during that interview Thorin knew that there was going to be a roster change to happen or something like that so it seemed like a bit of a blindside, is that true?
Semphis: Yea kinda I knew there was gonna be changes in the team eventually. I didn't think they would do it as poorly as they did but CS is CS, if they didn't think I was good enough to win they removed me right?

Launders: Did they tell you why or..?
Semphis: No the part that pissed me off is that I wouldn't have been apposed to a roster change because in my opinion we had been having pretty bad results for a while, there's only so much until an org or, what do you do. Even if it isn't the fault of someone maybe you just need like a new, fresh start and if they wouldn't have told me that I would've been fine you know just like "yo, whatever we don't think you're bad" or however they wanna do it but it was just like I was messaging them on Steam and no one was replying to me and I started hearing from other people that me and Shahzam were getting cut, I mean I knew shahzam were probably getting cut, I mean that's kinda obvious but the fact that no one was talking to me about Shahzam getting cut made me realize pretty quickly which was why I started messaging them, I just felt like i had deserved more than that after playing with someone for five years
Launders: You 100% did, I think a lot of shade is thrown with orgs
Semphis: Yea and I mean they never even gave me a clear answer as to why so I mean, I'm not gonna like hate them all forever, but I mean I don't think it was done properly, everytime I've cut anyone from my team I've told them straight up and I haven't shaded it. When we cut anger from our team we told him before the ESEA LAN even and that's another funny thing, I think if they would've cut Shahzam and me before ESEA LAN, that would've been best case because then we would just be free and we would've done whatever we wanted and we probably would've done better to be honest as funny as that sounds.

Launders: And by that you mean between seasons?
Semphis: No I just mean more like if they actually had the plans before ESEA which I believe they did and would've let me and Shahzam know it wasn't working out, we're gonna part ways after ESEA, unless they were giving it one last chance, if that's how it was then I don't know but if that's how it was then fair enough but if they were planning to do it... because when a dead team plays at a tournament, they always do good because no one has any cares, if Shahzam wants to peek something with an AWP, his automatic thought it "yea why not", like I'm not playing with them, you can't cut me I'm already cut. Generally when people play it's because they're trying to play within a limit, ya know..?

Launders: Did you happen to watch the envyus match today?  Maybe there's some truth to those rumors?
Semphis: Yea, I mean I've heard the rumors, I was kinda standing behind them... they weren't talking at all, somethings happening in the team, they weren't comming at all, they weren't even doing the dead thing like they're dead and they're still trying, they're all just going for aim battles, usually when a team is dead they still wanna win, you're still playing for money right so even if the team isn't playing at the next tournament, usually people will still just start going crazy and just going "whatever I'm just gonna push this, I'm just gonna fight here, maybe I'll buy an AWP" ya know..
Launders: Isn't that what happened with Steel when he wanted to leave iBUYPOWER?
Semphis: Yea that's where we always got "the power of the dead team". We had it at ESEA LAN when we beat NiP, Virtus Pro, and NaVi. That was when anger was cut before the LAN, Steel saying he was going to quit to iBUYPOWER, they did really well at two or three LANS. Always think there is some sort of power to that, as long as everyone is still trying obviously, if people are actually emo and they're literally just... kinda doing what Envy was doing, that was kinda crazy I guess, they go to enough LANs I guess it doesn't matter. When you're NA and you have excluded LANs even if you're cut you still wanna win them and make your worth known to other teams I guess? I don't know

Launders: So how is that transition period to not being on a team, being shaded and not having time to repair for yourself, and finding yourself on Nihilum with Hiko, is that something that you just got right to talking about?
Semphis: Well Hiko's super team kinda fell through and obviously me and Hiko have always been pretty good friends even when we left, I'm not gonna say I talk to him every single day and we're always chatting but we've always done well on teams together and you know he had been out of the competitive scene for like six months, took a season off so I was kinda like "yea this new team has potential and stuff" and my logic was that it was better to join a younger team than replace someone on a different team, I was thinking about it in the sense that if I join X team, do we magically start winning everything and to me it was (the answer) no. So I was rather willing to try the younger team.

Launders: Yea I can understand that. I've always seen your strength as being a caller, I feel like you have a strong voice and you do have an opinion and that can be good especially for a team that has sort of the fresh blood with the good aim, is that something you thought about going into this team? I also wonder as a two part question, Valens is on the team right and my most pressing question is he doesn't have as much expereience as you and Hiko, Hiko called at CEVO LAN and you've done your fair share of calling in the past. Did you think that you know, maybe there would be some issues with listening to someone that doesn't have as much experience as you guys?
Semphis: No I think he does a pretty good job, I think the problem originally was when I originally joined to team it was, a lot of teams have this problem is they copy a teams strat or they have a team for an idea for a strat and they think "this is a super sick strat" and it might be right? Like it might be a really good strat but the problem is you don't go in the first 15 seconds of the round and execute your strat cause then you're running through smokes, you have full nades left, it's easy to over rotate when there's five smokes coming over the wall on mirage or cache, so I was trying to make it more where you default then you come back then do the strat you know like more map control then obviously a little bit of the aggressive force buy and that kind of stuff but in general I think the problem that any caller has with me is whenever I suggest something like a force buy or I say this might work, a lot of times the way I say it, my voice is commanding so no one ever says no to me and it's rare that I call something and someone says no, and I'm like "no we should do it" I'm just like you're the caller, final judgement is yours you know.

Launders: What you're saying is it can be pretty easy to call over Seangares in that regard right?
Semphis: Yea that's my main issue with him, it worked for years in 1.6 I used to always give ideas and it worked and then in GO the same thing. The ESL comms were kinda funny in my opinion, I don't even care, we were all on adderall [laughs]
Launders: Really? [laughs]
Semphis: I don't even give a fuck, like its pretty obvious if you listen to the comms, I don't know people can hate it or whatever.
Launders: Everyone does adderall at ESEA LAN right?
Semphis: Yea
Launders: Just throwing that out there for the fans, that's how ya get good
Semphis: And you can hear it in the comms right, that's what was so funny to me like shit comms so hectic like yea, so yea that might clear up some of the questions of why it was like that.

Launders: So in Nihilum you've had a couple of roster changes since you and Hiko have joined, past Flowsick and ProfessorChaos, Automatic has left the team? Has been cut from the team?
Semphis: Yea that was a mutual thing, it wasn't like we straight up cut automatic or anything like that, it was more he didn't feel like he was doing... the problem was that Hiko, me and, Sancz, and Automatic, we were all five players, and I said when I joined the team I'm not doing what I did in C9 to end up being a "support player", I'm not gonna be throwing all the nades and playing bitch sports or spots I don't like, that's not to say I can't play multiple spots because I can, but if I really hate a spot or I really don't wanna play it, you know that type of thing they're like "yea that's cool" so that was like kind of a problem is like, it would've originally worked if ProfessorChaos stayed but then you had Hiko joined and it kinda made the shift of Hiko who plays small sites and he's the lurker on T and our roles kinda got messed up where him and Valens were the ones throwing nades on T and on CT he didn't have all the spots he wanted like either I had it or Sancz had it so I think he was just frustrated and he wanted more of his stuff which is fine

Launders: So where does that leave you right now with Desi? Hows the team composition?
Semphis: With Desi we haven't practiced too much, Desi was on vacation when we picked him up just kinda like when we picked Hiko up, Valens was on vacation like anytime we pick someone up someones on a week vacation so we never get half the week practice so that's unfortunate but. We'll be playing a lot before the Burbank qualifiers, yea Desi is good, people were like he's toxic and he's a rager but I haven't seen it yet, it's been a week so maybe he's just hiding it or something but he seems pretty cool, he's willing to switch stuff on T and CT, he doesn't really care where he plays so that's nice, he's kinda like me in that sense like he's willing to try anything not to say that if he sucks at it he wont be like "hey guys I'm not really good at it, I'd rather play this" that's fair if someone isn't good at something, I like him

Launders: Cool, insanely talented.
Semphis: Yea he's really really good.
Launders: Mostly the attitude that people call to question but some people can be different as teammates. Was Shahzam one of those people?
Semphis: In what sense?
Launders:Much better a teammate than he is from a PR standpoint
Semphis: Shahzam was never talking shit to us or getting mad I mean he's a pretty chill teammate, I didn't have a problem with him, I didn't hate him. I think he got a lot of hate from the community and eventually it kinda got to him and he just played worse and worse and you know, that's just how it goes.

Launders: Yea. you read too much, for sure. So how do you feel about your online season in ESEA... [laughs]
Semphis: Yea I mean it doesn't really matter if we didn't qualify I guess, [he's always a teamgame bright?] like you wanna qualify, I would easily have a .5 FPR as long as I qualify for the LAN. Obviously if you know you can get three MP7 kills people always go for the stats, always hunting on eco rounds and they have no armor-
Launders: "People always go for the stats"
Semphis: Pretty much anyone that knows the other team is full eco'ing and has an MP7, they don't really care if they die - they're gonna go get 300ADR like EVERYONE does it, you can see GeT_RiGhT do it, you see all good players do it, like Olof, everyones gonna do it. It's a different story when you have an AK and you lose it to a pistol then you're an idiot. There's certain exceptions I think, obviously I'm not gonna say I didn't stat pad a little bit on some of the lower tier teams but in general I felt pretty confident this season. Don't take this the wrong way as in I think Logitech gear is bad, I just think I'm way better when I have more options like I don't know even though I used the Kinzu and the Rival this season I switched both times, just having the option to use whatever I want like it's just-
Launders: Like I've got big hands **high fives Semphis** yea we're kinda on the same space, I've gotta use an EC-1A, I can't image if I had to use a Logitech mouse now what mouse I would use.
Semphis: And like I said their sensors are super good, they're really accurate and stuff but if you don't like the shape of something then what do you do? That's how I felt at least, I don't know. Like I said I'm not hating them, they're great gear, they've got a great product but if you don't like something you don't like it.
Launders: Yea that's the deal with mice, they all have perfect sensors but different shapes so it's all pretty interesting. I think that's about it man! Just want to thank you for the interview, it's great to get some questions answered-
Semphis: Not a problem
Launders: And congrats on the win!