Complexity JT: “I’m pretty sure that we’re on the same level as them if we play how we’d been playing in practice”

Complexity made considerable noise during this past offseason as they announced the signing of Jonathan “EliGE” Jablonowski to its Counter-Strike roster. With his addition to the lineup, the team hopes his past experience in Team Liquid, where he regularly contended for titles for nearly a decade, can add a much-needed boost to their own aspirations for glory.

While Complexity experienced a few setbacks during the early portion of the new season, as evidenced in their bottom placings in IEM Cologne 2023 and BLAST Premier: Fall Groups, they did show signs of progress in the form of qualifying for IEM Sydney and winning Thunderpick World Championship 2023: North American Series #2 tournament.  All this brings Complexity to ESL Pro League Season 18, an event most people see as their latest significant test and one that will serve as a barometer of their current strength.

Before the start of Pro League, Fragster talked to Complexity IGL Ioannis “JT Theodosiou for an interview about the team’s current state, how EliGE has been assimilating with his teammates, how he moved on from last season and more.

Working with EliGE

Pedro Romero, Fragster: Despite starting this new season with a pair of bottom placements in Cologne 2023 and BLAST Fall Groups, you guys recently picked up promising results such as qualifying for IEM Sydney and winning the Thunderpick North American series. At this moment in time, as we’re into the new season, ow are you viewing the team’s progress so far? What are some of the positives and negatives that you’ve seen out of this team?

Ioannis “JT” Theodosiou: After the first two events, we’ve had a whole month of practice and NA tournaments. Obviously, we won an NA tournament and had some bad maps here and there, but overall, it went well. We’ve also had some boot camps since then. The team is playing really well in practice and we’re enjoying ourselves. I’d say we were progressing really fast. EliGE is playing his role really well and we’re very comfortable playing around him so it’s been pretty good.

Fragster: It’s basically the biggest thing that happened for this team what with the inclusion of EliGE. How has it been adapting with him on board? Has it been more of him adjusting to you guys or you adjusting to him?

JT: It was a bit slow at the start, to be honest. The first two events didn’t go too well, but after we played a play a lot together, we’re pretty comfortable now. It’s about both of us trying to get comfortable with each other, especially with the calling and the system that we’re using and I think we’ve achieved getting the best of both worlds now.

Fragster: You mentioned the system that you guys have been working on. Exactly what it is within that system is going on? Also, how has the communication and the distribution of calling been between you and EliGE in addition to the rest of the team?

JT: I think Liquid had a much more rigid system than we did so I think it took some adjusting for EliGE to take some of the freedom that we’re giving him and make the calls that he wants to do and stuff like that. We have a lot more freedom on the things that we’re doing even though we do have a system and we do have strategies and how we like to play the map, but we do have a lot more room for players to make their own plays and have their own freedom. In time, with that, all you just getting much more comfortable and he’s been playing really well in practice games so I’m hoping that it transitions to matches.

Fragster: There was one particular quote that he said about him joining the team with HLTV and how he views the goals for this team. He said “their goal was just to make the Major. My expectations are going to be higher than that.” How has he changed the environment in lieu of those expectations that he set for the team?

JT: EliGE is a really hard worker so him just being around them and being with the team has made everyone just put more time into it and also be more hard on ourselves and make sure that we’re always progressing. He’s someone that always looks back and make sure that we keep fixing our mistakes. For us now, our goals are just to win whatever tournament we attend. That’s always been EliGE’s goal and in Liquid as well. We’ve always been like that but we’ve taken more to it now. If we attended a tournament then we’re gonna be there to win and if we don’t win, we’re going to be disappointed. That can be a good and a bad thing but I’m very happy with it now because we’re progressing way faster than we ever did so it’s been a positive impact.

Moving on from the 2022-23 season

Fragster: Looking back to before the roster change, the team didn’t put up a good showing earlier this calendar in which it placed bottom in the Paris Major. What do you think was the reason for the team’s struggles prior to this new season?

JT: There’s a lot of reasons. Obviously, we have to take some responsibility in ourselves for just not doing a good enough job, but there’s been some things that went out of our control that’s impacted us. Obviously, being an NA team has been a little bit of a struggle with all the travel and not having optimal practice when we were back home. That was a big one. We were just not putting in enough work but we are working way harder now and that’s gonna make a big change and I think we should have been doing that the whole time. Obviously, we were putting in the hours but right now we’re just putting in so much more and I think it’s gonna help us a lot.

Fragster: And I guess the main goal for this team has been to build that synergy to reach the kind of level you guys are aspiring to make? Has that been the emphasis for the team? Or has there been other factors that you guys have been focusing on besides that?

JT: The emphasis at the start was just to add as much as we can from both our game and EliGE’s game and then try to put that together. It was really hard to stop but now that we’ve got our ideas together and we’re all on the same page. I think the emphasis can start changing towards reviewing what we’re doing instead of adding so many things because we have a pretty big playbook now and I think that’s one of our strengths that I’m hoping we can show that at the tournament.

Complexity in ESL Pro League Season 18

 

Fragster: Looking at the team’s place in Group D, it features Cloud9, Team Liquid, Virtus.pro and G2. Where do you think the team stands in relation to the other teams within this group at this moment in time?

JT: For me, we can beat any of these teams. I’m pretty sure that we’re on the same level as them if we play how we’d been playing in practice, obviously. We haven’t found the results before this tournament so it’s a little hard to say that but we’ve been playing pretty well, in my opinion, in practice, and I’m pretty sure we’ll show that in the tournament.

Fragster: I remember looking at your X account [formerly Twitter], you put up a Tweet that just said “Hakuna Matata.” I’m wondering what that Tweet was for.

JT: It didn’t mean anything. I was just bored, honestly. I wouldn’t look into it more than that.

Fragster: I thought that was meant to be something about how people might be worried about how the team had performed but you put it out as if saying “not to worry.” I thought that was going to be the case.

JT: Nah, I was just bored. I liked the movie when I was a kid. That was all that was.

Fragster: Looking at your opponent 9INE, what do you think about that team as your first obstacle in this tournament?

JT: I like them as a team. They’ve been together for quite a while and I’ve watched all of their games. They play really well and I can tell that they enjoy playing together. For us, it’ll be a good matchup. I think we clash pretty well with them and I’m pretty sure that we can come up with a win, obviously. But yeah, it’ll be a fun game and the map pool will be a fun game to play as well so we’ll have to wait and see.

Fragster: Any particular team within this group that you’re most looking forward to facing outside of this first encounter regardless of how the team performs from here on out?

JT: Honestly, I don’t really care too much about who we play so doesn’t really matter to me who’s the next opponent. We’ll just take it game by game for me. It doesn’t really matter too much.

Fragster: What’s gonig to be your expectations for this team performance-wise and placement-wise. Where do you see the bar for Complexity in its current form and in this tournament?

JT: Obviously, we’re going for the win. We want to be the number one team, but goal-wise, we want to try and get to top four or top eight, somewhere out there, and just keep trying to improve and keep looking at what our mistakes are. Obviously, winning the whole tournament is a bit of a stretch since one of us are kind of inexperienced in that kind of thing, but just place as high as we can–hopefully top four or top eight–and from there, just go for the win.

Feature Image Credit: Joao Ferreira/PGL