Interview with SAW’s roman: “In CS2, 90% of the competitive landscape will remain the same.”

Things have been looking pretty good for Portuguese CS:GO team SAW lately. Next to winning the CCT West Europe Series #4, they also crowned themselves Portuguese champion by winning the Master League Season 11.

We had the opportunity to interview Ricardo “roman” Oliveira from SAW and ask him some questions about the organization’s CS:GO project, recent successes and their ambitions. You can read the full interview below.

The Rise of SAW

Fragster: Congratulations on your CCT West Europe Series #4 victory! Did you expect to win against a team like BIG and against tournament competitors like Apeks, 9INE, and HAVU Gaming?
roman: Appreciate it! Well, to be honest, the game against BIG needs to be taken with a pinch of salt as they were forced to play with 3 stand-ins. But yeah, the tournament had a lot of good teams, Apeks and 9INE surprised me by not making it to the final day but it just goes to show how hard and competitive European Tier 2 is at the moment.

Fragster: 14 months ago, SAW was ranked 168 globally. What has happened since then? What would you say were the biggest improvements that you managed to do to the team to make it so successful?
roman: I think we just needed to press “reset” in our CS:GO project. So we took arki out of the player role, benched stadodo, and decided to add story and ewjerkz. They provided us with a much-needed boost and made us grow even further. More recently we decided to remove arki from the coaching role and we’ve benched JUST, to make way for arrozdoce on the starting lineup and promoted our analyst to coach, NABOWOW.

🏆 Campeões da @cctour_gg West Europe Series #4 🏆

Sem perder qualquer mapa, conseguimos vencer mais uma competição internacional.

Obrigado a todos pelo apoio. ⚔️#StayAWarrior pic.twitter.com/CDhInkHc3L

— SAW (@sawggofficial) June 11, 2023

Fragster: Right now, you’re ranked 31^st. But you would probably need to climb 10 more ranks to start competing more frequently in A-tier and S-tier tournaments. Do you think it’s achievable?
roman: We’re currently hovering around the world’s top-30 and within the European top-25. We feel it’s very achievable and it was something we were aiming to do when we benched JUST and added arrozdoce. We felt we needed something different to achieve that level.

So of course, we feel we can do it. We’ve played several of those tournaments, we play those tier-1 teams every week in practice, so we know the level disparity isn’t as big as it used to be, we just need more experience and opportunities in those types of events.

CS2 on the Horizon

Fragster: Who do you think is the best team in CS:GO right now?
roman: Heroic.

Fragster: How big of an impact will CS2 have on the Counter-Strike scene? Do you think there will be new teams rising to the top?
roman: Well, since the game will have a lot of changes, of course there will be teams coming out of nowhere. But I think that in CS2, 90% of the competitive landscape will remain the same.

Fragster: When did you first start playing CS:GO and how did you hear about it?
roman: I started in Beta (2011/2012), while competing in CS 1.6 at the time.

Built to Last

Fragster: How would you describe the Portuguese CS:GO scene?
roman: At the moment the scene is in a slight turmoil. Teams are constantly making changes. So I feel they need to find some sense of stability and work up from there. For example, our lineup went through two changes in three and a half years. No team in Portugal could ever do that. They make changes every 3 months.

It’s impossible to build something that can last in this manner. That’s one of the reasons our project and organization are on a different level compared to the rest.

Fragster: What’s next for SAW and what are your expectations for the rest of 2023?
roman: At the moment we are looking to make back-to-back appearances in ESL Pro League. We’ll have the European ESL Pro League qualifier in early July, so that’s very important for us coming into the 2^nd half of the 2023 season.

Also, we’d love to get the opportunity to play more higher-tier events (such as FiReLEAGUE Global Finals in Barcelona, which we’ll be attending in October) and keep grinding the tier 2 scene with cups such as this CCT West Europe 4 we just won.

Quer no palco, na bancada, no stand ou na rua, Guimarães foi incrível.

Obrigado, warriors! 👏#StayAWarrior pic.twitter.com/lwzofy1ip0

— SAW (@sawggofficial) June 19, 2023

Fragster: What was the best moment in your esports career?
roman: Probably playing BLAST Pro Series Madrid.

Fragster: Do you have any rituals before games/tournaments?
roman: I don’t think there’s anything specific.

Fragster: Something you’d like to tell your fans?
roman: Just that we appreciate them a lot, Portuguese fans are very passionate and wonderful, keep it up and stay with us!

Header: SAW