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This past weekend TSM lost in the finals of the NA First Strike, falling to 100 Thieves in a 3-1 series.
Although they lost, TSM still came out with their heads held high, after earning 2nd place at the very Riots inaugural Valorant tournament.
We reached out to TSM Tayler "Drone" Johnson to get his thoughts about the NA First Strike and his overall experience in the Valorant scene so far.
Sportskeeda: What went wrong for TSM in the finals at the NA First Strike?
TSM Drone: Everything they did was within our realm of understanding of them as a team, so nothing they did really caught us off guard or surprised us. What was really lacking from us was our responses to what they did.
We got into it knowing what we wanted to do, but we just didn’t execute on what we wanted, and it was just poor play all around hesitations and stuff like that lead to breakdowns in communication that led to a, still close, but not great feeling losses.
So you felt like it was an execution failure, not a strategic one?
We never felt like they really outplayed us. In the sense that they outclassed us or moved around the map better than us, we knew what they wanted to do coming into the series.
They played it exactly like we expected them to — we just couldn’t capitalize on that.
Your team obviously looked strongest on Ascent, the map that you won. What did you feel went right on split that you couldn’t quite capture on the other maps played in this series?
More fluid play from us, especially on our attack side. We executed on our plans well, and we didn’t do it with question or doubt, we just went straight into the strat, and it would work. And we knew it would work, because it was something that we had already planned ahead of time. I think we just played more fluidly as a team, more dynamic, and faster overall.
You also seemed really comfortable on Split. Would you say that’s a good map for you?
Myself personally, yeah relatively comfortable. I always feel really confident on Split, because I feel like, and obviously this isn’t true it’s just my mentality,
I feel like I have played against everything that can be played against my position, so I kind of have a response for everything and felt ready for anything they threw at me. As a team, we also felt confident on Split, we felt like that was our map, but like I said we didn’t execute on it.
The EU tournament wrapped up with Heretics defeating the unsigned SUMN FC. Following your experience this weekend, which region do you think is stronger, EU or NA?
I think NA is the stronger region overall right now. I am really excited for an international event, because then we will have a chance to prove it.
Right now it’s all speculation, so you know, we don’t know exactly what would actually happen, but just from playing in my region for a long time and playing against the teams and different styles and seeing their strengths, I would say we are more diverse and just better, at the moment.
Switching gears just a little bit, how did you get into Valorant and why did you decide to make the jump into this new esport so early?
After a moderate career in Counter-Strike at the kind of lower pro level, I felt like the game had run its course for me. I didn’t enjoy it as much as I used to.
There has been a series of tweets going around in the CS:GO community recently about, like you know, if you don’t enjoy a game you are playing professionally you won’t thrive in it. I felt like CS:GO had just stagnated for me personally. And as much as I enjoy the game, I wasn’t enjoying it the way I did when I started.
Then Valorant came out and provided this fresh opportunity with all these agents. They took Counter-Strike and changed it and added some flair. I got access to the beta, and I played around and just really, really enjoyed it. Then when it became viable to make the switch, I committed to it.
Are you expecting more pros from CS:GO and Overwatch etc. to make the jump over to Valorant next year?
Absolutely. I wouldn’t say it will be a mass migration of players, like every Tier 1 player, but I do think there will be a solid handful of a few good players who will start switching over the longer this esport continues to grow and flourish into what it could be. And, of course, [the tournament] today was a big step toward that.
From the perspective of a pro player like you, are you happy with Riot’s patches and support for the game so far?
Oh yeah, without a doubt, no question. It’s easy to lose sight of just how responsive and interactive Riot is being with the community.
Coming from CS:GO, we aren’t used to any kind of developer communication, in terms of like, Valve is dead silent. I have never spoken to a Valve dev, and I played the game professionally for two years. I am not kidding — zero Valve communication.
Riot might not always make the perfect update, and you might not like what they are doing with the game, but you have to respect that fact that they are doing it transparently with communication.
