BS: Rob, we lost track of you after you left Team Pandemic and got into the world of TF2 with The Doctors. What was the scene in TF2 like? Did you like the game? Was there a lot of competition?

rob-wiz: TF2 was a very fun game to play. All of us really enjoyed it and wish we could have kept playing, but there was almost no competition for us. The competitive community wasn't big to begin with and it slowly died so it was hard to find any scrims and there wasn't much competition for us.
 

BS: Was it hard to transition from CoD2 to TF2?

rob-wiz: The transition to CoD was fairly easy, but I think it took a little bit for us to be on top of our game, I think once we made the switch initially we still weren't used to the CoD style but we got the hang of it eventually.


BS: When CoD4 came out, The Doctors made a foray into tournament play - you played the Xfire tournament right off the bat. That transition must have been difficult, but surprisingly, you made it to the finals. Unfortunately you played a fired-up and ready Pandemic and they handily beat you. Did you learn anything from that match about them or about yourselves?

rob-wiz: Not really, we just took the loss and moved on. That Xfire tournament was played 4v4 so once it ended we had to add a player and get comfortable on all the maps with that extra guy, so everything we did in the Xfire tournament was changed considerably.


BS: In February The Doctors came on board with EG. Why did you make the move and why EG?

rob-wiz: Well we needed a sponsorship in order to go the upcoming lans, we knew EG was a big name sponsor and had the financial backing to send us to the events so we went with them, so far they've sent us to Nerv and I33 and we really enjoy playing under the EG name.

BS: What is the team chemistry like on the EG CoD4 team? You guys have some real  superstars:

Mark "wombat" Larsen
Chris "ntt" Gillett
Ted "w!$eGUy" Georgoudakis
Casey "maven" Capp

Are you guys friends outside of the competitive scene or do you just come together when you scrim?

rob-wiz: Well not too long ago we replaced maven with deny, a canadian player who's been fitting in very well with us. We are all friends outside the game, I can honestly say these guys are the best teammates I've ever had in and out of the game, I really couldn't ask for a better team, it became obvious when I joined these guys why they've been together for so long.


BS: You're from T.O., where are the other Canadians from?

rob-wiz: Ted and Adam (deny) are both Canadian. Ted lives in Toronto and Adam lives in Waterloo (ed: a few miles SW of Toronto)


BS: Wombat is a legendary player. What's he like as a leader. How do you compare him with other team leaders you have played for?

rob-wiz: Well it's not really what you'd expect, we usually talk as a team during matches about what we're gonna do, he really doesn't dictate what we do or anything, its a style that works really well and I personally like it alot more than one guy calling out everything for the team.


BS: Going into the CEVO-P championships did you feel like you guys were prepared to go all the way - or were you surprised to see yourselves in the final?

rob-wiz: Well at first I was worried cause we had to use anomaly instead of maven since we had replaced him with Adam after the roster lock, so initially I was having my doubts but once we started practicing things were going well with Anomaly and I knew we had a good shot at winning it.

BS: To get into the finals with Pandemic you played The Guardians. This was a tough match and they pushed you right to the end. I think you guys won in O/T. Tell us a little about that match, why do you think the Guardians fought you guys to a stand-still?

rob-wiz: Honestly it wasn't as close as it should have been, we lost alot of dumb rounds that should have been won easily, we just weren't on our game that night I think. We made alot of mistakes and The Guardians played really well.


BS: To me, the key map in the match was Crash. What was your initial strategy on there - how were you guys going to play them? (You guys used a lot of speed at the beginning - but were not too successful).

rob-wiz: We approached the match as we would with any team, just trying our initial strats that we have to feel them out and eventually just adjust to whatever their weakness is, we failed alot in the beginning because they were countering our stuff very well, but we ended up winning because we adjusted based on what they were doing.


BS: If there's one scene in the Guardians match that I will long remember - it's you climbing up on that sandbagged building opposite from the Blue Building in Crash and whacking your opposite numbers as they came at you.

Do you find it more enjoyable to be more of a defensive-minded mid-map player or an aggressive attacker?

I say that, because I also am seeing you carrying a scope from time to time. Do you carry the sniper when you guys execute a slow-Push strat on "sniper friendly maps" or is this a one-off thing?

rob-wiz: Well i'll only snipe if we feel its needed or if I think I can pick a guy cause I have him profiled, but usually no we dont run a sniper too often on most maps just cause the ak can be just as deadly at a range and its much better for the short game. As for what I like doing better, i'll always enjoy defending more and im sure thats what most players will tell you, simply because it's so much easier to defend, most maps are defense-sided  because its so easy. Attacking isn't as fun because you get naded and flashed and it can be really difficult sometimes.


BS: What was your strategy going into O/T and were you guys able to execute that strat the way you wanted (in the end I think you guys clobbered them with set nades and a slow push).

rob-wiz: Well whenever we go into OT we're always confident, I dont think we've ever lost in overtime against any team, we just ended up doing the strats we did in the late rounds of regular play because it was working so well (I honestly dont remember what the strat was that match was a blur to me)


BS:  After winning against The Guardians you went up against Team Pandemic on their map of choice, mp_strike, in the finals. Were you intimidated by the map choice - after all it's been said that it's TP's best map - and possibly EG's worst?

rob-wiz: For sure, strike has always been a map that we've kind of sucked at, fnatic beat us 13-3 on that map so that can just show you how bad we were on it. But since i33 we've switched up our setups and whatnot and it's been working really well I think. To be honest I didn't expect to win that map.


BS: I thought that TP came up flat at first and you guys were able to exploit their nerves. They seemed to miss a lot of shots and they even got TK's - did you notice that nervousness on their part in the one-on-one encounters?

rob-wiz: It's hard to tell when you cant see the other team in first person, so i don't know but I'm sure they were getting stressed out once we took a bunch of rounds early on strike, and I can tell you from experience that stress will cause you to miss some of the easiest kills.


BS: One of the things that TP players admitted to is that they did not change up their strats on Strike - did you guys anticipate this? How did you guys end up cleaning their clock on that map? It seemed you were always one step ahead of them.

rob-wiz: We were just communicating very well and that made everything so much easier, also we had a really positive attitude going into the match. As for the strats I really don't know, we just took  it round by round, made our shots and played smart.


BS: After you guys took the map 13-7, did you guys realize that you could win the match? Did you become a bit overconfident?

rob-wiz: After winning strike it was definitely a big confidence booster, we knew we could win it once we won on our all time worst map. I don't think we became overconfident, we kept doing our thing, it was a close match but we lost almost all the close rounds, I think I lost 3 1v1's which didn't help.

BS: On Backlot, (EG map choice), you guys were rocked a bit early on as Nabore's crew started to rattle off a few games. What turned it around for you?

rob-wiz: From what I can remember we were getting naded and picked early, we just made sure we didn't go down early so we didn't give them that early advantage and then the rounds started going in our favor.

BS: Once the game was over and you guys had won...was the accomplishment as exciting and thrilling as all your past victories? Or was it more special with this team?

rob-wiz: Definitely an extremely satisfying win, it's always better when you're the underdog, its the first time we've placed first in something in CoD4 and I hope there will be many celebrations to come :D


BS: What's coming up for EG? Are you guys traveling to any of the Euro LAN's this summer?

rob-wiz: We're going to Nerv 2 in June, and plan on attending tournaments in Belgium, Denmark, England and Spain