A Chat With "Lucid"!
Topic: CS:GO Lucid Interview
Team Liquid is one of North America's biggest and best esports organizations, housing teams in a variety of games, most notably Counter-Strike Global Offensive. Liquids CS:GO team is currently the pride of NA as it is the region's most successful team. Liquid recently bolstered their CS:GO unit with a great up-and-coming mind, their new analyst Hunter “Lucid” Tucker. Lucid is a 21-year-old Counter Strike player, coach, and now as of April 21st an analyst for Liquid.
Sit Down With Lucid
We got the chance to sit down with Lucid and ask him some questions regarding the state of NA CS and his new role as an analyst of Team Liquid. Enjoy reading the following piece!
What Are Your Thoughts On NA CS Right Now?
“NA CS is in an interesting spot. Mainly just because of all the different factors that have kind of hindered NA. Obviously, with Valorant coming out we lost a lot of the experienced people who would show the younger players what CS looked like. I also think there not being many tier-2 organizations in North America to support these players makes it a little odd just because a lot of these players are asking for some sort of support. That's another reason North America has been relatively hindered because you have to do external things just to stay afloat pretty much. For me, one of the things that are really hindering it is the lack of IGLs in the region. I don’t know too many IGLs who I have respect for their system.”
What Do You Think Our Scene Needs To Reach The Next Level?
“I think one thing that NA CS does that's really frustrating is splitting apart very fast. They don’t work on building trust between each other and actually developing as a group. That's one of the reasons I’ve been impressed with Carpe Diem. Which is a team I worked with when they were very young. People like HexT, and chop I’ve worked with, players like that who are able to stick together and work through problems are the people that are being successful. If we had more "Carpe Diems" in North America we’d go a lot further I think.”
Do You Think NA Has A Toxicity/Ego Problem?
“The caveat with the ego and toxicity problem is that its only toxicity to our own region. Most of the North American players have a lot of respect for the European teams, and whenever they get the opportunity to go to Europe they are always very grateful and kind. But whenever they come back to North America for whatever reason they’re a bit harder on the other North American players. It’s one of those things that were not helping each other in the region, so the region won’t improve very fast because of that.”
Do You Think There Is Still Hope For NA?
“It’s very slow to grow a region, because not only do you have to show promise again for people to be invested. That promise is rarely seen because all the teams we had promise in got let down. There's no real way for North American teams to get international. Luckily we have the ECL challenger league, which allows some teams to go over, but even those teams will show a little flash but won’t be overly competitive. Once we have those teams go over and be more competitive in Europe then we will start seeing the revival of North America. Until then it’s a little suspect on how the revival will work. I think there are things that have to be done to Make NA better, but it's all just infrastructure stuff, and it’s all just talk pretty much. But to answer your question “Is NA Dead?” No. There are people who are coming up right now who have potential and a future. The biggest concern to me is that people don’t see a future in it.”
What Do You bring to Team Liquid?
“I think I bring a completely new perspective to Team liquid, just like oSee brings a new perspective. I actually got into CS:GO one of my favorite players was shox so being able to work with him is pretty interesting, and surreal in some ways. Going from the kid who grew up idolizing a legend to now working with him is pretty neat. What I do for Team Liquid currently is I am mainly in charge of anti-stratting and helping prep for matches, along with looking at any sort of thing we are struggling with. Basically, my job is to come up with solutions that lead to victories. When you simplify the analyst role to filtering data and finding solutions it helps a lot.”
Lucid Links
Lucid wanted our readers to know that if they have any questions for him regarding Counter-Strike they can ask him during his streams on twitch.tv/itslucidtv. Feel free to also support him on his Twitter: @Its_Lucid_.
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