During CWL Sydney, we saw the two APAC rivals – Tainted Minds and Mindfreak clash in one of the most impressive edge-of-your-seat final. While Mindfreak took home first place, Tainted Minds didn’t lose without putting up a fight. With lots of words flying across the room during that day, I caught up with Mindfreak’s Mitchell ‘BuZZO’ Mader to discuss what happened at CWL Sydney before tackling CWL Dallas this weekend.

Being the favourites going into CWL Sydney, many were shocked that you guys got knocked down into the lower brackets by Tainted Minds. What are your thoughts on this?

We didn’t really let it have an effect on us, we didn’t really mention anything of it but deep down we knew it was going to be an absolute grind to come back and win it. Having to win two best of 5s against a team whose confidence was sky high after reverse sweeping us in the winner bracket final was going to be a tough task. But as I said we didn’t let it get to us at all, we knew we were going to have a better map rotation in the first series of the grand final. If we could get back that first series we would be the team with the confidence. And after that first map of the second best of 5 on Hardpoint Retaliation where we made a 100+ point comeback to win, we knew we had just turned the game on its head.

“We didn’t really mention anything of it but deep down we knew it was going to be an absolute grind to come back and win it.”

The finals was the most intense Call of Duty I’ve seen locally. How did you guys manage to come back after that loss to win the overall LAN?

We knew we lost the Winner bracket final ourselves and it was also due to Denz playing very well for them, but statistics wise the rest of his team didn’t do well. So we knew come grand final time with a better map set rotation, and us stepping our own game up, we should be able to grind out the win if we could somehow get past that first best of 5. We knew Denz wouldn’t be able to continue playing the way he did.

There was lots of controversy about what happened prior to one of the games where Zeuss from Tainted Minds refused to shake your hand. How did you react to this?

Well before the interview started, Zeuss asked me if I was going to be “immature” about it all and I replied with “Yes, because you are fake”. So I proceeded to do my thing and talk a little smack because I know emotionally Zeus isn’t all that strong. I knew if I said a few things to tick him off it would have got in his head a little, which it did. So when we were asked to shake hands, I stared him in the eyes and put my hand out, half knowing the response I would get and I got it. Although I appear to laugh it off, it really actually did annoy me but in a good way, I walked back to my station, put my headset on and swore a little at the situation to my team and how much I was going to “F****** destroy them”. Which I proceeded to do having my 2 best maps of the tournament.

“Although I appear to laugh it off, it really actually did annoy me but in a good way.”

CWL Dallas is coming up and Mindfreak has a spot in pools without fighting it out in the open brackets. How are you guys feeling leading up to this LAN?

If Atlanta was any indicator of how well we can perform against these top notch NA/EU teams I think we are in for a very good event. I think we are over the mental hurdle and pressure we put on ourselves for when we fly over to these events. We now go in with the attitude that we are the best and can beat anyone and have a show no respect in-game mindset which really helps us be confident in everything that we do. We just play our own game instead of being pressured into playing how they want us to play.

Mindfreak will be battling out at CWL Dallas from tomorrow in Pool B competing against teams such as eUnited and Cloud9. CWL Dallas features a $200,000 USD Prize Pool and will be the last chance for teams to secure CWL Pro Points for entry into the CWL Global Pro League Stage One.

Photo Credits: ESL Australia / Astro Gaming