StayNaughty on texting C9’s CEO, his grindset and more

StayNaughty and Cloud9 arrive in Mannheim looking to build on an impressive performance at the ALGS Split 1 Playoffs. They exceeded everyone's expectations as a newly formed team, performing incredibly well on their way to a sixth place finish. This performance also secured their spot at the ALGS Championship.

The team watched from home at the recent Esports World Cup, having failed to qualify for the event.

Cloud9 and StayNaughty, like all other teams, have had to quickly adapt after the Season 22 patch. For Naughty, ChaoticMuch and Saucerorr that has meant a shuffle of roles to fit the new legends. StayNaughty has moved to playing Bangalore, typically the more aggressive role on the team.

How is he finding the adjustment?

"Definitely been a little bit of work. It's more of a comfortability thing because I was pretty comfortable with a Sauce, who's the IGL, just playing Bang, calling, "let's push this", then smoking the proper things or whatever. Now he has to that relay information from Crypto to me, then I sort of have to factor or I process a way to make the play as low risk as possible by using my util.

"It's definitely good though because I am a controller player, so I get to do a little more damage than he would. But, you know, it's working pretty well for us, I'd say."

One of the Season 22 changes outside of meta adjustments was a change to Aim Assist. Aim Assist was reduced by 25%, from '0.4' to '0.3'. On paper this sounds like a lot, but how is it actually impacting a player like StayNaughty?

"When I first downloaded the update and started playing, I felt the impact a little bit, but not too much.The impact is designed to affect rotational Aim Assist, which is when someone's strafing. If they strafe too fast, it won't track them I guess as easily as it would have before.

"If you keep the right strafe there isn't much of a difference really.  Especially with close range. It's still the same controller, aimbot kind of thing."

StayNaughty feels that these changes have brought the balance between inputs to a nice balance. However, only in competitive. For casual players, he feels controller is still the way forward.

"I think controller is going to top 'M&K' on a casual level still. I don't think it's been nerfed enough to sort of sway that much on a casual level, for ranked not competitive. I'd still say jump on controller unless you're coming from playing Mouse and Keyboard in a different game. If you already have the foundations I'd say stick with it. Only after the nerf though."

StayNaughty is perhaps known the most for being an absolute grinder. He went through a phase of streaming almost every single waking hour. Grinding hour, after hour, after hour. He's developed a new approach since his 'grind era'.

What is behind his more balanced approach to the game?

"It's important to actually have a balance and be responsible if you're a pro player. You need to have that balance and play, get your foundations and your mechanics as good as possible. Then focus on the vod review and other things outside of the game.

"When I was grinding I was riding off the hype of playing Valkyrie and Bloodhound and absolutely dominating. I was easily top two on controller at the time. Now obviously a bunch of new controllers have come in, some are just as good if not better.

"The whole point of mu grind was mainly for my stream.  I did love what I did at the time, but it got too much to me. It was just way too much. I couldn't play that much anymore. It was just overload for my brain.

"Especially it would translate to comp, because in ranked it's a whole other game. You're fighting against Revenants and Conduits. Then you go to comp and you're fighting Cryptos and the Newcastles, it's like what the heck!"

It's not just grinding that StayNaughty is synonymous with. He's also hugely synonymous with Cloud9, having been signed by the organisation not once but twice. You won't believe how his second spell on Cloud9 came about.

"I love C9, you know, shout out Jack, CEO of the org. He's the coolest dude I ever met. I have the same manager from back when I was signed with Zach too. So it's sort of the same vibe. They definitely are focusing a lot more on Apex now, which is really good. There's a whole bunch of content they're putting out. They definitely care a lot about Apex, care about the players especially. They treat us amazingly.

"Believe it or not, the story behind that is I messaged Jack, I was like, yo, I got this new team, I know we're gonna do really well. And then Jack was like, yeah, dude, let's go. Like he was just super all about it!

"From that they signed us and we ended up qualifying for the LAN and getting sixth place. And it was our first time playing together, we were the newest team at the time and we did the best out of all the new teams. We're like the third best American team right now, which is pretty pretty big accomplishment going into this LAN."

To pick up a team just because StayNaughty suggested it is a huge show of faith from Cloud9. What sort of impact does having that backing do for Naughty?

"It almost like 'double locked me in'. You know how my old thing is like, you gotta be locked, you gotta lock in if you throw a game, whatever. So it definitely motivated me even more. I'm a super motivated person, but that even raised my motivation, which is pretty cool to like have felt. Because I'm always motivated, but to feel more passion, you know, it's pretty cool."

StayNaughty will look to repay Cloud9's faith as the as the ALGS Split 2 Playoffs heat up in Mannheim.