Chiefs managed to surprise many by destroying their countrymen from Renegades 16-5 on Train. Following the match, we had a long talk with Tyler "tucks" Reilly to hear about the balance of power in Australia, his team and the VAC ban rule change.

The Australian underdogs started IEM Sydney with an unimpressive, timid showing against the world's best team Astralis. After a short break, Chiefs were drawn against Renegades and proceeded to have a dominant showing against them on Train, leading 15-0 in the first half. 

tucks and co. have set their sights on tournaments overseas

After the victory, HLTV.org caught up with Tyler "⁠tucks⁠" Reilly who opened up about their bootcamp, preparation, and plans for the future.

Starting with the most basic question - coming into the tournament, what was your preparation like, what did you focus on, how did you feel?

Coming to the event we did a two-week bootcamp at the Chiefs house in Sydney, it was pretty good. We tried to focus on how we play, our game. We still tried to look at other teams, we didn't go to in-depth counter-strats, we looked at what they do but we tried to focus on ourselves.

We didn't scrim as much, we tried to focus on the theoretical side of the game because we think that scrimming in Australia isn't the greatest thing at the moment, especially for us. We just feel like we are playing scrims to lose almost, and just seeing what they can do against us. We definitely focused on the theory, we specially focused on our T sides because we felt like that is something that is pretty inconsistent for us, while on CT we feel really strong. I mean, against Astralis we got destroyed, but we do feel like we got a lot from the bootcamp as a whole.

In the first match against Astralis, what was the gameplan, what do you think were the crucial things that went wrong?

One of the things that we've learned—we've played Astralis once and we've scrimmed SK, those are the two teams that we've played on the highest level—and the one thing that happened both times is that we won the T pistol on every map and then just got wrecked on the anti-eco. The one thing that completely wrecked us in the Astralis match was losing the anti-eco, they didn't do anything amazing, they just defaulted 2-3 and we separated, went in really poorly, and that is something we really focused on coming from that game into the game vs. Renegades.

Our game plan… we watched a lot of their Inferno because we know that they play a lot of Inferno. It's not really the same, watching demos and playing against them, but we still feel like we messed up a lot of rounds, we definitely didn't play as good as we could have, which is really disappointing. We knew our T side was decent, that we could grind out rounds against them because our trading is really good and we sort of knew how they played their CT side. We did that in the end, we lost a lot of pretty bad rounds but then we got a three-round run in the end that got us to five. The CT side we knew was going to be a struggle because we don't really know how to play it, when we played other teams our CT side was our weak point.

Going into that, they pretty much just beat us, we gave them too much respect, they took map control wherever they wanted, we did a lot of silly mistakes, not using our nades properly and all that kind of stuff. It was disappointing but we definitely feel like we can do better than that.

You were drawn against Renegades in the next match, before we go into the match itself, what was the rivalry aspect in that match like? Playing against the "local heros", what was the mentality like going into the match?

With Renegades, we've played them like twice as a team, when they came to Australia, and this was a long time ago when we had Lightstep in our team and we weren't really good. We knew they made roster changes and we knew we could easily beat them. Watching them play, we've watched a couple of their demos with their new roster and we knew that we could crush them. We knew it would be Train, we knew they like Train and it's one of our best maps, especially CT side, so we knew that was going to be a win for us without a question.

When the map started, you started rolling over them, but can you walk me through the match from your perspective, what were the key rounds and key decisions?

I think winning the CT pistol and then the anti-eco as confidently as we did, we might've lost a couple of people but we felt like we won it easily. And that was completely different to the way we played against Astralis, because there we got in our own heads and my head especially, as a caller. Like what are they going to be doing, how good their anti-eco's are, when they play pretty basic.

When we played Renegades, we did our own thing. We have a plan on CT side anti-ecos, we did it, we won the round and that was it. pecks… pecks is just a god, he is our newest recruit and he won a crucial 1v2, maybe 1v3 on a buy round on the CT side and that was… "Yeah we won this". After that, every single time we knew what they were doing. We knew they didn't have much, they went outside, when that didn't work they would go inside or fast outside and we had everything prepared for it.

There were a few close rounds but our players are so good, we're probably the most skilled team Australia has seen, some people might not like that, but I definitely think so and I think we proved it here by beating Renegades. Even though they are not all Australian, they have the three best players, jks and AZR have been regarded as the two best players for a long time. So yeah, it's a really big stepping stone for us as well.

Things didn't look so good for Chiefs after their match against Astralis

You touched on pecks a bit, can you walk me through the roles in the team, who does what?

When we had Lightstep in the team, I did a lot of work for the team in terms of strategies, thinking about the game and I knew I had a really good mind for the game, so I wanted to in-game lead. We didn't feel like Lightstep's fragging would cut with the way we want to play, and the main goal in the roster change was - we want to come here (to IEM) and compete here, and be really good and learn heaps from it.

So we needed a stronger fragger and pecks is someone who will just listen to you, he will never argue or talk back and has god aim. That is what we wanted and that is his role, he is like the entry fragger or sometimes he lurks, but in a entry style If you want him to do something he will do it instantly and that's the best thing ever.

When we did the move I was AWPing, put my AWPing wasn't as good so we swapped back to aliStair who is probably the best AWPer in Australia, I think he has the best reactions, timing, he is really sharp, has a clear brain. The thing with our team is that everyone is such a good teammate, everyone listens to me, no one argues back, everyone talks to each other properly. aliStair's AWPing is really sharp, we helped him improve it and it's shown.

INS is our x-factor player, I put him in the rotating roles, sometimes the lurk roles, sometimes even entryfragging roles and he just makes plays, that's his place in the system. In the Renagades game, he just domed them. He plays smart, uses the nades well and will wreck you when he is on game.

Malta is our main lurker, anchorman on both CT and T sides. Since changing the role it's just shown, online he's been wrecking people. He didn't have the best performances here yet but I think it might be a bit of nerves, but he is as skilled as anyone on our team, even though everyone is pretty skilled.

That is why we made the change, because the roles we can change people into will suit them much better and make us a stronger team.

With this team and with this win… previously there was some talk of Renegades maybe not being the best Australian team, but everyone outside of Australia regards them as the best by default. What is the feeling now and what are your feelings about the Australian scene in general?

It feels really good because it has been so long, since the dawn of CS:GO in Australia, those players have been the best team. There was a time when the old Immunity team, I would regard them as better, but they didn't last as long and Renegades got better opportunities than them. Even those players individually, they are the best individually players, at least they were and even in Australia everyone still regards them as the best team.

That's why this win is huge for us, because we always look at them and think that we have them, we know where our skill is, we know we play better as a team than them. It's definitely a big win, because it will turn so many heads, especially as convincing as it was. I think when compared to them, that is our level.

Do you regret the lack of opportunities you've had in that regard then? You've had maybe one international LAN, the ESEA GC?

We definitely weren't as good of a team back then, and there was another ESEA LAN that we played that we had to use a sub because we made a roster change, and I feel like that was an event we could've won. It was a bit disappointing but we feel like next season is our season and that all these oversees opportunities, we are going to go there to win.

I think we are looking past Australia now, we know we are the best team here even though we have competitive games with teams, we play them all the time and we know we play the best Counter-Strike, that we have the most skill and that when it comes to the big games that we are just going to beat them. We have the better map pool, we play with each other better so we are now looking at the overseas opportunities, try to get to more overseas events and win them. That's our goal.

You are one of the teams that profited out of the ESL rule change, regarding the VAC bans. There is a lot of talk about that continuously, about the players that got banned for throwing. In general, what are your thoughts on the rule change and the difference between the two things and your case in particular?

I had a VAC ban and the ESL rule change is the biggest, almost a life changer for me. Not literally a life changer, but in terms of a CS career… If I couldn't go to this event it would've killed me because I knew we were the best team. Playing at this tournament is crazy.

Comparing between the match fixing and VAC bans, I think people just dislike VAC bans because they play MM and they dislike cheaters - and I can understand that, cheating on LAN is crazy, it's insane, and I think that if you get caught cheating on LAN you should be get a ban that's longer than two years. As well, if you get caught cheating multiple times on LAN it should be a permanent ban. But matchmaking bans, I'm sure so many people have cheated in the past and just haven't been banned or VAC banned in CS:GO and they are still playing.

In regards to match fixing, obviously the iBUYPOWER players are really big fan favorites, and I do think they should be unbanned. I do think it's unfair that they haven't been unbanned yet and the VAC banned players have been unbanned because I'd like to see them at events, I'd like to see them play and I think they are all extremely good players. And the same for the French players as well, I think they should all be unbanned.

But the thing with match fixing is that it can go deeper, match fixing evolves, like in StarCraft 1 where they had a massive match fixing ring and it like killed the game pretty much, the best player in the world got banned - that's what it can evolve to. While I see cheating more like a one person cheating and then that kills that person's career almost. I definitely do hope that those players get unbanned, I think they should, but I think there should be steps and stages of reviewing people's bans, what they did, have they been reformed and all that.

I owe everything to ESL for letting me be here, for letting me play their events and I can't thank them enough. So yeah, thanks ESL.

Professeur writes for HLTV.org and can be found on Twitter.