ec1s intervew: Fish123’s captain and #MandatoryCup winner

The #MandatoryCup ended Sunday, 10th May with the victory of team fish123. On this occasion, we wanted to ask a few questions to Adam "ec1s" Eccles, captain of the team. This young player, ex-pro on CS:GO for Fnatic and Vexed, decided to set up his own line-up on Valorant.

Mandatory: Congratulations for you win! Are you happy about your performance during the #MandatoryCup?

ec1s: Yes, I'm very happy with our performance this tournament, it was disappointing to go out of the Fnatic Proving Grounds in such a blow out fashion and I’m happy we were able to bounce back, not let our heads drop and come out with a win this time!

Mandatory: You must have a lot of composure. Did you start this tournament confident about your chances or were there some doubts?

ec1s: We are flowing with confidence at the moment, it’s very weird to say but I think we are the best team in Europe at the moment and there isn't anything that can knock our confidence right now.

Mandatory: Regarding the match, how do you choose your Agents? Is it a collective choice or is everyone picking the Agent they like the most?

ec1s: We have had many team discussions about what compositions we want to play and have been experimenting with them in practise. It's always evolving at the moment. Most recently we have allowed Ardiis to use Jett on Haven. This allows him to be super aggressive and make all the plays he wants, as we know he can win us the game this way and we are confident in his abilities.

Mandatory: About that, we saw Ardiis being really effective with Jett and his Operator on Havenwhereas she’s ranked lower than Viper and Sova in your tierlist. But he plays Brimstone on Split. Do you think, as the game progresses, that we will see more diversity depending on the maps or do you think it’ll always be based on the player’s playstyle?

ec1s: I think compositions will be always based around a team’s game plan and this can vary a lot for different teams, we see this on Bind where people are starting to use Viper or Sova rather than Brimstone on Bindfor example. Yes, Jettis a complete SOLO champ so that’s why she is behind Sova for me in the tier list, but we think of Haven as the " Dust 2 " of Valorant: where it is heavily individual skill and giving our AWPer the maximum amount of maneuverability is what we want for him to take a lot of these aggressive peeks .

Mandatory: What made you win the tournament today?

ec1s: A lot of things, individually the players of my team are incredible; the raw skill of L1NK and Soulcas is honestly unmatched in this game. Ardiis on the OPerator can open rounds for us and win them single handedly. Kryptix is always consistent and performing and his experience in big rounds helps so much; he is always cool calm and collected. Also, our chemistry is really good, we partially formed a team for a few weeks in CS. Then me and Ardiis got offers we couldn’t refuse so it fell apart, but that team had the most potential out of any I’ve played in. Another big factor is that we are all great friends and get along so well which is rare in UKCS, well now UK VALORANT ahaha.

Mandatory: Despite this, were you afraid of someone before the tournament ?

ec1s: I wouldn’t say we were scared but we were aware of Prodigy [Editor's Note: Scream's Team] this time, they caught us off guard the last time we played against them. It was the first time playing vs their composition and dafran won them SO many key rounds with his Sova abilities. Until then, we really underrated the champ, aswell they individually dominated everyone besides Sova of Dafran has allowed them to win SO many rounds. Up until now, we have been underestimating this agent a lot. Also, they dominated each of us individually in this game, if not Dom [EDITOR'S NOTE: Soulcas in this tournament]. But we reviewed the VODs of the match and learned from our mistakes. We were more than ready to meet them again on Bind again.

Mandatory: You'll have your revenge soon enough, I'm sure about it. What do you think on the level of Valorant players as a whole?

ec1s: The level of Valorant players as a whole is hard to judge really, you have people with insane individual skill, but still are playing the game like it is CS:GO, so they overall aren’t that good, it’s hard to judge. The player that I’ve been most impressed with so far was Dafran on his Sovaso I have to give him credit even though he flamed me for whiffling on his drone.

Mandatory: Your team is really young, so is Valorant. Yet, you already won 3 out of 4 tournaments you played. What's the future for fish123? Do you plan on completely stopping CS:GO to play Valorant?

ec1s: Ardiis, Kryptix and I had it early on in our heads that we want to go for it early in Valorant and as soon as the beta was announced, we decided we need to form a team to try and "get ahead" of everyone else by practising and grinding the game early to give us the biggest advantage. We knew Dom wasn’t playing in a team at the moment and we already know how good he was so it was a no brainer to bring him in, then the 5th we had a few options really but we instantly came to the conclusion that we wanted L1NK. However at the time he was playing CS for Vexed, we knew he stopped enjoying CS as much as he used to so we waited for him to decide to leave Vexed and then we instantly snapped him up.

What's next for us? We are going to be practising as hard as ever as we have got ourselves into a really good position here and we don’t want it to slip, we are going to be trying to play every tournament possible in the future and are still looking for an official home to represent for the future of Valorant!

Mandatory: Sorry but I have to ask... why the name fish123?

ec1s: The name fish123 is a famous UK CS Mix name that Kryptix and Sliggy were main parts of for many years. Ardiis, Dom and I have played on once or twice for a season or two, as it was a name with a lot of history behind it we chose that!

Mandatory: Finally, if you have something you want to say or someone you want to thank, I’m leaving you the last word!

ec1s: Final shoutout to my team, I love them all and they all played amazing. Finally, we at fish123 are looking for an organisation to represent so if anyone is looking for a TOP EU Valorant team you know where to find us!