MLG Sits Down with Top Amateur Team from Dallas, Under The Influence
By subtheorist | Published: September 14, 2009 8:38pm EST
 Under The Influence came into Dallas without a pro seed and were forced to play through a grueling Open Bracket. After emerging from the talented field of Open teams, they found themselves mingling with some of the Pro Circuit’s biggest names late in the Losers Bracket, where they would eventually walk away with a 7th place finish. To honor their outstanding performance, we sat down with Dallas’ highest placing amateur team to relive the magic of August 28-30. MLG: Congrats guys! You pulled off one of the most inspiring accomplishments of the season. How did you guys do it? Twylight: Thanks. It took a lot of hard work and dedication. Most importantly, you've got to have a team of four people that don’t have big egos. Anyone with ego issues will stunt the growth of a team. A Pure Gangster: Some last minute practice and having the drive to win. Believing in each other and being confident was also a huge help. Batmayne: Hard work and determination was a big factor in our success. LAN’ing against another team beforehand really helped gel our personalities together - not only in game, but outside as well. Talent: Twylight and I really had more determination after Columbus where we both got Top 24, and we realized what we were capable of. It was a matter of refocusing and not letting anybody else's name or previous placings determine how we were going to create our team. Maniac was our 4th a week and a half before the tournament and decided to leave to join the better team on paper in Believe the Hype. It gave us all the more fuel to play 41 or so games from Saturday to Sunday. We did it with the help of everyone sticking to what they were good at, and when you have chemistry like we naturally did, you can do big things. 
After taking down Believe the Hype, Under The Influence became the highest placing amateur team in Dallas.
MLG: And then you ended up knocking Maniac's team out of the event right? How crazy was that? Batmayne: That was pretty crazy - especially because we were still rooming with him for a night. It felt good to know that we could still do it without him. Talent: After we were down 4-1 on Onslaught Capture The Flag and came back to win 5-4, we felt so confident that it just played out in the last 4 games of the series. They got a late run on us on Pit Team Slayer and won, and also beat us in Game 3. We got to our bread and butter gametype of Narrows Flag and gained the momentum back, and in Game 5 we just were so pumped up that we weren't going to lose. Plus Cloud seemed out of it after going 3-17 on Narrows. A Pure Gangster: It felt great knowing that I replaced him and apparently meshed better with uTi than he did. The intensity level was high especially when we were down on Onslaught 4-1 and came back to win. Same thing with the series being 2-1 them and going into Game 5. The last game we gave our all because we all wanted that win so badly. Twylight: We knew that we would be playing them on Sunday morning if we beat Heaven & Earth for Top 12. On Saturday night I sat outside of the hotel telling D3M0N D and Maniac that they had no chance at beating us for Top 8 for about 20 minutes straight. They thought I was delusional. |
