Liquid.Scoom: «I think PUBG will have its spot in the esports»

First of all, can you introduce yourself?

I`m Keiron Prescott, my nickname is Scoom and I'm playing PUBG for Team Liquid. I`m from Gibraltar

How did you came into PUBG?

I used to play almost all possible Battle Royal games, also was playing H1Z1 by the way as well. As soon as PUBG came out I was already playing, because Brendon PLAYERUKNOWN Grin give me a key, so I was able to play in early days of alpha. He introduced me, so I started playing it from the first days.

For you, is PUBG the best Battle Royal game?

Yea, for sure.I think it combined both of the aspects of ARMA which is bit more hardcore and the interesting aspects of H1Z1 which is more arcadian and stuff like that. So they could combine them together to make, on my opinion, the best Battle Royal game.

About first Team Liquid roster. How did you form it?

The first roster was myself and Molnman. We used to play duos together and we won the first ever DreamHack LAN-event. Then we met ollywood they with Marius (aimPR при ред) also won one of the days. Since Marius joined TSM, ollywood joined us and we became like a three man team and then Hayz joined as as four and then we went to Gamescom. Liquid basically approached us when they heard about that.

After that you had some roster changes. Why?

I think the old roster was pretty decent. We were one of the top EU team at least top 4-5. In advance, we never really did very well in finals. I feel we always had miscommunication and sort of thing wasn't go really out our way after being together for 4-5 months and we just decided to make roster changes. And initially, we had one open slot, Hayz got dropped out trials for a month slot. I kind knew Ibiza for a while now and I always wanted to play with them and then Sambty was a really good player as well. He approached me and then Jeemzz as well. This was a roster that just kinda made sense, you know. The super team, kinda of the best of any other team to come to Liquid.

What are your emotions about IEM Katowice which finished a day ago?

It was interesting. Its my first time to do like a LAN casting of the event for a such a big company like ESL and with Deman who is really well known caster in League of Legend. It was really an honor casting with him, but at the same time I wished I was playing, that feeling of playing was in me. Even I casted and it was super fun I kinda wished I was playing.

Did you expect that top 3 placement at Katowice?

I gave my prediction that Avangar was gonna be the Dark Horse. I felt like they couldn’t win at all. They actually brought that they actually play in an aggressive style and winning two games with lot of kills that got them the win. So I wasn't really surprised with that but they won. I was surprised that Vitality didn't do that well. Pretty much the other team kindaFaZe went 4, decent Cloud9, Optic did the 2nd, they played really well. In my opinion, Optic were the surprise of all tournaments only because they were not announced that good and they performed really well.

What if Avangar had some luck on this tournament? They held the last place in the 1st game and the 8th game.

I don’t think they had luck to be honest. You know it’s 8 games and obviously you gonna get su*k circles. But they played really well. Obviously, they got bad circles. They still got kills, they still deserve. Everyone had the same page, everyone had bad and good circles and Avangar just disappeared within that event.

In your opinion, how much point should you get for every kill?

I think the ESL system wasn’t too bad in my opinion. Like 10 points for a kill and 400 points for the 1st place was really decent. Kills counted. If you look back and see for example a team like Noble, they had a really good placement they came like top5-6 all the time, but they didn’t get that many kills so even they got decent placements still not performing that well, so if they got more kills they could be a top 3 team. So as kills are counted, it’s pretty decent system.

What about the tournaments. Should they have open qualifiers, because of cheaters?

I see the importance of having open quals, because you allow new teams to improve themselves in getting these invites because of all that big names, big organizations, big streamers having higher power of getting invited. But at the same time, like you said, having team from qualifiers is a decent chance to have cheaters. And for the most part, the teams that do qualify via qualifiers are the teams that are doing well anyway. So giving an opportunity to random teams that are just not proving themselves we are not doing that anyway in my personal opinion. So having open qualifiers, I believe its max opportunity to any team to take part. I think you need to take part in leagues before open qualifiers, for example. If you wanna have a LAN event you invite teams that are in an online league like PUBG Online and Auzom. You just invite them based on that and then you can't really complain because if you are a new team you need to grow from the leagues as well, you need to take part in PUBG Online or Auzom whatever. It’s not hard to get into. You just need only a month or two. So I think it’s a better system and then you see if teams out of nowhere are cheating and ruin the games in the open qualifiers

How many matches should be played at LANs?

In my personal opinion, bo8 is okay at LANs. It should be technically more. I mean two or three days of bo5s are probably the most ideal. Around 10-15 matches. For me, I would make more matches because it decreases energy and proves which team is the best in reality. Because the more games you have, the more these teams will be consistent. In online leagues, we play around 15-20 matches. The only issue with adding to many games is that it might be just too much for viewers. So we need to find this perfect sweet spot.

Maybe are you going to go GLL or PGL LAN-final as an analyst?

I think GLL guys have asked me to cast their games or to be an analyst, so we’ll see if I am not too busy in the future. I have been playing a lot right now, so I am going to take a little break. But maybe if they ask me, I’ll see.

I would like to ask you about PUBG tournaments. Do you think they will grow up to the CS:GO or Dota 2 level or what?

I think it will have its spot in the esports. I don’t think it will become as big as CS:GO or Dota 2 right now. Maybe in the future, once they fix observing it could possibly have its own slot in big leagues. But I feel right now that it is decent but it’s not at the CS:GO or Dota 2 level.

What should PlayerUnknown do for the game to be at that level?

For all aspects to be good, you need to have a big viewership. You need to have a big fan base and community. Right now one of the hardest issues is the relation between normal games and competitive games. I think that’s the hardest thing to patch. All in the casuals don’t really know too much about competitive. It’s not CS:GO or League of Legends, where any player can understand what’s going on and appreciate the skill. But in competitive PUBG, it’s so much about microplay and stuff like that that normal players don’t really understand. PlayerUnknown needs to add a matchmaking system.

Do all pro players communicate with PlayerUnknown?

I think they are going to hire a new eSports manager because they had two in the past but they had not been to long with them. We have been having talks but I feel like in next few months, there is gonna be a bit more communication with us, because right now they are handling all this anti-cheat system, it has just been a bit to much for them. They are kinda talkative to us but in future, there is gonna be more.

What every PUBG player has to do to play better?

You have to get used to it just like in any other game. Playing solo quad is really cool, it lets you play 1 vs 2, 1 vs 3, 1 vs 4. Also, you have to get in any open communities like leagues and stuff like that. Because competitive plays are completely different to normal. So get a group of friends, make a team and then just play. There is a lot of open community tournaments, in which you can take part. There you can improve your microplay, watch those leagues and matches, watch how teams play and improve yourself.

Our interview is coming to the end. Do you have some shoutouts to your friends, sponsors, fans or someone else?

I give shoutouts to all Liquid fans, because when we are playing they are really cool, and sponsors.