– Hello Coach Shouta, can you introduce yourself to readers of Thethao.vn?
Hello everyone, I'm Pham Quang Thang, also known as Shouta. I was born in 1991, currently a coach and manager for Team Big Baam Valorant in Ho Chi Minh City. Ho Chi Minh.
– What predestined relationship brought you to Esports? What is the first Esports that you play?
Unlike everyone, I started playing eSports quite late. At the age of 19 (first year of college), I was invited by a brother to Cyber Game to see the tournament of Counter-Strike 1.6.
I feel very interested in the feeling of playing, winning and trying to “plow hoe” to be able to challenge myself where to go. However, I have to go to CSGO, I just started more and more popular.
– What has attracted you to Valorant?
From the beginning, I almost did not participate in any team nor did I intend to play professionally after leaving the Revolution CSGO team in 2018. My purpose is to focus on my work because I am 29 years old at that time (laugh).
But then the Covid-19 epidemic broke out at that time, I also asked for a job and stayed at home to play the game to avoid translation. Coincidentally, this is also the time when the game Valorant launched. Brothers, friends, comrades dragged each other to play from the Beta version of North America. At that time, I had to hang stream on the Twitch channel to receive the code. So play (laugh).
– How was you charming with Baam?
The forerunner of Big Baam team is Steal Your Glory (Syg Esports), founded by Tony Nguyen. After I knew Tony Nguyen, he had the plan as well as the dream of creating a professional team and the principle of “Make FPS Vietnam Great Again”.
So I helped him, build the team like now. I am close to Ngo “Crazyguy” Cong Anh, when I offered “in Ho Chi Minh City to join Syg to try hard?” also received his nod.
– What is your feelings when Baam officially passes the group stage of VCT: Sea Stage 3 Challengers Play-off?
Actually, until now I am still very happy because not only passing the death table, Baam also took the top position and eliminated an extremely strong opponent from Thailand that was the X10 Esports, the defending champion of the tournament.
– What is Baam's most difficult match in the group stage and why?
Of course the match with the X10 Esports. It is the team with outstanding stars and experienced participating in competition, shooting with strong teams in Europe and North America.
At that time, Baam also had psychological pressure to try to win 1 match to have the opportunity to go on because he had missed a match in a match against Boom Esports. That makes me see the match against the X10 is the most difficult match to overcome, fortunately it ends 1-1 as I want (laugh).
– What are the difficulties or obstacles in the preparation for VCT: Sea Stage 3 Challengers Play-off this time?
Coincidentally, at VCT: Sea Stage 3 Challengers Play-Off, TP. Ho Chi Minh is relaxing. Therefore, the members of Baam can only go down the house to buy food, drinking water and not out.
Therefore, in addition to at Gaming House playing games, practicing, studying the opponent, Baam did not have too much to do so I found that there was no too many difficulties and obstacles in the process of preparing.
– How does your psychology and the players know that Baam falls into Group C, the group is called the “death table”?
To be honest, at first I and my friends felt quite tense with this group and perhaps we didn't need to discuss too much about the power of the X10 Esports. Boom Esports is also a regular competitor with Baam and the results are also quite balanced.
And Galaxy Racer, they are also the second strongest team in the Philippines, and own a young team with members who are very high -ranking people.
– Baam played very well in the match against X10 Esports, especially in Haven map. In your opinion, which factors have brought victory to Baam?
It must also be said that Baam was lucky that the X10 did not change the tactics, the way to choose the map as well as the selection of agents compared to the final in Thailand's VCT qualifiers. In addition, Crazyguy also captured the X10 and played very sublimated next to the position of Dorf.
– Baam seems to have lost advantage too quickly in the second Ascent map against X10 Esports. What is the cause of this quick loss?
Due to being too confident because of the lead, the failure of the failure has made people go down, calm down, leading to personal errors appearing continuously. In addition, the two members of the X10, Sscary and Sushoys, also played too impressive when constantly changing from 2 to 3 networks and made the match in favor of the X10.
There are many people who ask them why they do not use the right to Tactical Timeout (pause the match to meet and discuss tactics). However, I can only explain this is that if the viewer, the audience thinks of it, I can think of it. However, with such an arrangement, stopping the match for 1 minute and not changed anything.
How do you evaluate the X10 Esports being eliminated from the group stage? Is this a surprise and the absence of Patiphan has weakened the X10 Esports?
In fact, I am quite surprised with the 1-1 draw of the X10 with Boom Esports and makes them lose the difference in difference leading to elimination. Of course, the absence of Patiphan and the change of the competition position of the team members (sushiboys from the support position to the game to play confrontation and Zeus is the coach to play the support position) has made them a little difficult.
However, the X10 is also not lucky to accidentally use the bug game (CYPE's camera skills in the Breeze match against Galaxy Racer) and be tried to lose in the first match, thereby losing 2 valuable points.
– The next opponent of Baam is Full Sense, the team from Thailand. How do you think about this name?
PTC, Johnolsen or the remaining 3 members are really no strangers to Baam because the whole team has gathered with them too many times as well as encountered in the daily orders. In my opinion, they are extremely strong teams and are likely to win a ticket to attend Masters 3 in Berlin.
– Baam has prepared for himself “weird” for the knockout round?
The song “weird” is not, but the preparation for the match with Full Sense still has. VCT: Sea Stage 3 Challengers Play-off will take 2 days after the group stage, so Baam will have more time to research and change the selection of agent so as not to be captured.
– Which player of Baam made you most surprised with the performance in the group stage?
The team played very well with the individuals shining in time. However, if I have to praise, I would like to praise Crazyguy. Crazyguy had to be the role of a captain, just played but he played excellently and he was not surprised with this (laugh).
– In your opinion, where is Valorant Vietnam compared to the common ground of the region after what has been shown in the group stage?
Obviously, the fact that two -thirds of the representative passed the group stage and participated in the top 8 strongest teams compared to being eliminated early in Stage 2, Valorant Vietnam has made a lot of progress. I expect the future to have other teams that contribute to bringing Valorant Vietnam further.
– X10 Esports has officially become a former king. In your opinion, which teams are the top candidates for this year's championship?
In my opinion, in addition to Baam's full sense rival also BREN ESPORTS and Paper Rex are the top candidates for the championship. Big Baam team also has that ability (laugh).
– How do you evaluate the performance of Ego and Cerberus Esports?
CES has made a good performance and tried hard with snatching the ticket to go after the over-time series of over-time in the match against Alter Ego. As for Ego, it seems that they have not had good preparation for this tournament as well as not overcome the psychological problem during the competition.
But okay, this is only the first time Ego attended the regional tournament. With young age, I believe my younger siblings will learn lessons and improve in the next participation.
– A message to Baam's fans in particular and Valorant Vietnam in general?
I would like to express my sincere thanks to the brothers and friends for supporting the Big Baam team when the team competes whether winning or losing. We will try our best to become your pride.
– Thank coach Shouta for the interview!
