Singing in the Rain: Wind and Rain coaches explain how they're storming the CSQs (Road to CS: Day 3)

wind and rain csqs 1

ENUK editor Dom Sacco shares his views on this week’s EU Challenger Series Qualifiers (CSQs).
After UK org MnM lost again, we can’t take the pain and are instead focusing on Wind and Rain (WAR) in this article, who have UK coach Alex “Kazehaya” Hirst and Danish coach Johan “Lee Joo Ho” Olsen with them. We asked the coaches how they went on this run.
UPDATE (May 26th): After they beat Millenium today, WAR are the first team to progress to the Challenger Series Qualifier playoffs.
Original article (May 25th): It’s fair to say that WAR were not expected to stomp the CSQs. They have instead been seen playing with real ‘gust’-o.
The team, formerly known as Polite and Mature qualified for the CSQs via Ragnarok (check out our video interview with their coach Kazehaya for more info on that story).
While Kazehaya said before the CSQs that he believed the squad ‘could upset some teams’, they also made some last minute changes to their own roster to avoid a cloudy outlook.
They replaced Ploxy and Kakan with mid-laner ScarletRedHands and jungler Xani.
 

“Overall I feel like our drafting has been great, and our macro has been on point too. We are looking towards the 5-0 dream right now.”

 
ScarletRedHands is also playing for Radix Esports, who recently qualified for the UK Masters. He’s been described by Radix as a ‘really strong 1v1 player’ and a ‘level 2 first blood god’. And he’s been on form so far.
You know what they say: Red sky in the morning, shepherd’s warning, ScarletRedHands at night, Wind and Rain’s delight.
Check out our video interview with Radix and their ‘free money’ top-laner Kirito.
WAR have beaten Reign and MnM Gaming, and also caused a bit of a downpour upset when they beat Kasing’s team Red Bulls.
They are 3-0 and sit top of group A. You can see the full standings on Reddit here.
 

Video highlights: Wind and Rain cause the pain

Here’s some highlights from the three wins they’ve picked up so far:




 

Analysis from WAR’s coaches: How they stormed the CSQs so far

We asked coaches Alex “Kazehaya” Hirst and Johan “Lee Joo Ho” Olsen for their thoughts.
On the Red Bulls match, Johan said: “Well, it was all about the factor that we had everything to win, and they had everything to lose. Coming into the Pick and Ban you have a lot of thoughts and ideas going which you more or less cook down to one final plan.
“For us it was about switching up our playstyle, and and playing a more ‘protect the carry’ composition. The Kassadin pick worked out great, as an assassin bait, and to out split the enemy midlaner.
“And by the way SRH is a great midlaner, we knew he was gonna outperform the enemy midlaner under right circumstances. The plan was set, and the team just had to execute it, which they did to perfection. In the end, we just wanted the victory more than Redbulls, which I think is one of the reasons we got this one in the bag.

“In terms of sidelanes. On botside Quixeth and Darkside are some of the most synchronized and mechanically gifted botlanes I’ve coached. And when they have a clear plan, and the drive to win, God knows who will stop them.

“Dan Dan on toplane doing what we refer to “doing DanDan Stuff” going huge on the Camille. And last but not least Xani in the jungle, having an impact in 15 kills out of 19 tells the story about how big his impact was.”

 

Kazehaya added: “Overall I believe that coming into this to begin with, teams were underestimating us and that was one of our greatest weapons. But we have been able to run these 1-3-1 and 1-4 comps to great success because we have superior macro to a lot of them teams in the tournament.

“Overall I feel like our drafting has been great, and our macro has been on point too.

“We are looking towards the 5-0 dream right now after to coming into the tournament power ranked as the worst team other than the EUNE team.

“We are really going to fight to make sure that we can succeed at getting into Challenger Series.”

 

Whatever the weather

There have been plenty of weather-based puns and tweets around Wind and Rain’s performances so far. Here’s a selection, along with some other general tweets:

 
Check out the remaining CSQ matches on the UK Masters Twitch channel from 4pm BST over the next few days

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