Runi shares Cloud9's winning recipe "We feel like a true family"

At the VCT Americas Leagues Split 1 Week 2, Cloud9 took down Evil Geniuses in a best of three series to go 2-0 up in the league. C9 now share the number 1 spot in group A along with KRU and NRG.

Following their win against EG, Strafe had an opportunity to talk with Dylan "runi" Cade. In the interview, runi talks about the game, their next opponents, and playing with his new team.

[Interviewer] How are you? How's the day going?

[Runi] Yeah, I'm good. I'm good.

[Interviewer] Congratulations on the victory. How do you feel after the game? You’re 2-0 up, what do you think about the season so far?

[Runi] Yeah, so far, I'd say it's pretty good. It's a similar start to last season that I had with Cloud9 and, you know, we got a strong start, strong showing, so we're all confident.

We got one of the hard matches out of the way with Leviatan, so it gave us a lot of confidence going into our future matches as well. And, we just got to carry that through the rest of the season and make the playoffs in both the matches.

[Interviewer] You lost the first map and it was somewhat of a disadvantageous position and then you came back in the 2nd and 3rd maps. Do you think it is because of them having better prep on the first map or is it because you guys are having a bit of a slow start?

[Runi] Definitely, just a bit of a slow start. You know, we're changing our picks here and there. So we're practicing things and it's hard to start hot when you don't get to warm up as much or do the normal things that you do at home.

So, once we get warm and we start having fun and playing our game, it tends to go our way. So we need to figure out how to start the day a little harder and, you know, we'll look a lot better from there talking about today's game.

[Interviewer] You looked really well on Lotus initially on defense, but your attack looked weak. What was the problem faced during the attacking half? Was there anything that was a bit concerning? And what do you guys have to look into before your next game?

[Runi] Oh, yeah. I think the CT side or Defense side, we started off really well. We took jawgemo out of the game, that was one of our big plans, make sure he's not, not doing too well.

And then on our attacking side, he just came alive and stopped us everywhere we went. I think we were also trying to take the rounds a little too slow and we're a team that has a lot of confidence and likes to go fast if we see availability and we just need to make sure that we're doing that better.

[Interviewer] Sunset was pretty one sided, can you walk me through how it went for you?

[Runi] To be honest, the teams keep picking Sunset on us and we're just kind of playing our own game and doing our own thing and it looks good. Hopefully teams continue to pick it on us. Maybe it might even turn into one of our map map picks in the future.

But, you know, that's just one of those maps that we feel really confident doing whatever we want to do on it. And the only thing that I would say we maybe have to change is little things here and there so that we can't get counter-strated as easily as teams watching our games.

[Interviewer] Last map was obviously the C9 map. It was a decider, but it didn't feel like one. You guys completely stopped all of the attack. What was the reason behind it? Did you guys have prep on them or was it just you playing your game?

[Runi] Yeah, we've been preparing Split for a long time. When I first joined the team. They, they did not like, Split at all. They wanted to perma-ban it. And I came in and I told them, hey, like this is one of my favorite maps. I'm very comfortable with it. Let's try to give it a shot and see what happens.

Then we practiced it for a week, changed some things up and now it's one of our favorites. So it just went our way that it happened to be map three. You know exactly what we would have wanted and there was no way that they could have known that, to be honest. Our team likes basically every map so it's kind of hard for teams to find a way around that.

[Interviewer] Talking about maps. What do you think about the current pool?

[Runi] Yeah, I'm not a big fan of the map pool currently either. I think that Icebox is a pretty rough map, I think Bind is a pretty rough map. Breeze without halls closed is pretty hard.

Maps like Pearl and Fracture and Haven, they're all great maps that I would like to see back. But obviously you know, I can't change that and we just gotta do with what we have.

[Interviewer] The circumstances of you joining Cloud9 were similar to last year. Obviously this time around there are new teammates. How are you adjusting to them, to the new team?

[Runi] This team is like a family. Every team I've been on, I try to create that culture within the team, make sure everyone's having fun and hanging out outside of practice and doing things together.

So, everyone on the team is willing to do that, you know, I take, I take OXY out all the time and call him the kid. Everyone else hangs out together, making sure that we're doing stuff outside a game.

We feel like a true family. So creating that culture is one of my big things that I like to do and make sure, you know, we're all friends outside the game. And we're just having fun games and it translates a lot.

[Interviewer] Talking about IGL and you were an IGL last time and now you are playing under Vanity. How do you guys work together or is it like, you suggesting any ideas? How does that relationship work?

[Runi] Yeah. So, very similar to last year. Even though I was the IGL last year, everyone has a very strong voice and anyone can call around, anyone can get around. That's kind of how it feels this time around as well.

Of course, the big voice is always going to be vanity at the end of the day if we need to decide on something to do. But for the most part, everyone on the team besides OXY has like a pretty strong voice on what we should be doing.

And for me, it's nice because I get to focus on my game a lot more and it's showing, you know, my, my individual performances, you know, going up and up because of it. So I have no complaints.

[Interviewer] Now talking about the rest of the season. First of all, next week will be a super week, which means you will have two games in a relatively short amount of time. What will be the preparations like for next week?

[Runi] Yeah. So it's a bit unfortunate the way that the schedule ended up. Well, we had the last match of this week and then the first match of Super week and then have another match. So we have the least amount of preparation from any team.

The good thing for us is that we like to just play our own game. We don't worry too much about them. Obviously we're going to know their tendencies and things that they like to do, but we're not focusing on it too much. So that is a big advantage that we have on the rest.

[Interviewer] You will play LOUD in five days who have come off a great international run. What do you think about the game, what do you think will be the key to take them down?

[Runi] They're a really good team, they always put a good team together no matter what players are on the team. Saadhak's an insane igl, he's always been at the top, maybe the best, if not then one of the best for sure.

But I mean, at the end of the day, I, like I always say, we have OXY, and you know that that's our win condition for the most part. Even when he's not, like last week, against Levi and, you know, I showed up and we did our thing and we still won.

[Interviewer] Do you have a favorite agent? One agent you would choose over all other agents.

[Runi] Pro-play, Viper for sure. You can throw me on Viper on any map. I'll be confident and I'll do my thing, but just for fun. Otherwise, Reyna, hopefully, I get to pull it out at some point on stage. We're talking about it. So maybe that, maybe that'll come soon.

[Interviewer] Vandal or Phantom?

[Runi] Vandal only, never even used a phantom. I won't even if I have a deagle and I picked up a phantom, I'm still using the deagle. I'm not using that phantom.

[Interviewer] Thank you so much. Hope you have a great night.

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Runi and Cloud9 will next face LOUD and 100 Thieves in the VCT Americas League Split 1 Superweek. The Superweek kicks off Saturday, 20th April, 2024.

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Featured Image Credits: Photo by Colin Young-Wolff/Riot Games

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