We managed to sit down with Óscar "mixwell" Cañellas, who opened up about the communication and atmosphere in G2.

The French team didn't have a great LAN debut with their Spanish addition, crashing out in groups at DreamHack Masters Marseille. The Frenchmen got another chance to play on LAN shortly after, coming into IEM Sydney as a replacement for Natus Vincere.

mixwell feels that the situation surrounding G2 doesn't make for a great trial period

G2 ended up losing out to MOUZ in the last match of the group stage, finishing 7-8th, which Oscar "⁠mixwell⁠" Cañellas admits isn't a satisfying result.

You came to this event as a replacement that was last-minute, did that make it feel like you didn't have the time to get ready as you usually would for an event?

We didn't prepare at all, it was literally last minute, we knew we were coming just one day before, we took the flight so we didn't have time to prepare at all. I don't know if the other teams prepared against us, but I think it was a good opportunity for us to show how good we were because in Marseille, in my opinion, we didn't play our best and we should've won against Cloud9. Against EnVyUs we were just demolished after the game. So we took this opportunity to improve.

In Marseille, one of the issues was that the T-side looked poor. Do you think that improved in the meanwhile and with what you showed here?

I think that tactically we are good, we have a good map pool as well. I think that communication is what lacks the most. There are some issues in terms of how to play the game. I would say that that apEX is the star of the team, he has the star role and does whatever he wants, then there is kennyS AWPing as well, going for peeks, and then the others are just filling the gaps that are left. It's a new experience for me at least, the communication in French is not as fluent as in English and Spanish, I'm still learning, that's the biggest issue of the team I would say.

You mentioned the roles, you seem to be lurking on some maps, is that something you are comfortable doing in general, is that something you find is your strong suit?

I think that it's not it's my strongest part, I think I can do everything in the game, but I'd like to be more active, that was what I was doing before. I was taking risks, being proactive, now I have to be much more passive, be a control player that can never do a mistake. It's been a learning experience overall, language, teammate-wise and in-game.

About the communication, you are speaking in English while they are talking in French at the same time. Does that lead to mistakes, how does that work in-game? Callouts I guess are still all French?

I speak English because I can't think in French still, I used to think in English when I was in OpTic so it was fast. When you have to talk in French you have to really think about it, those seconds that you lose are truly important. So I speak English and all of them speak French all the time. I understand them perfectly and of course, the best thing would be me speaking in French, but we just wanted good results fast and we didn't have time to wait for me.

Is there a lot of pressure playing in this team? It's the best French team, big names are in it, you mentioned the stars kennyS in apEX who are also pretty emotional guys. So both the expectations from the outside and from within the team, is there a lot of pressure on you to perform right now?

I would say that there is a lot of pressure from the outside, but I'm used to it. I think I felt the pressure at the first event, against Cloud9, I felt it in some situations I would normally never lose. But not anymore. I just understood what I have to do, where my place is in this team.

It's a pretty weird situation for me, in my opinion, this is not a good environment for a trial because there are other projects going on as well, there are people who are not truly, 100%, sure about what they want to do. It just feels like you are in a war that you should never be a part of. For me, it's just a hard situation, honestly.

How do you rate the performance you had as a team, overall?

I think, performance wise, a good tournament would be winning against fnatic and going to the playoffs, I think this is a failure. We had the game against fnatic, it was 14-13, and we just changed some things that we shouldn't and we ended up losing it. I think just getting out of groups would be a good performance, but we didn't accomplish that.

You picked Dust2 here twice, so I guess that's a map you put a fair amount of time in. So how is that been going, what is the feeling about Dust2 for you guys now?

As far as I know, we came to the tournament and we looked at Dust2 just two hours in the server, we played one practice, we didn't have too much on it. We just knew every smoke, basic things, and we played like we used to play Dust2 before. They said that it was one of their best maps so we just played it, it went well the first time and bad the second time.

I just wanted to ask if apEX calling on Mirage is still a thing, now that NBK is leading?

No, NBK calls on Mirage, apEX just reminds people what they have to do. And apEX calls every pistol round on the team, that's what he does.