We talked to 100 Thieves Fortnite professional Hayden "Elevate" Krueger, who along with his duo Ceice were among the three pairs to qualify for the Fortnite World Cup in New York City this coming July.
myst: First off, congrats on officially qualifying for the Fortnite World Cup with your duo Ceice! How does it feel to have the pressure lifted off your shoulders to qualify?
Elevate: It feels amazing! All our hard work was feeling like it was getting wasted but to finally pop off, all the stress was lifted right off. Now we just gotta focus on our gameplan for New York.
myst: Ceice and yourself were victorious in the semi-finals the night before, did that have any effect on your confidence going into Sunday’s matches? Also, how much do you think a player's mental game has on their performance in these high stake qualifying matches?
Elevate: The mentality is a huge part of these online matches. Getting tilted can ruin your run before it even starts. These are so easy to get tilted in because of how it feels week after week and winning the qualifier the day before just gave us a ton of confidence that this was our week.
myst: For those who do not know, how did you get into Fortnite, and how did you and Ceice end up becoming duo partners?
Elevate: NRG Zayt stopped playing with me and wanted a new duo so I was trying to find someone really good and that would compliment my playstyle well. Then I saw Ceice and asked everyone if he is good or not and everyone said he is the man to play with and that he is insane at the game.
myst: With the removal of the pump shotgun during the release of Season 9, where do you think Fortnite’s meta currently ranks and what are your thoughts on the immense changes Season 9 brought?
Elevate: This meta without the pump is one of the best I can imagine. One pumping was one of the most rng things to ever touch Fortnite, and with new shotguns it allows you to do a lot more plays that could originally just be shut down by one shot.
myst: Epic has been highly criticized in recent weeks, with certain patch notes being controversial in both the pro-community and the casuals, and in response Epic has become more vocal lately with their weekly blog posts. What do you think about Epics recent shift of communication as of late?
Elevate: I think Epic’s recent switch has been amazing and the feedback the last two weeks is weirdly nice. I haven't seen many pros bashing the game as much as usual.
myst: At the end of this interview, I would like to say thank you for partaking in this and do you have anything to say to your fans out there?
Elevate: Run it up! and I love you LOL