Into the Breach returned to Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege in September 2023 and, only one one month and a half later, the team was one victory away from qualifying for Atlanta. Four months after the squad's defeat against G2 Esports, the organization parted ways with the former samurai Juhani “Kantoraketti” Toivonen and Jonas “Jonka” Kaczmarzyk to add the rookies Charlie “Creedz” Footie and Oscar “Oscr” Deacon.
While expectations around a team where the majority of players had made their top-flight debuts between March 2023 and March 2024 could be low, Into the Breach has become the best example that, when it comes to building a project, not everything lays down on experience and individual legacy. Instead, it’s about finding the right pieces to make the engine work. In just a matter of months, the British-majority squad broke into the international scene for the first time after a second-place finish at the Europe League 2024 Stage 1.
Eventually, Into the Breach’s international debut was watered down by three back-to-back defeats against Bleed Esports, M80, and the eventual Manchester champions, Beastcoast. However, the team wasn’t knocked out empty-handed, as they defeated Spacestation Gaming.
Later this month, the players will have another chance to prove themselves internationally, as they qualified for Rainbow Six Siege’s Esports World Cup following victories against Fnatic and Team Secret. Before the team’s debut in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, SiegeGG spoke with Luke “Kendrew” Kendrew to know more about the roster’s progression.
In February you parted ways with Kantoraketti and Jonka as you added Creedz and Oscr. What was the reasoning behind those two changes?
Originally the plan wasn’t to make any changes, but during the Malta Cyber Series event, something happened that broke the trust between us and Kantoraketti. We just felt that all the trust was broken. Obviously, in a team, trust is everything, and if the trust is ever broken, it’s hard to come back from.
Because of that, we decided to change Kanto, and then, because of the change, we felt like we needed to change someone to get more firepower, so that was where Jonka went as well. About Creedz and Oscr, we knew what they were going to bring to the team.
Compared to other teams in Europe, Into the Breach wasn’t the only one to make changes. However, they would go for more experienced players rather than signing young talent, which was exactly what your team did. What does it take to create that chemistry or synergy that’s needed with top-flight debutants?
We never looked at experience or anything like that, we just tried to find who was going to fit with the team’s culture, we wanted someone that we could get along in and outside the game, someone that was going to fit into the server, our system that we want in the server.
I think, in terms of other teams, some teams have made some pickups that I don’t think make sense, for the style of the team and the team that they are. But for us, it was never a question about picking up someone who is experienced or not experienced, it was literally finding someone who was going to fit into the system, finding someone who was going to fit into the culture of the team, and then working from there.
You saw it in our stage; we won our first game, we won against Wolves, it was a bit of a nervy start, we managed to win six defenses and then we lost our next two games back-to-back, against Fnatic and BDS. But we were always learning and always wanting to improve, I think that’s what sets us apart from other teams: the desire to actually improve day by day.
In Europe, teams have some of the most experienced coaches in the scene, with Ramalho (G2 Esports), Lyloun (Wolves Esports), Zheka (Virtus.pro), and Twister (Team Secret) as the best examples. The previously mentioned lack of experience isn't only found in your players but also your staff team. Could you define KangruKenny as a coach and as a person and how important he was to the team to qualify for Manchester?
When Ryan (KangruKenny) joined us the team was in some kind of re-building phase, and that’s kind of he praised himself to be for the entire of his career, like constantly making changes and building rosters, so that’s exactly what we needed at the time, but Ryan is really hard-working, super passionate, I don’t think I’ve ever had a coach as passionate as Ryan.
Obviously, we all respect him and he holds us accountable, even me, even though I technically have more experience in the game than him, I still respect him and listen to his opinion. He’s not afraid to put me in my place.
Into the Breach, as an organization, is quite smaller to the rest of powerhouses in the region. However, on social media, it feels like the team is crystal clear with what’s going on behind the scenes. How’s the communication with ITB and how have they supported you?
It’s always nice. I’ve been a part of a few organizations and I’ve never had an organization as transparent with us as ITB has been. They will tell you very honestly what they can do, what they can’t do, in terms of anything to do with money-wise, they will be very honest and tell you exactly how it is. But, at the same time, they have been able to provide us with this bootcamp in Turkey. It’s our third bootcamp with ITB and the only other organization that has done that for me before is Na’Vi (Natus Vincere).
Manchester was ITB’s first international tournament. How has Manchester made your team better?
The first and foremost thing from Manchester was getting the experience and just learning from that, hopefully in EWC we can climatize more to the LAN environment.
Something that Ryan learnt, and that obviously goes down to us, is the preparation for games in LAN. Every result affects each other and you don’t know exactly who you’re going to play, so being able to prepare for each game isn’t like it is in the EUL, where you know a month or so prior who you’re actually playing. We felt like we were prepared but probably not prepared enough for each opponent that we could have played.
In Manchester, your first victory against Spacestation Gaming was followed by a narrow defeat against Bleed Esports and a flawless loss against M80. How did those results and the pressure of being one match away from elimination affect you and your teammates?
I would say that the Bleed Esports match was probably harder to swallow than the M80 one, because when you lose a game that you probably should have won, it’s a bit harder to swallow. I wouldn’t say that it really affected us a lot, I think we were just outclassed.
Looking back at it, going to Oregon against M80 was probably a bad idea, it was a gamble at the time, we had scrimmed them previously on Oregon, so we probably made a mistake maybe in the map bans, we tried to take a gamble and it didn’t pay off. Against Beastcoast, we got outclassed again and we struggled to adapt to the way that they play, it’s a very weird playstyle to play against.
In the Esports World Cup you will play against the current world champions FURIA Esports in your first game at the tournament. You didn’t play against any Brazilian teams in Manchester. How do you think FURIA’s playstyle will fit yours?
I think the Brazilian playstyle is a problem for every team. I think obviously playing FURIA first is one of the hardest games you can get, we aren’t delusional, we know it’s going to be a really hard game, but obviously we are confident that if we work hard and we put the hours, anything can happen. For BO1-wise, maybe being a BO1 works more in to the favour of us, because we can kinda push the direction to a map that we want. It will be a really hard game no matter what, though.