Introduction

My name is Barento ‘Raz’ Mohammed and I am the current Head Coach to Team Dignitas.

Since we last talked you just qualified for the EU LCS while you were still working for Dig.EU. Since then, Dignitas has had to sell their EU Team to Follow Esports, now known as Splyce. Whose decision was it for you to move to Dig.NA over staying with the Dig.EU team?

That was completely my decision. I had the option to stay with the EU team or to stay with the Team Dignitas organization. Both treated me well so I was happy with both. All in all, it was a really tough decision! It reminded me of that scene in Pocahontas where she came to a fork in the river. One felt like a rocky road and the other had less risks. And honestly, sticking with the Dig org felt more stable and because I knew Ram and Odee very well & was close to home so I stuck with them.

So if Dignitas sold the NA Team, would you have stayed with the EU Team?

Yes.

I don’t want to tread into any specifics of Brokenshard leaving the team, but how do you feel about stepping into the Head Coach position? Did you ever think this might happen in the far future?

I mean I’m glad I have the opportunity to take the next step. Obviously I’m really close friends with Ram so the entire circumstances of me taking the role was unfortunate, but I am confident in my capabilities to fulfill the role handed to me.

Also I wasn’t sure coaching was my future or anything, I was just going with my best interests.

Which was backing up Ram as an analyst?

Yes, absolutely.

Did you ever consider going elsewhere in esports? Such as Casting?

The road to where I am now… well it was hilariously long. Even last year was crazy, if you told me a year ago that I’d be Head Coach I would just laugh at you. There were many instances where I thought I was going to be a caster or just a stats junkie for eSportspedia. There were a lot of paths so more or less it just felt like a big adventure.

What kind of coach do you hope to aspire to be?

It depends on the position I’m put in. I was the coach for The Chiefs Esports Club & I was the Assistant Coach for the Dig.EU Team but the scale was very different. It reminds me of how Bruce Lee talked about being water taking on different forms. I like to think that I’d be an adaptable coach, it’ll depend team to team. I aim to identify teamwide core issues and work to improve on that. It’s hard to say until I’m actually in the house.

I’ve had contact with the team already but knowing them online is very different from dealing with them in person.

Are there any coaches you look up to specifically and hope to follow their example?

Well most people might look up to the obvious answers like Delior, Aaron [from EDG] or kk0ma… But you can never really appreciate what those coaches do unless you’re there or hear from them. So I don’t look up to anyone specifically in esports but in traditional sports I really looked up to Gregg Popovich in Basketball.

Who on the team do you look forward to working with the most? Staff and/or player?

I guess for the most part I just really want to meet everyone on the staff and on the team. I’m really excited for that. But I guess working with Joe [Innerflame] will be the most interesting one.

What are your thoughts on working with Shiphtur since impressions of him have been very mixed over the past few years performance-wise?

Well when you look at any Dig player in history public perception is always mixed depending on how well the team was doing. So it just depends on what you really want to look at. I will say though that the negative criticisms are unjustified.

What were your thoughts for Dignitas’ performance at Cologne?

Well Qiao Gu have been together for a long time and they’re a good team so...We went up against Qiao Gu with the expectations to beat them and… [laughter] well we didn’t beat them. There are a lot of things to look back on to learn from. We’re happy to go to the event to begin with because we get LAN experience but we also get to learn from our mistakes on the professional level. I’m happy with the experience. It was what it was! We tried our best and almost took the set.

So will 2016 finally be the year where Dig doesn’t throw at Baron?

I’m not going to make any promises! Haha, I am a man without promises. I’m going to go in and give 100% because I hate it when words are thrown around. I want my actions to speak for themselves.

How do you feel about moving forward into the regular season after Cologne?

I’m confident in our growth & current play so I feel like we’ll show good games in the spring and definitely in the summer. Again, I’m not going to make any promises, we’ll just do our best.

Who are you most afraid of in the LCS, competition-wise?

I would say Immortals are a pretty good team to look out for. I mean I wouldn’t say I’m afraid of them but I’m actually really happy that that kind of team came up. It ups the competition which is always good for the region.

In our last interview you talked about how you watched a lot of the other regions such as GPL, LMS, OCE and Brazil looking for strategic possibilities. Now that you’re coach, you’ll have more duties so will you still make time to do so?

Haha well yeah my time will be cut short. People know me to be a stream junkie so if there’s a game on that’s interesting I’ll check it out. Or there’ll be times where my sleep schedule was messed up staying up for LPL so if there was an OCE/LSPL/GPL game on I’d tune in and look for interesting concepts.

So yeah I’ll have less time & will have to cut down attention on some of the wildcard regions.

Do you feel happy leaving cold Canada for hot Los Angeles?

Well I don’t travel too much so just going to LA in general would be nice because of the weather. Jesus it is so cold haha.

Did you secretly want to move to NA just so you could go to EVO, since you said you were interested in the fighting game scene?

Haha only if it’s at a reasonable time in my schedule.

Any last words and shoutouts?

Oh yeah, shoutouts to Ram, good luck on your future endeavors and shoutouts to Odee and all of the Dignitas staff. Also thanks to my friends and colleagues who are the reason I am where I am today!

Cover Image courtesy of Jacob N. Wolf