We took some time aside and had a moment to talk about the recent results and team progression of the female CS:GO team with Catherine "CAth" Leroux. CAth has been performing well and is currently the highest rated player on the team with a rating of 1.13 (HLTV). This has definitely been seen in-game as she has consistently top fragged for the team.

We talked about the team joining Team Dignitas, what the team is looking to work on and what she would like to see changed in CS:GO.

You have been a part of Team Dignitas for almost two months now, how has your time been under the new organisation?

CAth: It has truly been an amazing experience. I feel really spoiled being under Team Dignitas because they take care of everything and all I have to worry about is playing Counter-Strike!

Since the signing, you have managed to attend two LANs and played in one open qualifier. Have you been happy with how the team has been performing lately, what would you like to work on in the coming future?

CAth: We still haven't achieved winning a tournament yet, so I'm still not satisfied with our past results. I do feel that we have a lot of potential and I've come to realize within the years that what really counts is having five motivated players who push to get better every day and who would do anything to improve. Having young players in the team definitely keeps you on your toes! Also, I'm hoping to work on our stress management and I want to work with a sports psychologist to break some of the problems we have when performing under pressure.

In the most recent lan, being Copenhagen Games, you finished in the top four. When the groups were drawn what was your reaction? Were you happy with the groups?

CAth: This year's Copenhagen Games held a ground-breaking record of 30 female participating teams. In the past years, I've never seen more than 10-15 female teams participating at a tournament. I didn't really know any of the teams that were in our group in the beginning, so we didn't know what to expect when we played against them. The only disappointment we had when it came to the playoffs bracket, was that we had to play a lot of Best-of-Three's in one day (where some teams played some of their playoff matches the night before). These kinds of tournaments are really a marathon and can affect your performance in the long run.

The team cruise controlled through the group stage not allowing any other team to get double digits against you. This must have felt good for the team, did you epect to do so well?

CAth: Like I said before, I didn't know the teams we were going to play against. We didn't expect anything less than a win so winning convincingly against those teams was definitely a confidence boost.

The trend seemed to follow up until the quarter-finals where you faced Vexed. On Cache, you did not have too many problems (16-2). However, on the second map, Inferno, it looked like the team could not find the necessary key to finish the game quickly. What did the team do to regain composure and take the series?

CAth: We struggled a bit on Inferno. We are a momentum based team. When we start winning, we are capable of snowballing any team we know, so when we start losing round the opposite happens. That's why pauses are so effective for us, because we are able to reset and keep our mind on what we're supposed to do and our coach can point out what we're doing wrong.

In the semi-finals, you came up against the Russian team of London Conspiracy. Sadly, they managed to beat you on both Train and Cache. Looking back at the match, what would you personally do differently and as a team?

CAth: I think our losses often come from ourselves. Like Emmalee "EMUHLEET" Garrido always says, they didn't beat us, we beat ourselves. We need to work on our stress management and our general mindset before the game. We need to keep our cool and simply play our game without forgetting to communicate with the team.

Train has been a map that the team has not been able to win on lately. Will you be looking into it and trying to improve on it or will you look to improve other maps?

CAth: We plan to master every map. For some reason, we feel that online our Train is pretty good, then when we play it in tournaments, everything we go over seems to go down the drain for some reason. Definitely something to go over in the future...

Arguably, Team Secret have been your rivals in the global scene and they have cemented their place as the world's best female CS:GO team. What is the key to dethroning them, what do you girls think you should do to take that number one spot?

CAth: We need to look back on our mistakes and understand why we lost in the first place, then take actions accordingly. We didn't get the chance to play them in Copenhagen, but I think it comes down to the same reasons I mentioned above, we need to work on our stress management.

Out of the current map pool which map do you like the most and which do you like the least? If you could make your own active map pool made up of the current seven maps, old Dust 2, the yet to be revealed new Dust 2 and Season, would you change it up?

CAth: I would love for the map pool to be even bigger and have 9 rotating maps instead of 7. As an old school 1.6 player, I would love to see the old Tuscan back in the CS:GO competitive scene and have some Dust 2 Somewhere in the mix since it is such a CS classic.

How does the team deal with stressful situations? Do you have some sort of routine to calm everyone down or has each player developed their own way of calming down?

CAth: I think for now we each have our own methods of calming ourselves down. Though, some players are quieter than others. That's where we need to communicate with each other and find ways to help each other instead of isolating ourselves. We thought maybe meditation before matches or a jumping jacks session could help us!

Are you happy with the current state of CS:GO? Would you want to keep it the same or what would you like to change and why?

CAth: I would love for the old spray to come back. It's almost impossible to master it even with tons of practice. Also, there needs to be a fix when it comes to the economy in CS:GO. Pistols and SMG's are too strong, because it takes away a lot of good quality rifle rounds during the match.

What is the proudest moment you have had with this team?

CAth: We are still a very young team, we haven't been playing together for so long. I think my proudest moment was when we beat my old team CLG RED at IEM in Poland.

Would you like to give any final shout-outs?

CAth: Shout-outs to my family and friends who have always been there for me and who encouraged me to pursue a career in eSports. Also to all of our sponsors and the Dig Fam!

Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/CAthCSGO/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/CAthCSGO
Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/cath