peet: "We don't feel any pressure"

eBettle caused a couple of upsets at the European qualifier, beating both HellRaisers and Titan in extremely close matches to come out on top of group B and qualify for the major.

Piotr "⁠peet⁠" Ćwikliński was the one answering our questions about all things ESL One Cologne, as well as some additional ones unrelated to the event:

How have you prepared for ESL One Cologne? Are you going to or did you bootcamp beforehand or have you only been preparing online? Have you focused on anything in particular? (e.g. teams, specific problems at recent events)

I don't think we have been making any extraordinary preparation. We just focused on some innovative strats because we like having our own playstyle. It has been working perfectly for us so far. We are going to prepare in a similiar way as we did before the qualifier. We are having a standard five-day bootcamp.

Is there anyone who you think is underrated and could surprise in Cologne? 

For me - Kinguin and mousesports. I wouldn't say they are underrated but I think these two teams can do serious damage in Cologne. Mousesports' gameplay seems to "click" really well and Kinguin showed up really strong at the qualifier.

What are your team's goals and expectations for the event? Where do you draw the line of what you’d be satisfied or happy with?

To be honest we have crossed the line of satisfaction by far already. Advancing to the playoffs would obviously be a dream scenario but we don't feel any pressure at all. 

The level of teams has been evening out recently, a number different names have been in the grand final at events in the recent months (EnVyUs, TSM, fnatic, Na`Vi, Virtus.pro, Cloud9), who will be the favourites to make it to top four in your mind?

I would say that fnatic, TSM, Cloud9 and NiP/EnVyUs are going to be the top 4  but it is really hard to predict at this kind of events. The level of tier 1 teams is very equalized now and any team can basically beat anyone even with a very one-sided score.

What do you make of the change in the group stage format? Is it better to have a chance to play against more than three set teams before the playoffs? Is it going to be harder to prepare for such groups?

Maybe it is a bit better because teams will be pushed to focus more on their own game and tactics instead of spending hours on watching demos and playing mind games when it actually comes to the tournament. It's really hard to say how it's gonna work out though.

Train has been in the pool for quite some time, but ESL One Cologne will be the first major to feature it, how has it developed over the recent months? Was it figured out in terms of playstyle, strategy, etc.? Is the current map pool diverse enough?

I wouldn't say than any map is figured out totally in terms of playstyle but I think train is somewhere on the level of cobblestone and overpass already. I think that the current map pool is pretty diverse, but it would be nice to see one or two more maps in the future. It would make CS:GO more enjoyable to play and to watch as well.

What are your thoughts on your group? Can you go through each match-up and say how it is likely to play out?

Obviously it's not a surprise that we are not very happy about the group draw. Every match-up is going to be extremely tough for us. I kinda don't understand why it is Titan in our group instead of FlipSid3 if we have already played against them in the qualifier, that doesn't make much sense. However, we know that we have a chance to beat teams that are a level above us on paper, especially in a best of one format. 

Yet again this major has not seen a prizepool change, even though the sticker money is likely to get bigger, would you like to see it get increased?

We can clearly see that CS:GO is growing every day, yet the prize pool on major tournaments is $100k all the time, which is a bit weird. Obviously I would like to see it grow, especially now when we are taking part in the tournament.

With the proliferation of both online and offline events, and having had at least one big event every weekend or every other weekend for the past few months, and with many teams travelling around Europe and North America—or both—, how do you think it will affect teams' performances?

I cannot tell for sure because I have never been travelling trans-continental in order to play in tournaments but I'm guessing it might be extremely exhausting and it definitely affects the teams' performance. I think it also depends on the results that a particular team is getting. Attending multiple tournaments in a short period of time and perfoming poorely might be even more exhausting i think.

Prior to the qualifier, everyone saw you as the third force in Poland, behind Virtus.pro and Gamers2. Did you believe, going into the event, that you would be able to go one step higher and move from top three to top two and surprise teams like Titan?

We don't really focus on which place people actually see us, is it top3 or top2 in Poland etc. It isn't our goal to beat teams like ex-G2 or VP and to make people think we are stronger than them. The most important thing for us is to improve our team play from each tournament to another and to keep becoming a better team basically. We knew that we can surprise teams like Titan or HellRaisers, play a solid game against them, and get a more or less tight scoreline, but beating them was just a part of jokes we were making to each other. After a close win against Epiphany Bolt it was like - "Ok guys now we win against Hellraisers, then we win against Titan and we're at a major, easy", we were certain it was not possible to happen though. I think that our zero pressure attitude helped us a lot.

Lately the outrage against certain weapons has decreased (e.g. CZ-75 at the beginning of the year, Tec-9 during the second quarter of 2015), are you satisfied with the way Valve balanced them out? Are there any weapons you'd like to see nerfed or buffed?

From my perspective there is no super imbalanced weapon left. I would say there is a few minor weapon changes that should be done, e. g. jumpshots with scout with 0 recoil. The recoil itself is kind of weird too - every weapon is spreading bullets in pretty much the same pattern - number 7. It's not weapons though but game bugs that Valve should focus on - e. g. hitboxes when someone is on ladder or when someone is jumping. It's impossible to hit someone properly in those situations. 

Do you think the new anti-doping measures being taken by the ESL are going to change anything from past events, has this been blown out of proportion since Semphis' statements, or is it necessary?

I have no clue to be honest. I don't know how much influence can doping have in Counter-Strike and how much players could be possibly using something, if anything. However in my opinion with this kind of money involved anti-doping measures are completely mandatory.

From a mere spectator to a true challenger. What changed in these last two months? 

I am not completely sure if we deserve to be called a "true challenger". I think that our last performance might be even more surprising for us than for all CS:GO community. We just hope it is going to last and that we are going to be capable of becaming a stronger team and compete with the best. We just dont think about all the hype we had, we have 1 goal - focus on our game and try to win every match.

Were you surprised to see Gamers2 go through internal problems?

It is really hard to tell what is going on inside of the team but I wasn't surprised at all. Their recent chaotic roster changes (rallen out, minise out and in, mouz out) indicated that they are going through some internal problems and that everything is not really going their way. What's more, they seemed to be very confident before the Cologne qualifier and we all know how it ended up. 

Hyper carried the team in some of your recent matches. Do you think that him being on fire will be key to your team’s success? 

Hyper being on point is always a huge factor for our team to win rounds, and even games sometimes. He is a very solid player both at online and offline tournaments and let's not forget he is an IGL in our team. However, we don't ever want to put all the hope and pressure onto one player. Basically everyone in our team is capable of carrying the team and everyone can play a really bad map.

We naturally have more pre-interviews coming up, as we'll try to get every single team attending ESL One Cologne to share their thoughts on the upcoming major.