STYKO: mouz sometimes too readable

HellRaisers claimed the most dominant win of the first day of ELEAGUE Major Main Qualifier, defeating MOUZ 16-6 on Train. The match was pretty one sided, with the European mixture lead by Kyrylo "⁠ANGE1⁠" Karasiow locking down the CT side and causing trouble to the other European mixture - the one lead by Nikola "⁠NiKo⁠" Kovač.

The release of the interview with HellRaisers' Martin "⁠STYKO⁠" Styk was delayed due to technical difficulties but was conducted before the match-ups for day 2 were drawn.

Let's start with what happened after the Minor, until now. What was you preparation like, what were you focused on and what do you feel - where were you then and where are you now?

Our main focus after the Minor - we realised where our mistakes were and we set out to make our map pool a little bit stronger. Also, we tried to watch other tournaments and tried to copy things that we saw working and use them in practice. To be honest we didn't play much differently from the Minor. Everything that fell apart in the final against GODSENT and in the first match against ENCE - we tried to fix those mistakes and analyze our own game. We didn't prepare specially for anybody here, we were analyzing our own team.

You didn't play almost any matches, barring some online qualifiers from the Minor until now. Was that more of an on purpose decision or was it you not qualifying - and how do you think that will influence your standing here?

To be honest I'm pretty glad that we didn't take any online leagues or offline leagues, first of all there weren't many of them and secondly we didn't get any other invites. We had to play the qualifiers for Las Vegas, which we passed through luckily and are in the closed qualifier now. Honestly, I'm glad we didn't play that much officials because the exam period started so I'm focusing on school right now. If you look at my steam hours I'm terrible, probably the worst out of all that are here at the Major. I didn't have any time for individual improvement, I didn't deathmatch a lot, I analyzed one demo from the PGL Minor…  I really wish I could help my guys more with everything around the team and I promise I will when school gets a little bit easier.

The first match you played was against mousesports, did you expect the veto to break down the way it did and end up on Train? And what were you expecting considering their recent results?

First of all, Train was a bit of a surprise for us, but we handled it well, we played our game basically. We didn't make any counter strats, we didn't know too much what they were doing, we just watched some tendencies that their players had. We basically worked with our communication and clutches. That went pretty well despite losing the first pistol round, we bounced back with a force and it went pretty much uphill from there.

What do you think was the key to your CT side?

I think that mousesports are sometimes too readable with their lurking plays by NiKo. I mean, he is really good at it and everything it's just that we kinda now how to stop the execute and fake execute, so we just played our game and that's it.

In the second half, in the first gun round, you did an upper B push at the time no one was looking at it. Was that someone you watched, observed somewhere or a 'feel' pick?

Not really, we just had a feeling that the B site in this round might be weaker because of low nades. We just kept our economy in our brains and talked about what they can buy, what they will buy… they like to play two AWP setup on train so we expected it every round, even when we knew they had an eco - being very careful because we know NiKo and ChrisJ are a very deadly duo, especially on Train with the double AWP. We kinda felt that B might be a weak link that round because of nades. ANGE1 called it, but I think this is his rational reason for it.

About ANGE1, he has been having good tournaments, about a 1.20 rating on LAN. What do you think is the key to that, do you think he can continue with that form here at the Major Qualifier considering the higher tier of teams?

I think he benefits strongly from Johnta's coaching style, their ingame collaboration has been really remarkable. I think since he joined, ANGE1 hasn't had any negative games. I think ANGE1 is at his peak right now, form wise, but he can still be better of course. I for an example have been in a slump for like a month when I observe my pracs. I kinda hope that slump is done and it's just going to be better at this qualifier. So I think, ANGE1 and Johnta, their collaboration really fits ANGE1's playstyle, and they are talking a lot about the game.

To finish it off, you still don't know who you are going to play - are there any teams that you want to beat or maybe avoid?

We came here to qualify, we will play our game no matter who we are facing. Personally, I'd like to face Cloud9. I know they lost the first match so we can't meet them now, but somewhere in the tournament I'd like to play against them. They seem like good guys.

Professeur writes for HLTV.org and can be found on Twitter.