FalleN: Gonna fight as hard as we can

After SK defeated HellRaisers in the first round, they locked horns with FaZe in the second on Mirage. The European mixture started out the better and got up to 15-9, but Gabriel "⁠FalleN⁠" Toledo's team came back, took the game to overtime and prevailed at 19-17.

We grabbed FalleN for an interview about the narrow Mirage as well as Ricardo "⁠fox⁠" Pacheco's role on that map:

Was there anything you noticed and changed up at 15-9 that allowed you to come back into the match?

To be honest, the match was quite difficult, because we lost both pistols and they managed to break our economy, so we never felt we were very off the game, but when you lose both pistols it's very easy for the other team to get an advantage. We tried a specific setup as our first strategy on T side, it didn't work well so we just went back to our default, getting space on the map and making decisions after it. We managed to come back into the game and did some good rounds, I think you can say that some rounds were very close and the game could've ended, the TACO 1v1 against karrigan, and there was another one where it was me and fox against three and we got away with it. Some rounds were pretty close, but it's part of the game.

I talked to fox yesterday and he said you didn't really change much for him, to accomodate him into your playstyle, although on Mirage we saw that he was AWPing over you while you were quite aggressive towards pit on CT side. How much did you personally change your own play to accomodate fox?

I had to change some stuff, some positions where I wasn't playing well in the role fox is doing now on Mirage, so the decision came not because I wanted fox to do it but because I wasn't doing it properly. So I said "fox, you're doing it better than me in this role, so go for it" and we were in need of an A site player. I don't think I had a very good A site this map, I played better against HellRaisers, but I'm doing this right now, so sometimes I'll be AWPing, sometimes I'll be rifling. The priority is fox now on the AWP on Mirage as CT.

How do you feel about the practice you got in with fox; obviously he's just a stand-in, the lineup will change after the Major, how confident are you going into the rest of the Major?

The goal is to win the Major. I think fox is a good player, of course he has his limits as all of us have, so he's not different from any of us. He's working hard, we had a lot of time to practice together. Now we feel way better than we did at the last tournament we played, so there's a chance for us. We're gonna fight as hard as we can, this game is about the group, if the group plays with good synergy, you can beat teams, so that's what we're trying to prove here.

Who will be the hardest tasks in the rest of the group and possibly the playoffs?

From what I saw yesterday, I think Na`Vi is playing super well, they managed to fix their Cobblestone although I don't know how the other maps are doing. But I mean, it's the Major, you see players who have a lot of experience and have been on the scene for quite a while, they do well, for example GODSENT yesterday against Astralis, those guys have been playing for quite a long time, and if you have some new players that are doing well, they can go very far. It's a Major, everyone has a chance and we're gonna fight for ours.

Make sure to check out the other interviews we've conducted so far at the ELEAGUE Major:

Chris "⁠chrisJ⁠" de Jong: "Confident about our map pool"

Fabien "⁠kioShiMa⁠" Fiey: "Everyone's happy with their roles"

Markus "⁠pronax⁠" Wallsten: "I'm happy it went to Train"

Dan "⁠apEX⁠" Madesclaire: "It was hard after jdm's 1v5"

Oleksandr "⁠s1mple⁠" Kostyliev: "Hope to show beautiful CS"

Janusz "⁠Snax⁠" Pogorzelski: "It's always close vs. OpTic"

Ricardo "⁠fox⁠" Pacheco: "We played 12-14 hours a day"

Richard "⁠shox⁠" Papillon: "FaZe can do pretty well here"

Abay "⁠HObbit⁠" Khassenov: "We prepared for everyone"