Ex6TenZ: "We just read [Virtus.pro] very easily"

A rough start against GameAgents didn't prove to be costly for Belgium, who managed a comeback on the Terrorist side of Cache to pick up their first win in Barcelona. Adil "⁠ScreaM⁠" Benrlitom and co. managed a similar feat on Cobblestone, beating Virtus.pro 16-10, despite being down 9-6 after the Terrorist half.

Ex6TenZ enjoyed playing with inexperienced players

Belgium was competitive against Envy and Russia, but couldn't pick up wins. However, they did still secure the third place in the group, finishing above Virtus.pro. Shortly after Belgium's defeat to Russia, we sat down with Kévin "⁠Ex6TenZ⁠" Droolans and talked about the opening match, eliminating the Poles and more.

You've been playing with LDLC for quite a while now, not being able to get to the old heights and now you have a chance to play with a Belgian roster. Does it feel a bit liberating, playing with a new team, new players, trying out new stuff?

Yes, it's really fun. ScreaM has a lot of experience and can call with me, he can help me, he is a good fragger. But on the other side, Faris and YOUYOU are less experienced. YOUYOU has some experience, though, Faris is not even a semi-professional. So we have to explain to him a lot of things. But it's fun to go through the group stage with a player for who this is the best result of his life. It's cool for them and I'm happy for them.

How did you decide on these two players? ScreaM and to1nou you played with before, but YOUYOU and Faris, how did you decide on them?

We don't have a lot of good players in Belgium, so it's obvious we had to pick them. The problem is that we have two AWPs, to1nou is a pure AWPer and YOUYOU is the same. Se we have to do some choice between them, but we picked them because it was the obvious choice.

Coming here, did you get any time to prepare anything, what did you focus on to play the best you could?

We didn't practice, we didn't have time to practice with Team Belgium because we have LDLC and ScreaM has team EnVyUs, they have a lot of tournaments. So we just improvised, trusted the call. I call at least 80% and my teammates do the rest. Just trust yourself and your teammate and let's go.

The first game of the tournament is always a bit shaky and it started pretty rough for you against the Hungarian side. Was there any fear in the young players, what was the mood like in the first game?

I knew that it was the most important game to win. We began very badly, they were leading 9-1, but we kept focused. I knew that if we come back they were going to stress, and after we will beat them due to more experience. I knew that we could come back. 

The key match for you qualifying for the playoffs ended up being the Virtus.pro game and the CT side where you went 10-0. What was the key to the lock-down on CT Cobble?

We really played very well. On T side, it was so difficult because I had to explain to Faris how he should play, to YOUYOU as well. So we won six rounds as Terrorists but we could've won just one round, it was very hard for us.

After that, on CT, we just won the pistol and we played very well, like a team. We did good moves, on 50 seconds we went for info, we knew everything and we just read them very easily. And I think that they really didn't play well, it was easy to kill them because they were missing shots a bit. I think that the problem was in their head.

To close it off, you played four games, how happy are you with the showing so far?

I'm not that happy because we lost the last two games, so I'm a bit sad, we could've won both. Now we are the third seed, so we are going to play against a second-placed team from the group stage, and it's probably going to be a good team.

I'm happy that we are going to China, it's a good result because we could have been eliminated. I mean, I'm not happy right now because I lost, but I'm going to be happy in about 20 minutes.