XANTARES: "Being here is an entirely different experience for us"

Space Soldiers came to the Main Qualifier straight from the MDL Global Challenge in New York, where the Turkish side placed second followig a loss to AGO in the grand final.

On the first day, Space Soldiers lost to Sprout on Cobblestone, while the second day saw the team beat AVANGAR in relatively comfortable fashion with a great CT side.

XANTARES vowed to do anything he can to help the team qualify

With the coach Canpolat "⁠hardstyle⁠" Yıldıran acting as a translator, we caught up with Ismailcan "⁠XANTARES⁠" Dörtkardeş to ask about the last few months, during which the team had to play with Çağatay "⁠DESPE⁠" Sedef instead of Ahmet "⁠paz⁠" Karahoca at some of their tournaments, as well as the qualifier. 

Let's go back to the last few months, Space Soldiers have been to quite a few of the smaller events, the Minor, WESG Europe, and Global Challenge, how satisfied are you with how you've performed at the end of 2017?

We were practicing hard, we always practice hard, that's what matters to us, but the last couple of months were bad due to paz having a surgery and he needed to take time off. We had to play with our sixth player, DESPE, and we just struggled a bit, but we're doing okay now, this is really important for us and we just want to make it.

Was your practice regimen any different prior to the Major, which is the biggest event you've attended so far? How has the preparation been compared what you normally do?

There was the off-season as you know, we just took some time off and then we started playing as usual, we didn't do anything special, we just followed our routines. We knew we had to come to MDL, which is better than practice for us, actually, because official matches are always good. And that's basically what we did.

Were you satisfied with what you showed at the Global Challenge?

Obviously not, not at all. The first thing was that there was jetlag and the second thing, we just couldn't focus as much as we needed to. But we tried hard to play better and play our normal game, actually, but we failed. We played against AGO in the final and they showed better things than us, they played better.

Has it helped you learn any important lessons for the Major?

We took our lesson from there which drove us here, we just reminded ourselves that we should push ourselves more and more, because it's the Major qualifier and we just managed to get here. We just wanted to qualify and that's what matters for us.

How confident are you in your ability to qualify for the Major itself?

Well, actually it's an entirely different experience for us, being here, playing on the stage. On the first day, in the first match, I think it was a lack of experience, because we lost the communication, we couldn't play our game, everything was different on the first day. Yesterday, after we lost the match, we talked, we reviewed the demo, then we just told ourselves that we have to do more, we are here and we need to do something, we need to change something, and we need to play our game whatever happens. We just stick together and we play our game.

Can you tell me about the second game as well, being able to defeat AVANGAR?

We respect every team here because everyone managed to come here, that makes them a good team, so we respect them all. Yesterday, we made lots of mistakes, especially in clutch situations, but today we just made less mistakes than them, that's how we win, actually.

For someone who has yet to attend their first Major, this being your first real chance, what does the Major mean to you and the team?

Personally, the Major is the most important thing for me right now. I will do anything to help my teammates in order to win the matches we play and I hope I can do some good so that we can.