Calyx: "These four days were the most important time in our lives"

Space Soldiers qualified for the next stage with a 3-1 record, beating AVANGAR, Misfits, and mousesports in their last three matches.

Calyx & co. are set to spend the next few days fixing their mistakes to prepare for the next stage

After the team made their first Major in their first attempt at the Main Qualifier, we got a hold of Buğra "⁠Calyx⁠" Arkın to ask him about Space Soldiers' last two matches and what their goals will be next weekend. He also gave us his thoughts on Valve including the preliminary stage into the Major.

Can you first touch on your yesterday's match with Misfits, which ended up getting quite close, what was the key to winning Train?

Actually, we didn't do anything special, we just reviewed some important points and went over some demos, but we didn't prepare anything special. We just wanted to play our game and we played our game.

They're quite known for doing their homework on their opponents, is that something you were aware of or noticed in the match?

We knew that. We also knew that if we stuck to our game, our gameplan, then everything would be okay.

Talk me through the mousesports match as well, the beginning was quite close before you took over until 13-5. What happened after that point, when mousesports came back to push it to overtime?

Everything was okay until that point, but we just lost a round by our own mistake and we just lost our communication, actually we got pissed a bit. We started losing rounds because it was hard to read them, we just took one pause to discuss what was going on. They found a gap, that was our main mistake, they used the gap, which was short, suNny used it really well. But basically it was just stress.

What was then the key to closing it out on overtime, simply calming down?

When we switched to overtime we took one more pause and we reminded ourselves that we need to play our game, only our game, stop trying to read them, trying to read their moves, and just play our own game. I think we only got one round on the CT side, but when we switched to T side, we won the first round and told ourselves 'okay, we're going to close this game no matter what.'

Was there anything special about the last round? It was clear MAJ3R gave out some specific directive and it seemed like you were waiting for mousesports to push.

Yeah, MAJ3R reminded us that they were going to push now, because chrisJ does this a lot, we just waited for him and we knew somebody else would come to trade. We just traded, chill, chill, chill, and then we basically just did our execute.

Tell me about the next couple of days which you'll have off before the next stage begins, are you going to use that for normal practice or is there special you will focus on?

We will just go over the demos from matches we have played here, because we have done lots of mistakes here and we need to fix those mistakes in order to prepare for the next stage. Practice-wise we will probably do some and then we'll just rest a bit, that's it.

Being through to the next stage, is the pressure now off? What will you be aiming for next weekend?

We have nothing to lose, our main goal here was to get to the next stage and now we did it. I hope the pressure is gone now. We always do things step by step, so the first step will be winning the match, then the second match, third match, and hopefully we will get into the playoffs. But the main goal is of course the first match.

Space Soldiers have been around for quite a long time but up until now you haven't been able to get to the next level, what does this achievement mean for you?

Personally and as a team we are super, super happy to achieve that, it was the most important thing in our lives. Basically we just focused only on this, because we knew that these four days were going to be the most important times in our lives. We just tried to do our best and we did.

The last thing I'd like to get your thoughts on is Valve changing the format, this stage being included in what they call the Major. Did you feel like this was already the Major for you, or did you still feel like this was a qualifier?

It was a qualifier for me. My feeling was that it was a qualifier, not the Major itself.