paz: "We are learning from our mistakes"

Space Soldiers topped Group F after defeating Isurus, Limitless and Recca, playing up to the status of the favorites of their group.

Space Soldiers are already used to playing EPL-level opposition

During the day, we managed to talk to Ahmet "⁠paz⁠" Karahoca about the difficulties the Turkish team faced outside of the game and their expectations here.

Coming here, as we saw on Twitter, you had a very rough flight, a long trip, some food issues as well. Has it been hard, the first few days being here in China?

I don't think so, the trip was really hard, it was so tiring, but we had two days off so it was ok, we rested well. About the food thing, it is kind of hard, but we are trying to figure out something, eating only fruits or something like that.

It won't affect your matches, you are here fully focused?

Yeah, I don't think it affected our matches so far.

Let's go back to the beginning of the year, you played at the Major, you didn't make the Legends status but you had a good performance there, you were very close. And then you qualified for EPL as well. What was the feeling about the start of year, do you think you elevated to a new level from where you were before?

In my opinion, we are definitely improving, especially at the Major we did a good job - even though we could've made it better, it was so close for us to get the Legend status. But still, it was ok in my opinion.

And EPL is really good because we can play against good teams for a very long period of time, which is a really good bonus for us. We missed out on qualifying for some tier 1 tournaments, but it's still ok, we are trying to figure out what do to do and we are learning from our mistakes.

How do you feel about EPL and playing against the teams there so far? Is there any special adaptation you need to do when you are playing against the top teams or do you feel like you can compete with them as is?

I think we can compete with them, they are obviously all very good but we always play against them on practices and we played most of them at the Major. So for us, playing against them is normal.

What are your general feeling about the tournament, coming here, did you set any goals?

We didn't set any goals, but in my opinion, we can do a lot here. I feel that the playoffs should be a done deal.

The first two games you played were against Limitless and Isurus, two lower tier teams, not that experienced, but they got a lot of rounds on you, 11 in each game. Was that them playing fairly good or were you just starting slow?

It was the first day and it was BO1, so it can be tricky. And they are talented players, they hit good shots, so it can happen. But I'm happy because we closed it out and didn't lose any games. So let's see what happens next.