kakafu: "We are finding our groove again"

After being relegated to ESEA MDL in ESL Pro League Season 6, BIG needed just one season in the second tier to climb back up to the main league, having topped the MDL Season 27 Europe Finals after beating Windigo in a three-map series.  

The Germans, who attended the event with Nikola "⁠LEGIJA⁠" Ninić as a stand-in, won Overpass 16-8, but were then given a reality check on Train as they could only take one round. However, Fatih "⁠gob b⁠" Dayik's men bounced back on Dust2 with a 16-9 victory to punch their ticket to the next Pro League season.

BIG have secured a spot in EPL Season 8

Dust2.us writer Michael "DuckMoriarty" Moriarty is in Leicester and caught up with BIG coach Alexander "⁠kakafu⁠" Szymanczyk to discuss their victory, their chances in the upcoming MDL Global Challenge, Owen "⁠smooya⁠" Butterfield's addition to the team and more:

You have won the ESEA MDL Season 27 Europe Finals, which takes you directly to ESL Pro League Season 8. What is the general feeling among the squad right now?

We are super happy. We had previously qualified for Pro League two seasons ago. For us, it's really important to play these matches against these teams and we want to prove that we can play against them. That's why, I think, our MDL season went really well and now we are back in the Pro League.

During the regular season of ESEA MDL Season 27, you finished third. Do you see that as a proper development that helped you come here to the playoff finals and win against Windigo?

Yeah, we started very strongly in the regular season and in the last matches we played we already knew that we were going through to the playoffs. We didn't concentrate because of that and I think we lost to Kinguin and Red Reserve. I think they are teams that we should have beaten even though they played well. But the season gave us confidence and we saw how other teams were playing. We actually saw how Windigo were playing, so we were confident that we would win this grand final today.

The story of today's grand final was that all of the maps were relatively one-sided. First map was Overpass, which you won fairly simply, and then you suffered a heavy 16-1 defeat on Train. What were the players' feelings after the loss on Train?

We knew that we had got shut down, so it wasn't a huge deal. Afterwards, we instantly saw the mistakes that we made and why we lost it. That's why everybody was so cool. I mean the mood was a little bit down, but not much. We tried to motivate each other and said "Okay, it's a new map." We were really confident on the last map, Dust2. We just said, "Let's go into the next map, win it and we are through."

Speaking of Dust2, how much time did you guys have to develop strategies on the map?

We had been practicing the map for a week. We put it in our training schedule and played on it at least one or two times every day. gob b tried to find what we could do, which grenades we could use and I sat down to help him. So it was two days of looking and examining Dust2, and one week of practice on it.

You now have a couple of days off until the ESEA Season 27 MDL Global Challenge starts, on Saturday. What sort of impact are you guys looking to make in the competition? Are you looking to go out and win the entire thing?

Yes. Firstly, we are really happy that the Pro League qualification is done and we can focus on the Global Challenge. If you are looking from the outside, I think we are also considered the favorites. But it's always hard to play against teams that we don't actually know that much about, like the American teams. How they play, what their style is… we have to adapt to how they play in the game. But we will still use these off-days to prepare and look at them. Of course we are here for the win. Now that the pressure is off our shoulders, we want to win the whole thing.

Outside of this tournament, you have been competitive in qualifiers and you have also been invited to ESL One Cologne. In terms of future events, are you guys confident that you can make an impact?

One hundred percent. We have also qualified for ESL One Belo Horizonte. Our upwards trend started when we played the qualifier for that. We beat Envy and Gambit there. We are finding our groove again. We brought in Tizian "⁠tiziaN⁠" Feldbusch and he is playing very well. At ESL One Belo Horizonte and ESL One Cologne, we will have smooya instead of LEGIJA in the team even though LEGIJA has been playing really well for us. We will have what some people would say a skill upgrade. However, in our team, it is important to integrate the players into the system we have. We really hope that this will go well with smooya, and then I think we can always finish in the top four.

LEGIJA probably had the tournament of his life here. How is the team embedding smooya into what is essentially a German roster, how are you making sure that everyone can communicate and make sure the tactics go well for him to be involved?

All of our players have already played in teams where they spoke English in-game, so we don't think it'll be a problem, it'll just take some time to get used to it. It's not the language itself, it's just starting to think in English again, and instantly calling things in English, and not talking German anymore. This will take a little bit of time but not that much. smooya will be fine, we will implement him in the system and everything will work in the same way.

BIG will compete at the ESEA Season 27 MDL Global Challange, which will take place from May 11-13, with a $50,000 prize pool. Visit our event page for more information about the tournament.