MAJ3R: "Calyx has a very important support role in our game"

Space Soldiers got off to a slow start in Austin and found themselves in their group's lower bracket after losing to Rogue in the winners' match.

Engin "⁠MAJ3R⁠" Küpeli's men went on to beat OpTic 2-1 in the decider match before moving past HEROIC in the semi-finals. In the tournament decider, the Turkish side took revenge on Rogue and ran out 2-1 victors to be crowned champions, picking up their first offline title in 2018 after three runners-up finishes.

MAJ3R believes that Space Soldiers are "more autonomous with Calyx"

Read our interview below, conducted by Dust2.us' Collin "CarbonDogma" Davis, to get to know MAJ3R's view on his team's run in Austin, their results at the ESL Pro League Season 7 Finals, and more.

I'd like to go through the tournament that you just had. In your group winners' match against Rogue, what do you think happened to let them win?

They played very well. We played Dust2 and they played very well. We did not work a lot of Dust2, it was our first time on LAN playing that map — against both compLexity and Rogue. We need to work on it. But they played well and congratulations to them.

Then, the OpTic game was fairly close but you ended up winning it, which is different from what had happened at the ESL Pro League Season 7 Finals in Dallas. What do you think happened this time to get you to win?

In Dallas we played with DESPE, not with the full line-up, now we are playing with Calyx. We are more autonomous with Calyx because he has an important support role. OpTic are a strong team, and it was a good and exciting match. It would be a pleasure if we could play against them again in the future. But yes, the only thing that changed was Calyx for DESPE.

There you had some big losses in the group stage, so do you think that DESPE was the main reason for that to happen?

No, DESPE was not the main reason. It is a team game, so when you change one element, you need to adapt. We did not practice with DESPE at all because he only knew that he would come to the USA at the last second. We had not played with him in a long time, and it was difficult for him, it was not easy to come here and do his best. I think he did his job and played very well. I think he was the best player in our team, but the team work was not there because Calyx has a very important support role in our game.

Here in Austin, you won the grand final in three maps. Can you talk me through how do you think the final went?

The final was OK, I think we really deserved to win it because when we play against a team who plays Overpass and Nuke in a best-of-three, we can struggle because if I ban Nuke, they will pick Overpass and vice-versa. We are not that comfortable on those maps, so I think it was a good win.

They were ready to pull off a comeback in the series, but in the end we found a solution. To be honest, I think that we deserved that trophy. We did not steal it from Rogue, though they played very well. Congratulations to them, it was a great final.

After the Dallas event, there were some rumours after some of you removed your Space Soldiers pictures from Twitter and Steam, and there was also a rumour that the organisation wanted to remove ngiN from the line-up. Are you allowed to talk about any of these rumours?

There will always be rumours. I have nothing to say about that.