snatchie: "When it comes to close rounds we are so nervous, we are making stupid mistakes"

Following Virtus.pro's elimination from the EPICENTER Wild Card Qualifier, we caught up with Michał "⁠snatchie⁠" Rudzki to hear about this tournament, as well as BLAST, and the team's online forays.

The Polish squad wasn't able to make it through the Wild Card Qualifier in Moscow, beating 5POWER to start it off, but losing closely to HellRaisers and then Swole Patrol, who advanced to the main stage over them.

To hear about the negatives and the positive of Virtus.pro's last month, we caught up with the team's AWPer, snatchie. He explained that their performance in Istanbul was promising, but that they weren't able to continue their streak at EPICENTER.

Tell me about BLAST Pro Series Istanbul and the matches you had there, facing against some of the bigger teams in the scene on LAN?

We came to BLAST after a one-week bootcamp in Katowice so I think that we were well prepared. We showed some good matches there, for example, versus NiP, that was a match we should've won but we played some stupid rounds and, yeah, we lost it. We won versus Cloud9, so that was a motivational boost, and then we lost to Astralis, I think that they are the best team in the world so... everyone is losing versus them (laughs), it's not easy to get a win versus them.

I think the game versus MIBR was also close, we also could've got it, but again, stupid rounds, the same as versus NiP. We had a 1-3 score and then the last match was versus Space Soldiers, we knew that we wouldn't advance to the finals, we wouldn't even get top four, so we told ourselves to just play more freestyle. I think Space Soldiers also did it because they were pushing B like five times, totally YOLO. We also lost this game, but overall I think that Istanbul was a good tournament for us, a promising one.

Is there anything you took away for that tournament, that you need to work on?

We started to think that we can play good matches versus good teams, but we need to improve our mentality because when it comes to close rounds, 2v2 or 3v3, we are so nervous and we are making stupid mistakes. We need to focus more on that point and try to improve it.

You also mentioned that you played good against top teams, but at the same time you are playing ESEA MDL and there are a lot of these a bit lower teams, unknown teams... how has that part been going, playing in ESEA?

I think that it is hard to play vs. top tier teams and then come home and playing ESEA MDL where you are playing versus lower tier teams. It is different. I think that the guys from Virtus.pro are much more experienced playing against top tier teams, they know a lot about them, they know tendencies and styles. And then against teams that are top 40-50, it is a lot harder because they are playing some different stuff, but it is also good I think.

Moving to this tournament, you got the Wild Card invite, you come here... What was the general feeling like, what were your goals for EPICENTER?

I think that the main goal was to advance to the main tournament, but we didn't do it, so it is disappointing for us. We should, again, show some potential as we did in Istanbul, and I think it is really bad that we didn't advance to the main tournament.

What went wrong? After talking a bit, seeing the demos, stuff like that, what did you figure out?

I think that we beat 5POWER pretty easily, it was 16-0 in the first map, in the second it was 16-14, but it was an OK match. Then we played versus HellRaisers, it was also an OK match, we just lost both maps 16-14 and it was really close. We didn't have two good halves on the maps, we had only one good half each map. That's bad. If we could improve a little bit, on Inferno we had good CT, but bad T. On Mirage we had good T, but bad CT. So it is really shaky.

And yesterday, in the match versus Swole Patrol... I don't know what happened. We won the pistol round, then we lost versus a clear eco, USP's, and everyone was a little bit tilted. Then on Nuke... I think we did a little mistake with that map because I never played it on AGO so I don't have a good feeling on that map yet. But I think that we had six rounds on CT, it was again a bad CT side and better T side. We lost 16-14 and again, it was pretty close but not enough. I think the point is not in the team we are playing, we can play versus NiP, versus HellRaisers and then we can playing versus Swole Patrol, we are losing the same way against all of these teams. I think the main problem is our mentality, we are doing stupid mistakes and we have to pay for it.

Currently, your ranking is kind of low, #27, is there a bit of pressure that you need to get some good results to get back into the higher rankings and get more invites and stuff like that?

I think that, maybe it is funny, but I think it is good for us. Because if you are falling down three steps you need to start playing again in like, ten thousand online cups. And you are improving your mentality and you are winning again, it is better for your confidence. So just play more official matches, because if you are playing training matches, you won't fix your mistakes as you will in official matches. It is always easier to do so in official matches, you are watching your demos, everyone is focused on the win, your opponent as well, and it is easier to repair your mistakes.