mixwell on the play-in final: "It's going to be fought in the mud, everything is allowed... kicks in the groin, anything goes"

We caught up with Oscar "⁠mixwell⁠" Cañellas ahead of the BLAST Pro Series Madrid Play-in Finals, where Movistar Riders will play for a spot in the main tournament.

Movistar Riders, Spain's top team, will face Giants, Portugal's best, at 16:15 in the BLAST Pro Series Madrid Play-in FInals, a best-of-three match that will see the winner go on to face some of the best teams in the world at the main event in the Madrid Arena.

In the interview, mixwell talks about the team after Christian "⁠loWel⁠" Garcia Antoran's departure and the addition of Raúl "⁠DeathZz⁠" Jordán Nieto, the play-in final against Giants, the opportunity for a local team to play at an event like a BLAST Pro Series, going through a slump individually, and where Movistar Riders is at as a team, currently.

This is a big chance for the region, what do you think of this opportunity?

For us, the fact that BLAST gave us this opportunity is really important because it's hard to get to events that are this big. Them giving an opportunity to a local team is very important and it's the biggest event any of my teammates have been to in their life, so it's very special. It's also my first BLAST Pro Series so everything is very special. It's all very new for us. We don't have much pressure, but we've been practicing really hard to try and show our best side, and we'll see what happens.

You're playing Giants in the play-in, they beat you on LAN last time you played them. What do you think of them as a rival?

I don't think there's a favorite for this match, it's going to be fought in the mud, everything is allowed... kicks in the groin, anything goes. They're bringing people from Portugal in busses, which I love. It's one of those matches in which I'm going to have a lot of fun. I love when CS is about passion and it's not just another match. I think the Giants match is actually going to be the most fun this whole tournament, even if we win and play the main tournament, so I hope it's also great for the crowd, both Portuguese and Spanish. It's not going to be an easy match.

I'd like to touch a bit on the recent roster change, loWel going to HellRaisers and DeathZz joining the team. Tell me a bit about how it all went down.

loWel decided to go to HellRaisers, I think it's something he wanted pretty much since the beginning from what I talked over with him. He prefers another type of project, and I don't think we were on the same page, to be honest, so it's actually good for both sides to have parted ways. I hope it goes well for him because we played together for a long time and he's worked a lot, so good luck.

As far as DeathZz, he's a player that I've always particularly liked. Not from knowing him, or anything like that, but because of what he has proven. He used to be called a cheater in the Spanish scene and he went on LAN and wrecked everyone. I really like that character because it means that even under pressure he can show up, and that this is something he likes doing.

He's also just a good player, he has talent, and I think he's adapting pretty well. Taking over loWel's role is helping him because it's a very passive role and as long as he can do that, the team doesn't notice that much of a change. We do miss loWel's clutching ability, but we also like that DeathZz is more aggressive than loWel in the early round. So our style has changed a bit, but not so much. Now that we're all more on the same page I actually think we're playing better as a team.

Where are you at now, and what are your current goals?

Right now we're similar to when we had loWel, just outside of the top 30. We started out doing well in MDL, winning both of our matches, and one of our main objectives is being competitive enough to play the ESL Pro League relegation. Our other objective is making the Minor, to go step by step, and try to make it to some smaller international LANs like DreamHack Opens and similar events. We want it to become easier and easier to compete against teams like ForZe, Windigo, and all of these teams that are good and that are hard to surpass.

What do you need to reach these goals?

As a team we've worked enough to be able to compete, I think now it's a lot about each player becoming better at their role. That the IGL becomes better at calling, that the AWP also gets better, that everyone raises the bar individually. Also to be more solid, in general, by applying the experience we are acquiring. For example, SOKER is playing much better lately. Everyone thought he had a ceiling, but he's proving that he's much better than what people believed. I also think ALEX is getting better with time and has a lot of potential to become a very good player. DeathZz just came in, mopoz is also improving, so we just need to keep this going.

On a personal level, you tweeted that you had been in a rut, individually. Can you tell me what happened and what you're doing to get out of that situation?

A few things made me get into a state that was not good. I've had this happen several times during my career, periods during which I was wasting my time, and that made me become stale. For example, when I didn't want to play with the AWP, I wasn't taking responsibility, and I believe that with time I've been maturing in that respect. Now if I need to AWP because it's what I'm best at, then that's what I'll do. Once you know that, you stop overthinking.

Also, grinding with a Spanish team, which is what I always wanted, but not being where we wanted to be as the months went by without us progressing fast enough... Creating this project and thinking that everything was going to happen for us in a short period of time, that was a mistake.

A lot of things that you do and don't put enough thought into eventually catch up to you and make you have some thoughts whether it's all worth it, and a lot of external factors prevent you from focusing on the game... That's what happened to me.

I forgot to have fun playing CS, which was always something that was characteristic of me. Now, going to play events like CPH Games where you're playing against these hungry youngsters, it makes you really think about everything. Sure, I carry some weight in the team and in the Spanish scene, but I'm just another player. I just want to be one more. I don't want to overthink anything, I just want to play [laughs]. That's what makes me enjoy the game again, and what makes me play well again, to only think about playing.

Were you to qualify for the main event, what do you think the most important thing for the team to learn, especially the less experienced players?

I think that the most important thing my teammates could learn playing against the world's best is that when you play against a truly good team you realize how much you have to have polished everything. Every little thing you do wrong, you're going to notice it instantly because they're going to take your whole arm and rip it off.

Since we don't usually play against teams that are as good as these, a lot of times we think that even with the amount of mistakes we make, we can still win, but when you play against these teams making the mistakes we make, they'll be very noticeable. The thing is, when you live through that kind of match, that's when you start to change, and the players on this team still aren't completely conscious of how much of a perfectionist you have to be in CS. I think learning that would be very good for them.

To close it out, have you prepared any particular way for this event?

We had a pretty long bootcamp. Actually, we all now live here, in Madrid, and we've been practicing like 11 hours a day, taking some breaks to eat and so on, but they've been long days. We've put in a lot more time into studying theory because we had gotten stale and weren't evolving anymore. What we did was to try and watch ourselves from an outside perspective to study our mistakes, make our game less flat, and to be able to adapt to our opponents and have more options, etc.