woxic: "We got our revenge [on Na`Vi] and this game was more important than the one in Cologne"

MOUZ' AWPer Özgür "⁠woxic⁠" Eker took the time to answer our questions after beating Natus Vincere and talked about the match and facing Oleksandr "⁠s1mple⁠" Kostyliev.

With a 19-17 victory on Nuke, MOUZ moved up to the 2-1 bracket at the StarLadder Major, with a single BO3 separating them from playoffs and the Mercedes Benz Arena.

In our interview with woxic, the Turkish player talked about losing two 2v5s to the Russian-Ukranian side, the process of coming up with plays, and the loss to FaZe early in the tournament.

You played Na`Vi in Cologne in a very close BO1 and then a BO3 as well, lost both times. Going into the match with that kind of history, what was the expectation like?

We were winning in that game in Cologne, it was 14-11 or something like that, but on that Train game we did some miscommunications and electronic did a flank and the comeback started. Of course, this was a bit of a revenge game, we wanted to win it because we want to go to Champions stage, to go 3-1. Also, when you win against Na`Vi... they have the best player in the world but this is a team game and today we played better as a team. We did a good comeback because of it, we did it also against Liquid on Nuke, I guess there is something good about it on Nuke for us I guess. But it was a revenge game, we got our revenge and this game was more important than the one in Cologne.

In the game they won two 2v5s. How did you mentally stay in the game after losing those rounds and them having a big lead?

Those rounds were so important, if we had won them I think we would break their money. But we lost 2v5 clutches, it was like "guuuys, we need to win these rounds". But after that, we paused to feel better, to breathe a bit, because some people can feel frustrated. After that, we needed to keep our focus because we were not out of the game yet and everyone in the team showed how professional they are and they just played how they started, even after losing those rounds.

What is it like for you to play against s1mple, as the opposing AWPer? This is the fifth map in a short span of time, how is it like for you to play against him?

He was the best player in the world in 2018, but I'm not changing my playstyle because he was the best player. So I just did my things but I did them a bit carefully because I know he is not like other AWP players. If I make a mistake, he can punish me easily, and I can punish him easily too, and he knew it. That's why in a lot of rounds as T he didn't even peek outside with the AWP, because he knew that in some positions I can kill him. I did the same also because I knew he would kill me. So we showed some respect to each other, I guess, but it is something I have to do because I can't throw the rounds and I can't give away frags to him. It is down to teamplay, I can get my frags on another side.

So basically, I'm not changing my game style because I'm playing against anybody, it doesn't matter if it is GuardiaN, s1mple, device, nitr0. It doesn't matter. I have to play my team's style, do what I'm doing in practice, do what I'm working on in FPL. I'm doing the same things here.

At the Major you play the same style you play in FPL?

(laughs) No, of course not, because you can't do random things as you can in FPL, where you can push through smokes randomly and you don't have to tell anybody "I'm sorry, I made a mistake and we lost a round". It is FPL, you can just play one more time after this one. Here, of course, you play more carefully but you are remembering what kind of moves you made in FPL or in practice, and you can adapt that to real games, when you are playing officials. So I'm doing this, I'm trying new things in FPL, in practice games, and after that I'm thinking "this move is ok, maybe I can adapt it to my game", then I'm trying it out in an official which is not against the best teams and if it works, I'm thinking "ok, maybe I can use this in a big game". That is what I'm doing and it is working.

At the start of the tournament you had a game against FaZe and you have a good history, a good record against their current lineup. This time it was a pretty one-sided game for them. What happened?

I guess the main reason was that it was a BO1. Somehow we didn't connect to the server, basically. We were not feeling like we were in the game. In my opinion, people weren't focused too much on that game, maybe it was the same for me. Maybe we didn't talk enough during the game, no communication, not as it is usually. Because we know we won against them two times and we thought "we will play our game and we will win", maybe people were comfortable, unlike in the Na`Vi game. There they won against us and we had to get our revenge, and right now it is an important situation, if we go 1-2 we are one BO3 from going out. If we play this way against FaZe we could've also won the FaZe game, but it was the first game, the opening game after a three-day break we had, maybe that is why it happened. But if we face them in playoffs, in BO3s, perhaps we could win, if we play as we did against Na`Vi.