mhL on taking a break: "I was pretty confident I could play at an even higher level than before"

Miłosz "⁠mhL⁠" Knasiak was joined by Maciej "⁠F1KU⁠" Miklas to discuss about a rough first day at V4 Future Sports Festival for their team, plus much more.

Coming into the V4 Future Sports Festival with a new-look roster and off the back of a five game winning streak, AGO suffered a disappointing loss to eSuba to open their event.

With a tough elimination fight against SINNERS looming over them, mhL and F1KU sat down with HLTV to discuss this tournament, their recent roster changes, and more.

I have to ask the question, I know it’s a hard one: how do you feel about todays game against eSuba?

mhL: I think we are a little bit sad, I guess. It is our first game and we wanted to win.

F1KU: The most important thing is that we are not that sad or angry, we know that we still have a chance and we are focusing on the next game. We have a break now, so I think that every one of us will reset mentally and we will beat Sinners, I hope.

What do you think went wrong in that game, I know you probably haven’t had time to review the demo, but based on first impressions?

mhL: I think we were a little bit too afraid and emotional. Everyone was screaming too much, and we didn’t communicate properly, so I think that was the main reason that we lost some important rounds.

F1KU: After we were losing, I think the round that broke us a little was the eco round, we mentally suffered for sure and our confidence went down. Maybe not everyone was scared, but for sure we had in mind “oh f***, we lost that easy round”.

Do you think the LAN environment had anything to do with that?

F1KU: I guess. The difference between LAN and online games is huge. I have played a couple LANS, and I love LAN. I feel way better on LAN than online.

mhL: For me personally I really don’t care where I play. Maybe for krasnal he was a little bit scared or afraid, but I don’t think for the other guys it was a big change.

How are you feeling for the matchup with Sinners later today? It’s a tough game to get for the elimination match.

mhL: If we stay focused, and don’t get too emotional like the game before, I think we can take it.

F1KU: Last time we played them we won, so the curse is broken.

Taking a step back and looking at the team outside of this event, the big talking point is the recent roster changes, removing rallen and snatchie. What was the reasoning behind those significant changes?

F1KU: I guess that we thought we had our peak, and we wanted to reach higher. We obviously got kRaSnaL, he played with us a couple of pracs, and he was aiming good and stuff like that. The biggest shock was in our first games in ESEA, he destroyed everyone!

Things have been looking good for the new roster, you have gotten off to a great start. What are the goals for this roster, for example are you aiming for top-20?

mhL: Like every team we want to win everything and qualify for big events, because they are coming back for sure. We don’t have a specific goal of reaching top-20 or top-15, we just want to win.

F1KU: We haven’t had our talk yet to set every goal.

mhL: We just want to win every tournament we participate in, that’s the goal.

A couple of questions for you specifically mhL: obviously you were part of HLTV’s 'One for the future' series and a highly touted prospect, and then you had to take some time off. How was that year away?

mhL: It was pretty necessary for me, I couldn’t keep up mentally and physically with school and playing at a high level. I think it helped me. As you can see, I don’t play any worse than I did before. I was pretty confident that after a week or two I could go back to my old level, without school and without my mental and physical health suffering, I was pretty confident I could play at an even higher level than before.

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One for the future: mhL

Any chance you can talk about the rumour that you trialled for fnatic?

mhL: I was practicing with an international team, but it didn’t turn out well. I don’t want to say that I played badly, but I was pretty close to joining them.

Looking forward to the rest of the event – assuming you beat Sinners – how are you looking forward to playing some of the big names?

F1KU: It’s our main goal to try to compare with them, especially on LAN instead of playing online. It’s a challenge, we can check our skills compared to the best teams.

mhL: We are not afraid of them. Now that it’s only best-of-threes, it’s good for us.

Let's wrap this up with a couple of quick questions: If you could pick anyone to play in the main event, who would it be?

Both: Gambit.

Who is the best player on Gambit?

mhL: Sergey "⁠Ax1Le⁠" Rykhtorov. I like how Dmitry "⁠sh1ro⁠" Sokolov plays, but I think Ax1Le has more impact.