Maden on NIP: "I think they are pretty beatable at the moment"

After ENCE continued their exciting run here at ESL Pro League, Maden sat down with HLTV for an interview.

ENCE have enjoyed a stellar rise in recent times, peaking at #7 in the world and producing strong performances in high profile tournaments. That was not enough for the international squad, and they added Pavle "⁠Maden⁠" Bošković in the off-season in a bid to reach the next level.

After their underdog run through ESL Pro League continued with a convincing reverse sweep of Movistar Riders, Maden took some time with HLTV to talk about the event so far, the challenges of coming up through the Balkan scene, and how his aggressive playstyle comes to be.

Congratulations, how does it feel to be in the semi-finals of ESL Pro League?

Thank you, it feels great, the first time for me that I’m in a tier-one semi-final, so obviously it feels great.

From the outside, the veto seemed strange from both teams – Movistar picking a map that hasn’t been great for them in Vertigo, you picking into a map Movistar have massively improved on recently in Mirage – can you talk me through it?

First, we thought we were going to beat them on Mirage since it’s a really comfortable map for us, we thought we were just better on Mirage than them, and it was really close. We had a few rounds where we fucked up some things, like at 14-14 I made two entries from firebox, and then we had one guy ninja as a joker and he started shooting randomly, so that round fell apart.

We left Nuke for a third map since we thought if we win Mirage for sure, Nuke is our best map and we will have it for a decider if they win Vertigo.

Were you surprised by how dominant you were on Vertigo, as it hasn’t been a preferred map for you so far with this lineup?

Before these playoffs, we changed some positions on CT side. Now Snappi is going towards the ramp on A site which I was holding before and I wasn’t comfortable in that position, and I am mostly A rotation which I am really confident at. We knew since we had practiced Vertigo these few days it is really good for us, the CT side, and we knew we would start CT against them. We took like 13 rounds, we were confident our CT is pretty good.

So do you think the CT start was important?

Yeah, our CT start was pretty important, and also dycha and hades had some insane clutches 2v3 and 2v4 on the A site, so that ruined their momentum and economy and saved us. It was good they found those clutches.

What was atmosphere like? Movistar are a very vocal team, and you guys were being much more vocal as a team than you usually are.

At the beginning we didn’t scream at all, we are not that kind of a team, but as soon as we saw that after winning every single round they started screaming, we said ‘if they can scream, we can scream even more’ (smiles). Then I started, snappi started, spinx started and everyone started screaming, and then as soon as we were getting rounds in a row they stopped screaming at all. Then, they win a round, and again they scream! We just wanted to… not to fight, but to make it more entertaining.

Do you think because they are so loud, it’s important to show you are not backing down?

Yeah kind of, if they are winning a few rounds in a row and you hear them scream, and you are losing rounds and are silent, it creates a weird atmosphere. When you hear them on your left side constantly screaming, and you are silent, it leads to a bad atmosphere in the team and you need to start putting more energy in.

You mentioned anti-strats in your post-game interview on stream, are they something that you guys think are particularly important?

We have our analyst and our coach that are doing the anti-stratting, they are making these videos about the opponents and we are trying to implement some of the things that we think that we can abuse. We are not like 100% focused on that, because it can also f**k up a lot of scenarios, it can backfire. They also know everyone is anti-stratting and they might change some things in the game if they realise, so we are not too focused on it. It helps to give us a picture of how they play, what is their playstyle, and based on that we just try to get some rounds.

Obviously the Pro League run so far has been fantastic, especially considering you were placed in what many considered the ‘group of death’ – were you guys expecting to perform so well?

We actually didn’t expect this, we thought it was, as you said, the group of death! We thought we might go through, but we weren’t sure, there were mega good teams in our group so we definitely didn’t expect it.

We also knew our potential, we knew that our players with me now are pretty confident, and are really good individually, the main problem at the start of the tournament was our map pool and our structure. We didn’t have everything set yet, it was still kind of early with me, but now as time passes our map pool is getting better and better, the structure also, we know how to play on each other and everything. It’s better each day.

Some people might look at your results here in Pro League so far, and wonder why you haven’t been able to be more consistent in tier-two – Apeks, HEET and Flames have all taken series off you recently.

Well, it’s online CS. We also had some technical difficulties, like for example against Copenhagen Flames in the first game I had no electricity so we had to get in a stand-in. The whole best-of-three against Apeks I had internet issues, I had 120 ms and 3-5% loss all series, and it’s really hard to play like that. If some technical difficulties happen like this, it’s really hard to win games. I wouldn’t say it’s why we lost, but it has an impact.

Also, it’s online CS, it’s just easier to play.

Is motivation also a factor? When you are attending these tier-one events and playing against the best, is it then tough to find the fire when playing against lesser opposition?

Yeah that’s also true kind of, you don’t want to play as much of these tier-two/tier-three events versus some random team… not random, but some lower skilled or lower ranked team will come and beat you and then you just get tilted, like ‘how can these guys beat us’, and it can ruin your atmosphere heading into these bigger tournaments, which are the main focus.

A lot of the top 10 teams are trying to avoid these types of tournaments because they can just cause problems. You don’t get much benefit out of it, you are not going to gain ranking if you beat some top 50 team, but if you lose it’s just going to make it much worse.

If I could switch focus, I wanted to ask a little about your time on FPX. Was this a frustrating period for you, particularly towards the end?

Yeah, during this COVID period with FPX it was a really tough time, it felt like people were lacking a little bit of motivation since we were heading into practice after practice every day, just staying at home, we couldn’t travel anywhere.

All the time it was the same day repeating basically, and people were getting tired of it, especially after the IEM Fall where we were supposed to qualify for the Major. We didn’t qualify, and after that people were mega frustrated and we knew that some changes would happen in the team, and people didn’t give 100% effort. We just knew at that point that some changes were going to happen.

What was it like playing for a Chinese organisation?

It was kind of a weird situation, we didn’t have much contact with them, it was all going through our manager. He was always the one contacting them, we had zero talks with them or anything.

Talking a bit more generally, is it tough to get chances in the scene when you come from a country that isn’t renowned in CS:GO compared to places such as Sweden and Denmark for example?

Yeah I think those countries like Sweden and Denmark have a lot more potential than our countries in the Balkans. People still in our countries don’t know what esports is, what it can bring to you, parents don’t like kids sitting for 12 hours a day at the PC and doing nothing. They think it’s a waste of time, so you don’t have much support from your parents usually, and also you have to invest in a PC and everything yourself. It’s kind of a rough situation.

Even if they do support you, it’s much harder than those countries. I don’t know, it’s just Balkan things (laughs).

Do people not take you seriously?

Yeah, even now when I have achieved what I have achieved. It’s not that much but I am still known in CS, and if I tell people somewhere where I meet them in my town, I say to them ‘I play video games’, they watch me weirdly like ‘what is this guy doing’. It’s a rough situation there.

How has it been for you, being a part of ENCE so far?

The feeling in this team from the very first day, I felt like I knew these guys for a long time, from the very first moment I felt like it’s a family. I feel much confidence in the team, whatever I say inside the game and outside of the game they accept me, so it’s been great, the guys are really friendly and open minded. It’s been an incredibly good three months now.

Did you have any idea after standing in for them last year that they might be interested?

I actually had no clue that they were interested in me. I just wanted to play some tier-one events so I accepted the invite as a sub, because Snappi back then had COVID so he couldn’t attend. After it I had no clue they would invite me, I was still looking for offers, then maybe after a week they contacted me and I was pretty surprised, I didn’t expect it, especially not instantly.

When speaking to Snappi about you joining, he mentioned that ENCE had been looking for an aggressive kind of player. Is that a style that you go for intentionally, or do you just play the way you think is best and it happens to be aggressive?

I think the second thing you said, I just do my things and they are aggressive. I’m not the type of guy who will go and sit on an angle for 30 seconds, I am always trying to be aggressive and do some moves to make space for my team, and it works out. It’s just natural for me, it’s nothing that I am thinking about, it’s just the flow that I get into in the game.

Snappi also said you were vocal in-game – is this a natural thing, or trying to fill a gap maybe, because the other guys seem a bit quieter in comparison?

Again I think it’s mostly natural, although before I joined GODSENT I wasn’t that vocal. I was playing with those guys for two years and I learned a lot, I was learning from my IGLs emi and kRYSTAL, and Devilwalk helped me a lot with comms. Since then it’s natural, it’s not like I need to help someone or something, I just do it in the flow also.

Some coming up next for ENCE will either be NIP or Liquid – how are you feeling about those potential matchups?

I think they are both pretty beatable at the moment, but I think Liquid is easier to beat in a way, because I feel like their playstyle just fits us. I just think they are going to be an easier opponent, but at this stage of the tournament I don’t think anything is easy, both teams will play pretty good and we just need to prepare no matter who it is. We will see what is going to happen.

On the other side of the bracket you have FURIA, Astralis, NAVI and FaZe waiting. Who would you rather play in the final?

I would like to play FURIA again, I think we can beat them this time. It’s going to be hard for them to get to the final, because they have FaZe or NAVI, most likely it will be one of those. I would like to play FURIA again, but I don’t think it will happen to be honest.

Who do you think would give you the hardest game?

I think it would be harder against NAVI, we already beat FaZe, we kind of know how they play, but NAVI have insanely good individuals. Even if their strats are not working, every round b1t or s1mple or electroNic will step up and make some triple or quad kill, which is really hard to counter, so I think it would be much harder playing against NAVI in the finals. If we get there, obviously.