siuhy on the FaZe match: "It just proved to us we're capable of fighting against the best teams"

The GamerLegion captain talked to us about the team's narrow loss to FaZe and how the new lineup is panning out.

GamerLegion surprised in their opening match of the IEM Road to Rio Europe RMR, recovering from a 2-9 deficit on Mirage to put the PGL Major Antwerp champions up against the ropes in the latter stages of the map. Kamil "⁠siuhy⁠" Szkaradek's troops seized the advantage numerous times and were mere moments from closing out the map, but struggled to convert seven match points and ultimately ended up conceding the map in quadruple overtime.

The team bounced back on day two against Aurora, claiming a decisive 16-10 victory despite losing both pistols on Ancient. After the game, HLTV caught up with GamerLegion's in-game leader siuhy to get his thoughts on how the team have fared at the RMR so far, as well as to find out how his transition from MOUZ NXT to a new team is going a month down the line.

Let's start with the match you just played, you now have a 1-1 record. The scored ended up being 16-10 in the end, how are you feeling after getting off to a better start today than yesterday?

Honestly even yesterday was a very good start for us. We knew that if we came into that game with the right mindset, the right approach and the right preparation, we could be dangerous as well. That's exactly what we showed, and I'm happy that this is the way we started rather than losing the first game very heavily. The next game, we proved that we can still continue the level we showed in the first game, so I'm really happy to win my first game in the RMR this way.

Even though you ended up losing to FaZe yesterday, does it help bolster your confidence coming here, considering you managed to push one of the best teams in the world that far?

Definitely. Like I said [before the interview started], it's much better to lose that way rather than losing 16-1 or 16-0 against a team like that. It just proved to us and gave us this little bit of confidence that we kinda proved ourselves already, that we're capable of fighting against the best teams. I'm glad that we proved it to ourselves even.

You've had over a month since you qualified for this event, and you didn't play other tournaments in that time. What have you spent that time doing?

It was all preparation for this exact tournament. Bootcamps, online practice, we were working on all sorts of things whether that is in-game or outside of the game. Working on the chemistry in the team, making sure we're all comfortable as individuals and as a team. I think we reached our expectations during the practice, and I'm happy that everyone was so keen to work and put in the hours that was needed.

Something I did want to touch on with the series versus FaZe, were you surprised they let you take it to Mirage considering it's one of your best maps?

We actually prepared three maps for them, and this is one of them. When we saw that we got Mirage we felt pretty happy and confident, and we knew we could be dangerous, it's always a strong map of mine and the rest of the team's. I think the veto maybe went our way, maybe FaZe could have played it a bit differently, but at the end of the day it is what it is.

acoR had a pretty great performance on that map — one of the big talking points for him was that he struggled on the old MOUZ lineup and has been out of action since being benched. What's helping him perform so much better on this team right now, are you unlocking his potential a bit more?

It's hard to say what was wrong in his previous team, or why he was struggling. For me the most important thing is to see that Freddy [acoR] is having a good time, and also he knows that he's free, he knows that I trust him a lot in everything that he does. Wherever he goes, whatever he calls, I try to adapt the round around him to make sure he's feeling comfortable, I try not to shut him down as much.

He's a very good player and every practice that we play, he shows something new. He's crazy in the game and I'm really happy to have a teammate like him.

When this team first came together, your coach ashhh told us he picked you out first to help lead the rebuild for this project. What influenced you to pick out the players you ended up with and build the team in this way?

I had a big say in who we're picking up and who we want to play with. For me, the most important was chemistry inside the team. I wanted everyone to feel good, to be happy, to come into practice an hour before, talk on TeamSpeak, even stay after practice. I didn't want this to be a boring working environment.

We looked out for individuals we knew would suit the chemistry inside the team, that was our main focus while we were looking at players, and I think we succeeded.

The last team you were on, the original iteration of NXT with xertioN, JDC, torzsi and szejn, that team also had a similar vibe. You're now on a different team to them, and three of them are together on the main MOUZ lineup. I talked to xertioN yesterday and he said he's still getting used to playing his role on that team, how do you feel about how they're all being utilized on that MOUZ lineup as someone who led them previously?

First of all, I'm really happy that they got the chance to get promoted, I think we could have expected this a long time ago. Just from the first day that we played together, we instantly knew that there was something up with us, that we're not a normal team, we're very special and the fact that we got together as four or five individuals like this, with a coach as well, it's crazy we had such a click together.

The way they're being utilized, I mean... they're all smart enough and they're all really good enough as individuals to perform, but it's a matter of going into the team and doing it for the team also. From what I know and how I played with them, they're really good individuals and they know how to adapt to a team, and it just takes some time, a few days, weeks, sometimes months, but it will come sooner or later for sure.

For those players, there was always somewhat of a sense they could prove themselves and make it on to the main lineup, but dexter was a little more established as MOUZ's caller. So in your case, did you feel like you were auditioning for other teams more rather than a promotion?

I've said this before, but playing in an academy team the goal is always to be promoted to the main team, right? For me, I came into that project thinking more that I want to improve on myself as an individual, rather than focusing on getting into the HLTV ranking or getting into the top 10, top 30, whatever.

I wanted to improve as an individual, just work on myself, see what individuals I have with me and see what I can do with that, and then after a year or two see how I improved and take it from there. It was not a goal at the very beginning to go up instantly or get promoted.

You have one best-of-one match left, then you'll head into series play. As a bit more of an unknown quantity that doesn't have many officials on record for people to look at, how much of an advantage do you have going into those?

Honestly I think it depends on the team we play against. Some teams like to prepare heavily for their opponent, and maybe if they want to prepare for us they will see that we have no material because we haven't played in a long time, and haven't played many maps.

But then you have other teams that prefer to play their own game, they don't like to look at what their opponent is doing, so I guess it's down to the opponent but it's certainly an advantage that they don't have material on us in the long-term. It's much better playing like this, knowing they don't know what you do, so you feel much more comfortable on the server.

How comfortable do you feel going into series play considering the level of teams at the event?

Honestly we're very confident. It's not like we set a goal to reach this or anything. We're here to play for ourselves and see what we're capable of, and I'm in no doubt we already proved in the first and second game that we can fight against the big dogs, and I'm happy with how we started this tournament so far.