rigoN: "When the fans are booing us we get more energy"

Bad News Eagles are through to their second Legends Stage at a Major and Rigon "⁠rigoN⁠" Gashi sat down with HLTV to give his thoughts about the Kosovar team's feat.

Bad News Eagles made it through the IEM Rio Major's Legends Stage with a clean 3-0 record, taking down 00NATION, BIG and GamerLegion in the process. The Kosovar squad did so after months of online play and will once again appear in the top 16 of a Major, repeating the feat from their debut at a Valve-sanctioned event in Antwerp.

rigoN took some time after the 2-0 qualifying victory over GamerLegion to talk about the feat and the team's expectations for the event in Rio. He also commented on not being Major rookies anymore, as well as playing in front of a roaring crowd. "We're not nervous anymore, like the first time," rigoN said in the interview. "We don't make stupid mistakes anymore, so it's pretty nice now."

So, you made it to the Legend stage now with a 3-0 record. Did you think it would go this well before coming to Rio?

To be honest, we expected it. We gained some experience the last Major and we don't have the best opponents right now. We had good opponents, but not like FaZe or NAVI. We expected to go 3-0. Or maybe not, maybe 3-1, but 3-0 is good!

This is your second Major now, as you said. How does it compare to the first? Especially since it's not a studio Challenger Stage, there's a crowd.

The crowd doesn't do anything to us, like when the fans are booing us we get more energy. It's like, 'let's beat them, this is sick!' We're not nervous anymore, like the first time, we don't make stupid mistakes anymore, so it's pretty nice now.

You're back on LAN now. You had some struggles playing tournaments online, a lot of times against lower-tier teams that are fighting in the mud. What's it like to be back here on the big stage?

Yeah, I don't know. The online phase was just weird, we played against some teams and lost. I was really struggling in the past month with my performances, but I'm happy that we came here and I performed well, my team performed well, and I'm super happy that we got to Legends Stage. We'll probably go further, to be honest.

You found great form here and you're among the top performers in this stage so far. What's in the air here in Rio that gets the best out of you?

I don't know, I meditate a lot. Or not meditate, but I listen to music and I go deep into it. Sometimes I get tears in my eyes when I think about going on stage, about when we win. I previsualize what's going to happen after the game and I want it so bad that I try my best with the team and yeah... We won!

What do you listen to?

Mostly deep house, something like that.

Regarding the qualifying match against GamerLegion. You were the up and coming guys at the last Major, this time they're the ones that have been popping off and getting to the 3-0 match. Was this a bit of a statement win from you guys?

Haha, I cannot say that, but... They have kind of the same play style, they play like us, but they push it one more step with the aggression. We had the same play style, but we chose to add a bit of structure. We knew what they were going to do, they push a lot of smokes, and I also pushed a lot of smokes because people don't wait for it, so I just do it. They did it as well, but in the end we came out on top. We had a good CT half on Ancient, we did as well on Mirage, so...

They picked Mirage, which is a very strong map for you. Do you think they got overconfident in their abilities, or made a bad calculation?

I don't know what they thought with picking Mirage because they could have picked Vertigo. We thought they would pick it because we had a seven map losing streak online. We beat 00Nation on stage, but I think that they thought we were ready on Vertigo and picked Mirage, so I guess they shot themselves in the foot.

You mentioned how the crowd was a motivator in the match against 00Nation. How was that experience?

All five of us, when we go on stage, we focus on the game. You can hear the crowd, and this crowd is amazing, the best I've seen, seriously. It's an amazing feeling, but as I said, when we get the boos, we get even more energy and just want to beat the enemy team. But yeah, this crowd is really amazing.

So, 3-0. Now you have a couple of days off and on to the Legends Stage. Earlier you already said that you think you can go further, tell me about the confidence and atmosphere in the team right now.

We're really good at best-of-ones, so I think we can do damage in the Legends Stage. Our goal is to get to the Champions Stage and to play in a bigger arena. We'll try our best and yeah, we'll probably get some upsets!