NEKIZ: "The group stage paiN is very different from playoffs; we added a lot of things"

We had a quick chat with the Brazilian rifler after paiN sent Liquid packing in Malta.

paiN dispatched of Liquid in the opening round of the playoffs of ESL Pro League Season 17 and made it through to the round of 12, where they will face MOUZ on Wednesday at 19:00 . The Brazilian side had beaten Grayhound, Rooster, and OG in the group stage to make the bracket stage, but impressed as they made use of their time off between the end of Group C and the playoffs to put some practice into their map pool, catching the world's No. 4 -ranked team off-guard.

After the series, HLTV had a quick chat with Gabriel "⁠NEKIZ⁠" Schenato to discuss what the team's game plan had been like heading into the series, a topic Rodrigo "⁠biguzera⁠" Bittencourt briefly spoke about on broadcast by admitting that paiN came into the match with the aim to shut down Mareks "⁠YEKINDAR⁠" Gaļinskis. NEKIZ elaborated on that plan of action and spoke a little of paiN's preparation during their week off, stating that the team added a lot to their game since the group stage.

biguzera mentioned on broadcast that there was a pretty set gameplan to target YEKINDAR on Mirage, can you talk more about that?

The thing is that we know he plays very aggro in mid, so we tried to focus more on him in the beginning of the round, and then after we care about the others. As T side, I don't think we had a lot of fights in middle as we thought we could have, we didn't see him. Maybe he expected this, I'm not sure, but we didn't see him pushing under a lot, pushing top mid or something like that, but the plan was this one.

As CT side, actually it was quite okay, we were just playing passive and we were not fighting that hard on middle. If we fight hard in the beginning of the round we'd give it up and play calm and slowly, and that was the plan to be honest.

You've had a few days off since your group ended, what was the practice like during that time off and was there any doubt in your head coming into this match with a bit of a break since the group stage?

After we qualified for the playoffs, we went to Relog Media in Serbia. It's been a while since we practiced in Europe, so we had to prepare more because playoffs is always hard. We went to Relog and practiced a lot, it was a great improvement for us and we added a lot of things in our game. The group stage paiN is very different from playoffs because we added a lot of things in seven maps.

Has there been any difficulty integrating back into this lineup for you, especially with biguzera leading?

Not really. The thing is that the first time that I played for paiN before I got benched, I was playing more passive, being more of a slow kind of player, which I don't like to be honest. I like to be the aggro player, to do the aggro plays as T, as CT, and when I got in O PLANO I played a lot like this.

Right now when I got back to paiN, to the active roster, I have the chance to play that style and it's working very good right now. And of course, I've played with biguzera, I've played with skullz back in the day actually, and I've played with hardzao for a while so it was not hard to adapt.

Coming into this match Liquid were pretty decent favorites. What was the mentality like for the team coming into the series since the last time you played Liquid on Mirage you'd lost 1-16?

After zevy and skullz, we got two players that like to play Mirage. Me, biguzera, hardzao, and PKL, back in the day we didn't like to play that map, so we brought it back to our map pool and it's been pretty good right now actually, we're playing super good in practice, and even right now with this result. It gets more confident when we play more during the events, and of course for this game we were super confident. We knew that we would win, and it happened.

You'll be up against MOUZ tomorrow, how do you feel going against them with the quick turnover and not much time to prepare?

I think we played against MOUZ at the end of 2022 if I'm not wrong, I don't know exactly, and it was a close game. But our level was lower than what we are right now, so we are very confident again. Of course respecting the other team, but we are very confident that we are going to win, and we are going to win for sure.