acoR: "This is one of those opportunities that we need to jump on"

The Danish AWPer sees GL as a more confident and experienced side as his team make a charge to reach a second consecutive Major.

GamerLegion were one of the surprises last Major as the Kamil "⁠siuhy⁠" Szkaradek-led team made it through the Road to Rio RMR in Europe after knocking out giants G2 in a best-of-three series. The international side even got off to a 2-0 start in Brazil with best-of-one victories over Vitality and 9z, but then lost three straight series to Bad News Eagles, FURIA and Cloud9.

Frederik "⁠acoR⁠" Gyldstrand and company then played Elisa Masters right after the Major, but have not played another LAN event since, making this their first real chance to leap up in the standings and try to hit a coveted top 20 spot in the world ranking, No. 20 having been their peak after the last Major.

This time around, in Copenhagen, GamerLegion started off their run at the RMR with a 1-1 record after the first day of play. They tallied a loss to Apeks, another team that ended the day even, and a victory over the struggling OG.

We caught up with GamerLegion's AWPer, acoR, after the first day to hear his thoughts on where the team is at and how they can seize the opportunity to once again be thrown back into the spotlight on the world stage.

Let's go back to how the first day started, which was with the Apeks match. You had recently played them online and come out on top then. Why did they get the best of you today?

We came into the match with a lot of confidence, actually. We won the last time we faced them, even if it was in an online cup, and we came in thinking we would win the match, but without underestimating them.

We had a lot of preparation for them, but it was the first match on LAN and we felt kind of disjointed as a team, not really on the same page, so we ended up losing. Our confidence took a hit, but after the win against OG I feel like we came back really strong as a team. Even behind the scenes, like our comms were really good, and our composure.

Tell me about that OG match, did you feel like you could take advantage of a struggling team?

Yeah, I feel like they're struggling a bit right now, they lost their IGL. I myself and the rest of the team had the feeling that they were going to play a bit of a puggy style.

I can't remember how long exactly they've been without nexa, but it's hard for someone else to come in and call nexa's strats or whatever they had before, so we expected a bit of a puggy style, like faking somewhere and popping or exploding somewhere. They played exactly how we expected them to.

You guys sort of popped up in the last RMR when you qualified all the way to the Rio Major itself. Where is the current GamerLegion compared to then? Are you in a similar position?

I think we all have a lot more experience, I can see that in the players themselves, they have a lot more confidence coming into the tournament. The last time at the RMR in Malta I was the one with the most experience and I could see in the players that it was kind of new to them and they were kind of nervous for the big games.

I feel like at the tournament here in Copenhagen now, everything has changed, they have the confidence to take the peeks and make plays. Experience and confidence-wise, I think we're pretty up there with some of the better teams.

How about your current form? You made it to the Major last cycle but never really got your foot in the door and fell back to where you were. Do you see this as another opportunity to make that jump?

Yeah, I definitely feel like this is one of those opportunities that we need to jump on and take advantage of because qualifying for the RMR is one of those things that can give us points on HLTV and we need to take advantage of that. If not we have to win all of the online tournaments just to keep us level with like the top 25 and we want to get into the top 20 at some point. We need to take advantage of the situation we have now.

Where do you see the team's ceiling? Players are starting to get some experience, so what are the team's capabilities?

We could definitely go far at some point, it all depends on how fast we learn stuff and keep it in our head and play together. Being an international team, we still have our struggles with communication sometimes, that's just how it is as an international team. Sometimes in a round it gets hectic, things get said fast, and some people won't understand it because they're not so good at English. It's just how it is.

Looking forward I think we still have potential to make it far and make the top 20, close to top 10. If everyone played their A game every time, then top 10. It would be something to aim for in the future.

To round things out, you finished the first day with a 1-1 record. You have one more best-of-one, but then it'll get into series play. Is that something you look forward to or dread?

It depends on who we meet. If we meet a top team or one of the better teams, best-of-one would probably favor us. You never know, but BO1 would probably favor us against top teams and the other way around, so if we go BO3 against a top team we'd be the underdog. Not to say that we can't win a BO3 against one of the top teams.

Well, you did it last time!

We did it last time, so we showed we can do it, and we can do it again.