CYPHER: "It's coming home"

The British rifler spoke to HLTV after a shocking victory over the current Major champions.

Into the Breach have been one of the surprise packages from the BLAST.tv Paris Major 2023 Europe RMR A after three incredible matches, which included a double-overtime loss to Natus Vincere as well as victories over Sprout and Virtus.pro. The British core beat the IEM Rio champions at their own game on Mirage, edging out a hard-fought victory with a 16-13 scoreline.

Thomas "⁠Thomas⁠" Utting and company are now one best-of-three series away from the Paris Major's Challenger Stage, looking to potentially become the first British team to qualify for a Valve-sponsored event. Cai "⁠CYPHER⁠" Watson has been the standout player for Into the Breach with a 1.34 rating across the three maps played in Copehangen, leading the line for the team over more experienced players such as Thomas and Karol "⁠rallen⁠" Rodowicz.

The 20-year-old rifler sat down with HLTV after a fantastic performance against Virtus.pro to talk about Into the Breach's chances at the RMR, how the team was formed, and his personal form.

You just got out of a victory against Virtus.pro, what was the first thought going through your mind after winning that map?

Major's coming, it's coming home! It's all I can say really.

That comes after an overtime match against NAVI, a victory over Sprout. You're 2-1 after the best-of-one portion of the RMR. What are the feelings after playing top teams, beating one and going to OT against the other? Is it something you could have even imagined before traveling here?

Honestly, no. When we first came here... In my opinion tier three, tier two and tier one are kind of close-ish. I think there's only four teams in tier one that are incredible, so the fact that we could take NAVI to OT... As soon as we did that, we realized 'Hold on, we can actually do this, we can make the Major and take rounds off the best teams in the world.' Before we came I didn't expect any of this, to be honest. I thought we'd do good, but I didn't expect this. It's beyond belief.

The team is a crazy hodge-podge of players and regions. You have CRUC1AL, a Dutchman that has been in tier two forever, a Polish veteran in rallen, who is now going international. You're up-and-coming from the UK, a region that has been somewhat downtrodden in past years. How did this all come together?

It just started with Thomas, really. Originally it was going to be me, Thomas, smooya, fear and REDSTAR. I think that was it, but that crumbled and Thomas just picked up everyone. At the start it was going rough because everyone is from different backgrounds and with different playstyles. rallen for example, he's aggressive, I'm aggressive... volt is more calculated, you know?

Me and rallen just kind of hold 'W' and do what we want on timings, stuff like that. Thomas is kind of here to put the pieces together and do the best he can IGLing, which he is. Then Joey [CRUC1AL] is just a reliable AWPer, you can count on him to win rounds and hit unreal shots.

How does the calling work? I know Thomas is calling, but rallen called for a while back in Poland, how is that dynamic? What are the voices and the communication?

It's mostly Thomas, but everyone is chipping in. If you have good spawn, if you have a good read on the game... like volt, or Joey will call his peeks, I'll call how to abuse a site, and Thomas how to start or end a round. Basically everyone chips in, but he does it mostly.

How about your personal form? You just dropped 27 [frags] on Virtus.pro, you had 29 against Sprout. You've been fragging like crazy, big ratings. You've never been at an event of this stature and here you are on LAN showing no fear. What's that like for you?

It's unbelievable, to be honest with you. I don't know, before I came to this event I was having a little bit of a slump and Juve and Thomas just spoke to me to say 'It doesn't matter, you're here now,' so I kind of don't think about the opponents I'm against. You just have to play your own game, right? You just have to play your own game and if it works, it works, really. But it's unbelievable to be playing like this at this event.

Along with Viperio you were the two most underdog teams, so it's kind of expected that you could maybe thrive in best-of-ones, in situations like you have, but now you're going into series play, which differentiates the top sides from those trying to make it. How do you feel going into it, can you still hang in there? Do you have a map pool to the top dogs in the next rounds?

Our map pool is decent, it's actually pretty good, we've got like five maps that we're confident on. Obviously some, which shall not be named, are very rough, but what can you do? But yeah, I'm quite confident.

To wrap things up, what were the expectations before the event compared to where you're at now after the first three rounds of best-of-ones?

Honestly? We were hoping to get stickers. To make the next stage. So the fact that we're this close and it's doable is exciting. Kind of nerve wracking, but exciting.

When you say nerve wracking, is it something you feel on the server?

No. For me, it's something I feel before the game, but as soon as I'm in the server it kind of fades away and I just focus on the game. With everyone else, rallen's experienced, Thomas is experienced, and Joey... volt, from what I can tell he doesn't really get nervous, so...