SunPayus: "The EPL honeymoon died down and now it's more about the work we put in"

ENCE staved off elimination in the 0-2 pool at the RMR, after which the Spanish AWPer gave his impressions on the team's position in Copenhagen.

ENCE had a rough first day at the BLAST.tv Paris Major Europe RMR B with two best-of-one defeats at the hands of FORZE and Monte, which put them straight into the elimination matches. In their first best-of-three series, the Marco "⁠Snappi⁠" Pfeiffer-led squad smashed iNation 16-0 on Nuke before struggling to close out the second map, Mirage, 16-14.

The international side's Spanish AWPer, Álvaro "⁠SunPayus⁠" García, took some time after their day two victory to talk about what the atmosphere in his team's camp is, as well as some of the things to work on these coming days if ENCE want to keep their chances of making the Paris Major come the end of the RMR. "We had a really bad day, now we just need to regain our confidence," he said.

You had an 0-2 start here, best-of-ones can be tricky. You played a close map with FORZE, 14-16, and the more impacting loss against Monte. What do you make of the first day?

Against Monte we played very individually on T side. We made a big mistake early on, in my opinion, we forced an extra round that we shouldn't have and when we were ready to start playing we were already behind 1-5. In a best-of-one that's a very complicated position. We started to play very individually from the beginning of rounds and before you even notice you're down 1-8, you don't know what the other team is doing, and basically that was our T side. We tried to come back on the CT side, but it was very complicated and we had no margin for error.

There was a moment today in which maden called a mid push, went for it, died, and Snappi gave him a bit of an angry look. Are there many moments like that in which you try to make plays and it backfires? What's going on?

We're a team that has a lot of freedom in that sense, at the end of the day our gameplay is built around our firepower, so when someone wants to make a play we try to help them make that play. I think we still have that, but after starting 0-2 it's a bit more complicated, when people try to do it maybe they're a bit less confident. We really needed today's victory to get a bit more confidence and I think we have to focus a bit more when we're closing a match. It was really in our favor, but when we started the CT side we were a bit sleepy and it got a bit too complicated.

You won 16-0 on Nuke today against iNation, but Mirage did get a bit complicated by the end of it. Were you a bit overconfident?

We started Mirage with a bit weaker communication, it's something that I think is happening to us because we're a bit low on confidence, so it's hard to start maps with perfect communication. We start a bit slow and have to call a pause just say 'Okay guys, let's talk, let's communicate, let's be clear.' I think from now on it'll be better, we haven't stopped all day since yesterday morning until today. All day preparing yesterday, at night we prepared for this morning's match. Now we'll have a bit of time to talk and work a little bit for tomorrow's match. We'll be able to play a bit, as well, which I think we need. That'll be important.

What do you need to change for tomorrow, be it mentally or the mood in the team?

We need, first of all, self-confidence, that's why I think the victory today was so important. In second place I'd like to talk to the team about when I'm rifling and don't have an AWP on the CT side. I can see it's hard for the team to adapt to the way we should play. When I have a rifle it becomes harder, we're a bit dependent on the AWP when we play CT side. Maybe fix a few mistakes, especially on Mirage, and not much else. If we talk about the communication to start our games a lot more active, doing some intense pre-match routines, I think that can really help. If we start our matches with more energy we can get through this qualifier.

Tell me a bit about NertZ, he seems to be a pretty good signing from the outside. How do you see it?

NertZ knows a lot about the game and he really tries to help the team, especially in the mid-round and making plays or micromanaging the team since he's in some good positions to do that. He has a great attitude and he's always cheering, which is something I think we really needed. He's a star player and I hope he keeps it up because he's putting up huge numbers and creates a great atmosphere.

What were your expectations before traveling to the RMR and where are you at now, after two days of play?

I'll be completely honest, the two weeks after Pro League, before coming to the RMR, were so-so. We won more praccs than we lost, but I felt like we were making more mistakes than normal. The Pro League honeymoon kind of died down and now it's more about the work we put in. We just need to get our confidence back. Coming here, we knew it was going to be a very hard group and our expectations were of course to qualify, but I don't think we choked. We had a really bad day, now we just need to regain our confidence, keep moving forward, and try to make it through.