kRaSnaL: "FORZE wrote something like, 'what're they doing, they're only running,' but suddenly they are running to airport and we're in Legends"

The Polish rifler didn't hold back after Monte made it through to the Legends Stage of the BLAST.tv Paris Major.

Monte became the seventh team to advance to the Legends Stage in Paris after defeating paiN in a three-map series, recovering from a defeat on Anubis — a map which they held a 15-map winstreak on — by dominating on Nuke and cruising to victory on the CT side of Mirage.

The Ukrainian-majority squad had difficulty in their opening match versus FaZe, letting a 14-10 lead slip, but bounced back with a win over Fluxo in their ensuing match. FORZE then dominated Viktor "⁠sdy⁠" Orudzhev's side in their 1-1 matchup, leading to a spat on Twitter between Andrey "⁠Jerry⁠" Mekhryakov and Sergiy "⁠DemQQ⁠" Demchenko.

It ended up being Monte who got the last laugh, however, after they prevailed in series play against The MongolZ and paiN to qualify for the Legends Stage. FORZE, meanwhile, fell to GamerLegion and FaZe to be eliminated with a 2-3 record, something that Szymon "⁠kRaSnaL⁠" Mrozek called attention to in our post-match interview.

The Polish rifler also touched on Monte's insane number of official games so far this year, shared insight into what it is like playing with Mohammad "⁠BOROS⁠" Malhas, and touched upon their Anubis streak being broken, something which didn't faze him whatsoever.

Congrats on the win. You had this streak on Anubis going into the series, they broke that. Can you tell me what went wrong, what your thoughts are on that map first?

Too many mistakes, too many mistakes. We lost pistol, we won force, we lost another force, we win, they break us and they start up, 5-2. They win the first full buy and the score was already 7-2 and we need to come back.

They were playing really good at the start, but we did a lot of mistakes, a lot of miscommunications, and it was really hard to comeback on CT. We didn't have really good economy, but yeah, nothing to do — we win 15 in a row, we can lose one, yeah? Let's make another 15.

You came back on the next two maps, did a really good job shutting paiN down on Nuke and Mirage. Can you tell me about the game plan a bit? I overheard NEKIZ saying you countered them really well.

We went outside as a team and sdy asked if we enjoyed the game, and everyone said no. He just take us on his back, motivate us to play, and we did our best, we fixed communication, we fixed everything, it was like a totally different game between Anubis and Nuke.

Can you tell me about working with this team, what it's like for you?

It's really good to work with these people, like lmbt who cannot be with us suddenly. He is helping us a lot even though he is not there with us, sdy was playing for NAVI, this guy is like take your level up, you need to step up to play with this guy because you cannot play bad.

BOROS is out-aiming everyone, Woro is really good AWPer, DemQQ is top anchor. Our team has really good structure, and I think we really like to play with each other and spend a lot of time, you can see how many matches we have on HLTV and stuff.

Tell me a little more about that, when you came into this event you had something like 170 maps or something this year. Tell me about that grind and preparing for the Major.

It was preparing like normal, like usual. We had a bootcamp, ten days off, with also CCT which we won, one we lost suddenly with 14-4 lead on Vertigo. We're still working and we have a lot of matches, but it gives us confidence. We're in match shape, you know? We can play a lot of matches straight and we don't care, we are not bored, we are not tired.

BOROS as you said, talented aim star. What's it like playing with him in the server? I did a feature on him before we came here, but what is he like in the game?

He's a really good guy. Sometimes he's doing too much, but I think we just work together to fix mistakes. He's like best, I haven't seen better aim than him to be honest.

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When you say he's doing too much, what do you mean?

Sometimes when you have big advantage, like normal advantage with 5vs4 or sometimes 5vs3, he's just going for more when we just have to stand and wait for the enemy. But we forgive him for what he does for us.

[laughs] Fair enough, he does bang heads. You started a bit rough here, but you've now made it through. Can you talk me through your path through the Challengers Stage?

We had a kinda good match on FaZe, then we lost to FORZE, yeah? They just totally destroyed us, like we couldn't do anything. We played Fluxo, like I'm trying to be a supportive guy to kill, you know? I'm trying to stay passive, let Woro, sdy, and BOROS kill, and me and DemQQ fill the gaps. It started really bad, and I hope that it's going better and better.

After you won, I heard someone shout about FORZE as well. Is it nice to make it in when they didn't make it through?

They wrote something bad on game chat, something like, "what are they doing, they are only running," but suddenly they are running to airport and we are in the Legends.

You are in the Legends Stage! How do you feel about going into that stage now?

It's another step for us. We need to fix the mistakes really quick that we did today and the past days, and we will see how it will be.