CRUC1AL: "I believe in my teammates, in myself, and as long as everyone does that we can beat anyone"

"It'll be really fun to play him, but sadly one of us has to lose," the Dutch sniper says of facing his former teammate NertZ.

Into the Breach had a less than ideal start to their BLAST.tv Paris Major run in the Challengers Stage, going down to Apeks in the opening best-of-one, but Joey "⁠CRUC1AL⁠" Steusel and company managed an upset win against FaZe to end the day with an even record after two best-of-ones.

Into the Breach's CRUC1AL took some time to give us an update on the goings on in the team, as well as chatting about the first day of best-of-ones which included a loss to Apeks and a stunning upset against FaZe.

Before you came to the Major there was a whole Challengers Stage played, did you watch at all?

Of course, I was watching, I think everyone was watching every game in the Challengers Stage. It's the Major, the biggest tournament in CS:GO, and the last Major! So yeah, I was watching every game and getting excited to play myself.

Did you bootcamp, or how did you prepare?

Yeah, we went on a week-and-a-half bootcamp in Germany, so we prepared well coming into this tournament. Now we just have to show it.

Tell me about the first day here. It started out a bit rough, Apeks got one over you, kind of one-sided. What happened there?

We started off really bad in the first half, it was like 12-3, it was the same at the RMR when we played NAVI and we started off really bad in the first half. I guess it's a curse for us that we start bad the tournament. We lost the half 12-3 and it's really hard to come back from that. We tried, of course, and we got a few rounds, but we couldn't come back in the end because we just lost too many rounds on the CT side of Mirage. Then you just have to mentally reset to go into the next game, and that's what we did.

It is what you did! You took out one of the favorites of the tournament, FaZe, in a BO1. So how was it, you lose to Apeks and then you take out FaZe — as in beat them —, so how did you pull it off?

Yeah, of course, you're playing FaZe and they're favorites to maybe even win the tournament. If you want to beat a team like that everyone has to be on it, dialed in, everyone has to shoot back to be able to compete with them. You just hope that everyone is going to turn up and everyone turned up, so we were capable of beating them.

You had a good 4k on the defense. How many 'Nice, Joey!' did you get for that one?

[Laughs] I think everyone was just screaming, 'Nice!' So yeah, that was nice. We're really good when we have good vibes, so if everyone starts screaming things like that we build up momentum and it's just a great feeling.

Sometimes when you see an underdog play an established team like FaZe they'll crumble, but you didn't You ended up closing it out. Tell me about the mental game in that late part of the map.

It's just about staying calm and not getting too stressed out, because in the second half we lost a round against Deagles, that's when you can crumble and the better team will make the comeback in the end. We just stayed calm and kept going with our gameplan, what we prepared, what we've been preparing the whole bootcamp. We just played our own game and tried to get these last few rounds over the board. It worked in the end!

Some people get sad when the best teams lose because they want the best teams in the playoffs. What do you have to say about this as an underdog who comes here and fights for wins?

I understand, they have such a big fanbase and so many people cheering for them, but if I'm playing I just want to win myself. I'm not here to purposely lose, I just want to win the Major! But let's not get ahead of ourselves, we just won one game. But yeah, I just want to win every game I play.

How much belief do you have in yourselves? After Apeks I guess a little dip in confidence, beating FaZe a big surge in confidence...

The confidence is really high now. If everyone is just on fire, if everyone is on point and there's good, positive vibes, a positive environment, then we can do well.

You're up against ENCE next, how do you feel against that match-up?

Oh, I'm going to be playing my old teammate, a good friend of mine, NertZ! It'll be really fun to play him, but sadly one of us has to lose. I want us to both go through and both go to the Champions Stage. It's kind of sad, I really don't want to play him because he's my friend, but I'm here to win, so I'm planning on winning!

What do you make of going into the last best-of-one?

We just take it game by game, at the RMR we started 0-1 as well, so we just have to take it game by game, get the good vibes going, shoot on the server and see what happens.

How about individually, are you in good form coming into the Major?

Yeah, I feel good individually, good as a team, I believe in my teammates, I believe in myself, and as long as everyone does that in the team, I think that we can beat anyone.