sdy: "Now we have more structure, I can rely on people not dying when they don't need to"

Viktor "⁠sdy⁠" Orudzhev tells us about how Monte are adapting to life without Mohammad "⁠BOROS⁠" Malhas.

Monte have had an exceptional 2023 so far. They have played 208 maps in the 208 days of 2023 so far, and that grind has paid off — they established themselves as a fearsome online presence, and backed it up at the BLAST.tv Paris Major with a top-eight finish.

Going into IEM Cologne they have lost BOROS to Falcons, a player that often provided the necessary spark behind Monte's upsets. Still, Monte have arrived in Cologne swinging despite the loss of their talismanic Jordanian.

Already taking down FURIA and Imperial, sdy and company are now setting their sites on another arena playoffs. In their path will be GamerLegion, the core of the side that took them down in the Accor Arena.

After the Major you took a little break, what's it like being back? Are you enjoying it?

Yeah it's a good feeling, we didn't have a lot of time to prepare but we are trying to progress on the tournament game by game, round by round. We are seeing a lot of problems and we are trying to fix them.

You're still the IGL, are you starting to get your philosophy across?

I think it will take a few more tournaments — or maybe my whole life, I don't know — but I think I understand and feel the game pretty well, especially with this team. Now we have more structure, and I can rely on people simply not dying when we don't need to. It's much easier on T side than it was before right now.

Talk to me a little bit about adding br0. A bit more passive than BOROS, is that making it easier to call around? Less of a maverick type player?

Yeah, it depends. With BOROS it was very good with his playstyle, we played around it, we tried to use it as much as possible to utilise him. When he left, we take br0 and we try to utilise him in his way as well. So we're just trying to play the game that we can in the exact moment, we understand that we have players to do such things as they can do, individuals, and we need to rely on it. We can't just play the same game all the time.

How are you finding playing with br0 so far? How has he settled in?

br0 is doing well, he's progressing day by day. We still have a lot of things to fix but we're working with him, everybody, and I feel that he's trying really hard and doing his best.

You're back at Cologne, got to the final last year. Do you think you can get to the LANXESS again?

If you're not ready for the arena, you shouldn't come to the tournament at all.

With the team's structure as well, of course BOROS was such a vital factor. Who's the star player now, how is the team structured?

I think the whole team is a big star, and we give space here and there for everyone. But I still have much more space than everybody else probably, with Woro2k. So me and Woro2k.

One thing, it came out a few months ago about the Ukraine Esports Federation putting a stop to players leaving the country right? The rumour was maybe that you couldn't be here so can you tell me a little bit about that and what actually happened?

I can say that we are thankful to our Ministry of Information, they gave us permission for us to play this tournament and we are here, I hope we are making every countryman as proud as possible. Slava Ukraini.

Date	Matches
IEM Cologne 2023
29/07/2023	GamerLegion 12:30 Monte	Match