woxic on EF's peak ranking: "We want to show that we are here not by luck"

HLTV visited Eternal Fire during their recent bootcamp in Istanbul and spoke to Özgür "⁠woxic⁠" Eker, looking back at his CS:GO career and the transition to CS2.

Perhaps best known for his time with international squads HellRaisers and MOUZ, woxic has returned to his roots in the past two years, forming Eternal Fire alongside some of the best talent his home country got to offer, who, like him, had brought back experience from stints abroad.

Following a turbulent period that saw most of the cast withdraw from the active roster only to return again a short while after, Eternal Fire have stabilized in the past six months. Now, they sit in the organization's peak 13th ranking following a surprise run to the ESL Pro League Season 18 playoffs.

A new challenge awaits woxic and company now with the scene's switch to Counter-Strike 2, and HLTV had the opportunity to speak to the AWPer while visiting Eternal Fire during a recent bootcamp in Istanbul, Turkey, about the new game and the team's goal to prove their success at EPL wasn't just through luck.

This interview was conducted before Roobet Cup began.

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In the interview with us before EPL, you were open about your ambition for the playoffs run, hence clearly being confident about the team’s potential. Are you even more confident now after EPL?

Firstly, you guys are welcome to our gaming house in Istanbul. And secondly, yeah, we’re more confident because not only just the [EPL] result, but also in CS2 I think we have more potential than in CS:GO.

Since your team is about to enter the CS2 era with the first event, it’s a good moment to look back at your CS:GO career. Are you happy about what you have achieved, being the only Turkish player to reach HLTV Top 20? Or do you think you could have done more?

I'm happy with what I’ve done, but I think I could have done much better. But this is fate, you know. It [had to be] like this, and it happened like this.

In CS:GO, you had a diverse career playing for several international teams, including HellRaisers, MOUZ, and Cloud9. Why did you return to a Turkish team in the end?

I think after playing internationally the whole time, like for five or six years, I just wanted to make a Turkish super team and that's why I wanted to do the comeback. When you are playing at first, you think that you know many things. But I think I obviously didn't know. Back in the day when I was younger, I thought I knew the game and that I was really good and stuff. But when I got experience from the [international] teams, I was feeling more confident to create a new team which was also with my countrymen. That’s why.

You were pretty open when talking about the Eternal Fire roster turmoil from your perspective. Now that your roster is soon to be 6 months old and in the light of your recent EPL run, do you feel you have finally found the formula?

I think yes. For now, everything is looking good and the results we are having now are good. As for the future, I think it can be great as well. Time will show.

How do you yourself experience CS2? What do you find the most concerning and the most enjoyable?

I think the enjoyable thing is MR12, the games end fast and you have time between the praccs to talk, have a discussion, or even just go to the toilet and stuff. As for a bad thing, I think you need to have like really, really good ping to play. In CS:GO, we had a much worse [ping]. Now it's much better. But I think still when there are guys with 7-8 ping we are seeing in FPL or practice, they really kill us behind the walls sometimes. I think that thing can be fixed.

Now many claim the AWP has a smaller impact in CS2 compared to CS:GO. Do you agree with that and why?

I think for now I agree about it because the game is completely different than CS:GO. In CS:GO, AWP was more impactful and now it is not as much. It doesn’t seem like an impactful gun because of the movement in the game. But I think if they do some updates or upgrades to AWP, it can be still impactful. Still, even like this, it’s still a destroyer gun.

What would you like the balance to look like? Should it be more like it was in CS:GO, or should AWP be nerfed?

I think AWP has been nerfed enough since several years ago. I think something new has to come for this game. I don’t know what can they bring for the AWP actually, maybe they can upgrade the five-bullet magazine. But firstly, it’s about the movement, which is so fast. You cannot hold close angles, it's hard to hit. I think, if they fix that, it's going to be an impactful gun again, like in CS:GO.

Speaking of blowing up smokes with grenades, do you think we will be seeing it employed much when the meta is established? IEM Sydney seemed to be more of a proving ground with teams trying to do it more for research purposes.

It obviously is a game-changer moment. People are going to look for new things. Even we are looking for it: how if you throw the grenade on the left, how it's opening; if you throw the net on top, how it's opening... People are going to search [for new ways to use it], and many different things are going to come. As you say, the meta will become stable and not be changing this much. You'll see many different things in the near future about the smoke thing, for sure.

You’re now coming into Roobet Cup which will be your first CS2 event. How important is that for you to show up there given it’s not a LAN?

We want to give our best for every tournament in which we’re going to play in CS2. We want to show that we are here not by luck, we are in the top 13 of the world ranking and also the rest of the rankings. We want to be stable here and we want to participate in more tier 1 events. That's why we want to show what we are already capable of. And that's why we'll do our best.

With Wicadia being the freshest talent from your country at the moment, what young Turkish player would you predict to be the next big Turkish talent?

I can say maybe jottAAA. That's the only one we know. He is playing in FPL and also he's one of our academy players. I think he can be the one like Wicadia. But I don't know, you have to play with him to see his potential. By just watching from the outside and not listening to how he's using his communication skills and his brain, we don't know. But from the outside, I think he's a talented player.