STYKO: "The 0-13 was a blessing in disguise"

STYKO discusses Apeks' recovery from a horrid start to IEM Katowice Play-in and his return to the team after a spell on the bench.

Apeks have qualified for the IEM Katowice group stage after a tough run through the Play-in. The team got off with a 0-13 loss to Spirit but recovered in the lower bracket with hard-fought wins over FURIA and BIG, coming back from a 3-9 deficit on the final map of the latter match to make it to the next phase.

After the match, HLTV caught up with Martin "⁠STYKO⁠" Styk, who has returned to the squad until the end of the Major cycle to allow the team to retain their RMR invitation following the loss of Damjan "⁠kyxsan⁠" Stoilkovski.

The Slovak spoke about Apeks' recovery from the 0-13 loss and explained why it was like a "blessing in disguise." He shared what the team's goal is at IEM Katowice, which began just weeks before the PGL Major qualifier, and shed light on his own mindset when it comes to his temporary return to the roster.

That was a nerve-wracking end to the game, walk me through the comeback from 10-12 to beat BIG in overtime.

Honestly, I would have to rewatch because all the rounds we won I was just alive chilling towards A and my teammates were winning it on B. There were a lot of multikills they were doing all of a sudden, and I think that's something we've been lacking throughout the whole Ancient and maybe even Inferno. We just couldn't get multikills going and we weren't able to kill them instead.

Good openings by CacaNito, sense had some really good clutches as well, jkaem killed three on middle... All these kinds of things fell into place, and maybe it was a choke from them, maybe it was us pushing over the final hurdle, but it felt like it was meant to be, honestly.

This tournament overall so far has been a wild ride for you already. You started with the 0-13 to Spirit and then fight through these two tough series against FURIA and BIG, having to come back in overtime on map three. How did you recover from that start and refocus to be able to do this?

Basically, the 13-0 was like a blessing in disguise. We had an extensive talk in the practice room after that loss. It was nothing bad, we were owned, we were clearly worse, but it wasn't worth a 13-0 in our opinion. But we basically talked about our identity, how we want to play the game, how we want to approach some of the rounds, especially on T side because sense is a new IGL. We have to kind of push him to know how we want to play as experienced players, jkaem, nawwk, me, and CacaNito.

That was our focal point for the rest of this stage to work on these T sides. Actually, before we came here our CT sides were the main thing where we struggled, but here I think we only played bad T sides. FURIA on Mirage, we had 0-11 or something, Spirit was 13-0, and today on Ancient we had 9-3 or something. CT sides were actually pretty good.

As you say, it is a bit of an asterisk-filled tournament for you guys. You're only coming in for the first tournament since returning to the roster and sense became the new in-game leader after kyxsan's departure. With the RMR being around the corner, what are the goals here and how are you feeling about your form?

This is like the perfect tournament, I'm glad we finally got an invite to the Play-in because it was on the verge of not making it. This tournament is like a data point for us. If we do well, we realize that we, okay, what we worked on in January is actually a good approach and we keep doing that for the RMR. And if we come here and bomb out, we're going to change it and adjust, and we have still two weeks until the RMR, so we have enough time to fix our game plan. That's what Katowice is all about. Us making it to the actual Katowice group stage is kind of a nice thing to have.

About your mindset, it was said you were going to come back in until the end of the Major. How are you dealing with that in terms of your commitment considering this uncertainty?

First of all, whenever I'm signed to a team, it doesn't matter if it's like for a week or three years, I'm gonna give it my all no matter what. I'm representing an organization and I'm going to do my best no matter what is happening. But obviously I have to think about the future as well, and a lot of people were saying that I would just quit when I got benched because I'm too old or something, I don't have great stats and everything.

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STYKO returns to Apeks on short-term deal

I completely understand that point and I understand that if Apeks wants to make it to the Major, which is our goal, I need to play differently than I did in the summer of 2023 when we were struggling heavily after the Major. I need to readjust my roles, readjust my approach to all these roles. I also worked heavily on aim training, and this is something that was the reason I was benched, it was my performance, so I realized, okay, I don't ever want to do that again, so I need to step up on this part. And this is basically what I've been doing the last three months when I was on the bench.