Woro2K: "We have a minimum goal to go to the playoffs for kRaSnaL"

Monte got off to a slow start at IEM Katowice but have recovered in an elimination game against Cloud9.

For a team that was used to playing a map per day on average in officials in 2023, it's been an unusual experience for Monte to play their first match of the new year only at the beginning of February.

The Ukrainian-majority side received a direct invite to the IEM Katowice group stage and got off to a slow start when they arrived, coming on the receiving end of a GamerLegion stomp in the opening game of their group.

They have since come back with a vengeance, looking much improved in a close affair with Cloud9, where Volodymyr "⁠Woro2k⁠" Veletniuk led the way with a 1.40 rating over two maps that went the full distance.

Date	Matches
IEM Katowice 2024
04/02/2024	Monte Finished 0:2 GamerLegion	Match
05/02/2024	Monte Finished 2:0 Cloud9	Match

Following the match, HLTV spoke with the star AWPer and in-game leader to get his thoughts on what caused their slow start and starting their road through the lower bracket:

Congratulations on the win against Cloud9, a big grind on both maps. Yesterday you had hard time on Overpass T side, what adjustments did you make today, if any, to win it this time?

We just rewatched our game and understood our mistakes and what was wrong. This was also the first game for us in this season, it was a bit harder than usually. We're a team who like to play a lot, the more officials the better we play. In the second game, we fixed some mistakes and it was way better than yesterday.

I was going to ask you about that you are usually used to playing a lot more officials. The last time we spoke to you, you were also saying that you don't care if you play three officials a day and that's how it works best for you. Has it been a hard adjustment for you, especially in the past half a year since you have started getting all these invites?

Yeah, it's a bit different for me because I kinda don't like this tier-one style where you have like one tournament per month and you're just practicing for it. I like to play a lot of tournaments. But we're also trying to play all tournaments that invite us, to have the same thing as last year. It's a bit difficult for us, but we are here to be in the tier-one scene all the time, and I think we'll do better.

Do you think that was the problem against GamerLegion? Was it just rustiness?

Yeah, we weren't ready mentally, first, to win a game. GamerLegion also played not bad, they played good. We just lost our mentality.

How did you come back today against Cloud9? Two grindy maps that nearly went to overtime - tell me about Mirage especially and being able to recover from the 0-6 start.

We don't have pressure at all. It doesn't matter what score, we wanna win, we wanna go through and still stay at the tournament, we want to show our best. No pressure at all, if we lose we lose, we have the next tournament, nothing special.

What is your mindset for IEM Katowice? You finished last year well with the win in Jönköping and a semi-final finish in Atlanta. What goals have you set for this tournament?

For this tournament we have a minimum goal to go to the playoffs, to be on the stage. It's important for kRaSnaL, it's a home tournament for him. Also, for the whole year we wanna be a tier-one team, we wanna be minimum in the top five. We wanna win everything we can. We will focus on every tournament, doesn't matter.

You have a new jersey design for this season. I noticed there are some new words there and a face - can you tell me the story behind this?

It's Taras Shevchenko, he's a legendary Ukrainian [poet], all Ukrainians know him. The words are boritesya poborete, it means 'if you fight, you will win.'

We saw a great game from you today. How are you feeling about your individual form?

I don't care about myself, I'm happy we won the game and that's it. I will try to do my best, I have an important role in the team, I need to be kind of a star player, I need to kill, I need to have a lot of impact, and that's what I will try to do all the time.

And it's also still combined with leadership, right, you're still the IGL?

Yeah, yeah, still. But it's fine for me, I don't care. We don't have full structure where I need to call for everyone everything, it's not like that. Some people in their roles can also do mid-round calls if they understand and if we can react on it, for example. But for me it's no problem right now.

We spoke to sdy about this on Confirmed and he said your system does rely a lot on individual players having a say in the game. Is this harder to do now that you don't play as many tournaments and as many games, or is it still working just as well?

It's a bit different, but I think if we play a bit more practice it will be on the same level as it was before and communication will be good. Also, when you start winning some matches you are starting to feel the game, your communication, everything is coming up, and it's working like this for us.