Snappi: "There's a lot of overreaction from the community; I've been using it as motivation"

Snappi believes the community reaction has been too harsh on Falcons, saying every new team needs time to gel.

The new Falcons squad has made it to the playoffs in its Big Event debut at IEM Katowice following a tough road through the group stage.

Eternal Fire sent them to the group lower bracket to start the event, and the team around Danny "⁠zonic⁠" Sørensen has had to come back with three consecutive wins over Rebels, Complexity, and Natus Vincere.

Date	Matches
IEM Katowice 2024
03/02/2024	Falcons Finished 0:2 Eternal Fire	Match
04/02/2024	Falcons Finished 2:1 Rebels	Match
05/02/2024	Complexity Finished 1:2 Falcons	Match
06/02/2024	Falcons Finished 2:0 Natus Vincere	Match

Following their qualifying match for a place in the Spodek Arena, HLTV spoke with Marco "⁠Snappi⁠" Pfeiffer about their campaign so far in Katowice and how the new team has been gelling together so far.

The Dane hit back at community criticism over "a few bad games" and outlined several reasons why Falcons need some time to find their groove. He also spoke about his dynamic with zonic, Álvaro "⁠SunPayus⁠" García' individual form in Counter-Strike 2, and putting "all of his focus" on Mohammad "⁠BOROS⁠" Malhas' development.

If the embed above isn't showing up, click here to listen to the audio version of the interview.

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It looked like you were going to lose that Ancient map. BOROS was having a hard time after having been a key performer for you guys previously. How did you make up for that?

I think the key was that now in MR12 a half goes so fast. We had trouble with the economy early on, we got down 0-3, we traded some rounds and it was 6-2, and then I think we went a little bit away from our game plan and started playing slow, which was probably the reason why we didn't get to four, five T rounds. But, again, in MR12 it is kinda unforgiving if your economy gets broken, so you really need to be sharp with every round. It's kinda normal these days for a 9-3 half, because of the economy game and MR12 it can easily happen.

Tell me about your run in general. You started with the loss Eternal Fire and from there had to make this lower bracket run. Did it come as a surprise for you that you had such a slow start, and how did you recover from that?

Yes and no because I think, at the end of the day, we've experienced new problems in every single match. We also had problems in this match and we need to go and review it. I think every game we grow stronger. I think there's a lot of overreactions from the community in general, and I've obviously been reading it and using it as motivation because I see all of these topics, like, 'ah, Snappi is trash, ah, Snappi without sAw...'

Us, ENCE and Heroic, I'm super happy for all of the guys I played with. I think we all need time. I think sAw is amazing, I think NertZ is amazing, Pawel [dycha] is amazing and my guys here, and I also think I'm good. I think people are overreacting because of a few bad games, but new teams need time and I think we are proving it. I just really, really hope now that NertZ and sAw will go in and bang out so we can the ENCE reunion in the playoff, right? I'm obviously super happy for my teammates. zonic is fantastic, there's a reason he's the GOAT coach, and I have a new teammate in Magisk and a raw diamond in BOROS that I just really enjoy working with. It's a new chapter and I like it.

People look at this team and think you're just building on the ENCE core, and you get Magisk who is such a proven player and BOROS, who's been performing well here. So why do you think it's been a struggle to make it work together?

First of all, maden and BOROS used to play map control both of them. Second of all, for example on Nuke I used to play ramp, Magisk used to play ramp, BOROS used to play ramp. Then on Mirage, maden used to play A, Magisk used to play A, BOROS used to play A in the later iteration of Falcons. So it's not that easy.

On top of it, the ENCE core, we barely played CS2 together because we went straight from Showdown, which was CS:GO, to Sydney and then we were in roster turmoil. We don't have the basics down in CS2, we have to catch up to the meta. A lot of people are getting new positions and new roles, so we need time to gel like every other team, of course. It's not as easy as, ah, they have the ENCE core because, yes, we obviously bring something from that, but there's also a lot that is lost in CS:GO and in terms of us changing up positions on pretty much every map.

In terms of CS2 SunPayus hasn't been able to hit the same peaks we have seen from him in CS:GO. First of all, do you agree with that, and second of all, if so why do you think that is?

Yes and no. I don't agree with it really because I feel like in practice in the new year he has been good. I think he was good at BLAST and the last two matches he has been good. I think in general also in the winter season he also struggled last year around this time, and now he's working with our sports psychologist, Lars [Robl], about how you can kind of get out of the early year slump. They have some experience because ZywOo also had it, both Danny and Lars said, so maybe there is just something with having that long winter break and, you know, the sun is not up and all of this, SunPayus (laughs). I think he's shown in this match especially, I think he was insane, so I'm not worried.

You've had a couple of months with zonic now. Can you tell me about how your dynamic has started developing? How much are you on the same page and how are things going?

I think we're pretty much on the same page regarding most things. We have different responsibilities and we are both pretty mature, I would say, and we understand each other. He's supporting me and I support him. To be honest, he's just amazing at man-management. He knows when to step in, when to talk with a guy, or when to hold back a little bit more. He just has so much experience, he's worked with so many different players at this point, and I think he is kind of a glue guy in a team because he has such a nice persona and he just makes people around him feel good.

I think you called BOROS a diamond in the rough. There was the comment from zonic that suggested he's not as professional as you'd want him to be. What about from the in-game perspective? How much have you had to work with him specifically to get him up to speed in terms of the tier-one level?

I'll be honest, pretty much all of my focus has been on him, but I think it's starting to show. He's starting to play better and better. We're trying to figure out ways to say it in a good way but also understand when things are actually serious and in general just gel him into what we want him to be.

I also think especially this tournament he got a wake-up call after one of the first matches and we really went, and I can honestly say the turnaround from the first match into these next three matches has been absolutely unreal and he's the reason we're standing here in Spodek. We wouldn't have won against Rebels and we also wouldn't have won against Complexity without BOROS' high performance. All I can say is that I'm super proud of him. If he keeps going like this he's going to be one of the best riflers in the world.

Was it a surprise that Rebels got so close?

I mean, yeah, they were actually strong. I also think they were hard to read. There's a lot of tier one teams, most of them, it's harder to read. I don't know if it's because they're random or if it's because their in-game leader is actually good. But when I watched the counter it was actually very hard to understand what was going on at times.

Has there been an improvement with BOROS in terms of utility usage?

Yeah, I think there is improvement, but obviously it's also my job to make it easy. In general I design our playbook in order for him to mostly drop his utility and just go and shoot them in the face.