Kylar: "I spend more time with gla1ve at tournaments than with the Polish guys"

The Polish rifler says the team did incredibly well to bounce back from their loss against Vitality.

ENCE were among the world's elite during 2023, a year during which they also broke their trophy duck at IEM Dallas. The then-Marco "⁠Snappi⁠" Pfeiffer-led team kept up their good form throughout the year but fell apart as the season drew to a close.

Snappi left for Falcons and eventually took Álvaro "⁠SunPayus⁠" García and Pavle "⁠Maden⁠" Bošković with him, while Guy "⁠NertZ⁠" Iluz ended up on HEROIC. That left Snappi's replacement, Lukas "⁠gla1ve⁠" Rossander, little time to put a team together before the Major cycle began.

ENCE ended up signing the ex-9INE core, and the team made a huge splash at IEM Katowice, where they reached the playoffs. Next came the European RMR, and while their campaign was far from straightforward, the team did enough to qualify for PGL Major Copenhagen.

After ENCE's victory against Astralis, Kacper "⁠Kylar⁠" Walukiewicz spoke to HLTV about the Katowice run, their road to the Major, and the team's off-server dynamic.

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Congratulations, you qualified for the Major. How happy are you right now?

I'm happy, this was super important for us. We had a really emotional talk yesterday about the fact that we were letting ourselves down and we can do better, and everyone took it to heart and stepped up today. We worked hard, we never studied this much before a game. It's an insane feeling.

You just beat Astralis, and you said you never studied as much as you did for this game. Did gla1ve have any special words for you ahead of the game?

No, but we know it's important for him to win against them. Last time he got emotional, this time he also got emotional, but it wasn't special to play against them. We knew we could beat them because we did it in Katowice, so we just had to bring our A-game, and we did.

You mention your A-game but your tournament didn't exactly start like that, you got 13-0'd by Spirit. How did you bounce back from that first day?

The first day was like a warm-up game, we played really badly. We had so much space, they let us do things. We had a plan, but we couldn't execute it properly. They were shooting hard, of course, and we didn't have that good communication because we didn't play a lot. We didn't get used to the LAN environment for the first game, so we needed to start playing more in the hotel.

The second game was on the same day, so we just hyped each other up, said we needed to be confident, and started grinding. We grinded the GamerLegion game also, then we got dominated by Vitality, and it's still insane that we played that well after yesterday. We still need to find consistency because we are a new team, and we didn't practice that much. We need a lot of time to figure it out, but I'm happy that we reached the goals that we set for ourselves.

You guys had a great start to the year. You made the Katowice playoffs, which is very special for you, and now you've qualified for gla1ve's home Major in Copenhagen. I'm guessing there are a lot of good vibes and emotions in the team because you helped each other fulfill your dreams?

Everybody's dream was to play in Spodek. dycha didn't qualify for Katowice in his whole career, I think, so it was very important to him. We always wanted to play in front of the crowd. It was my and Goofy's first time, and it was amazing. It's the best feeling in the world, and I can't wait to play again. And now we get a home-soil booth for gla1ve, and we can also have some cheering in the arena for him.

How much did that Katowice performance help you guys with confidence?

I think we got a bit overconfident. We still need to work hard, it doesn't come by just playing and taking it easy. There wasn't much time to prepare after, but we knew what to work on. We still need to develop not only as a team, but also as individuals. So Katowice gave us a lot of information outside of the game about routines and what helps us focus. It was very important that we made it so far.

This roster came together at the very last minute. You have four Polish players, a Polish coach, and a Danish IGL. How is the dynamic in the team?

I spend more time with gla1ve at tournaments than with the Polish guys. We try to speak English a lot, maybe too much Polish sometimes, but we always try to speak English when gla1ve is around so he doesn't get uncomfortable. We're doing pretty good outside of the server. I think we have good chemistry, and we are pretty disciplined. We spend a lot of time outside of practice together, so it's pretty nice.