coldzera: "People are underestimating us; they're going to see a great version of us"

coldzera rolled back the years during Legacy's opening match versus FURIA.

As fans and analysts alike surveyed the competition in the Opening Stage of PGL Major Copenhagen, Brazilian side Legacy was almost universally touted as a team that was unlikely to notch even a single win in the Swiss format.

Despite the comments by detractors, Legacy laid claim to a win over their compatriots on FURIA in a hectic BO1 that was dragged into overtime. A crucial component for Legacy's success in their opening match was veteran Marcelo "⁠coldzera⁠" David, who found great success in a number of retake situations on their CT side.

Shortly after the win, coldzera spoke with HLTV regarding how it felt to secure a close win over former teammate Gabriel "⁠FalleN⁠" Toledo, his distaste for the current Major format, and how Gabriel "⁠NEKIZ⁠" Schenato becoming the captain of the team has impacted his gameplay.

If you can't see the SoundCloud embed above, you can find the audio version of the interview here.

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Opening win against FURIA, a lot of shouting back and forth in that game (coldzera laughs). How did it feel to win that?

Playing against FURIA is always hard, so it's a good rivalry with Brazilian matchups. It's always good to play against them, they played very well too. It was a hard game, so it could've gone either way.

Tell me about the shouting back and forth (cold laughs again), there were some comments early but I don't know if you heard them. They were telling b4rtiN they were going to send him back to VALORANT, and then you were yelling back at FalleN, tell me about that.

(laughing) It's just about the confidence, right? When we play against any Brazilian team, not FURIA specifically, we always shout against each other so it's kinda natural a little bit. It's fun.

Did it make it special just because it was against FalleN?

No, I don't think so. For us, it doesn't matter who we play against in the tournament. We're going to do our best, we did good preparation for this tournament.

Getting the first win here, a lot of people had put you in the 0-3 category (cold laughs again). How does it feel to prove them wrong?

I think people are underestimating us a little bit. People are going to see a great version of ourselves and they're going to be surprised by us.

For you, winning some of these vintage clutches, it really looks like the coldzera of old sometimes. You've been AWPing, during the RMR you were also playing well, so how does it feel to be back in this kind of form?

I don't like this format to be honest. When you have seeds and you know who you're going to play already, I don't think this. I like the old format where everything was on pieces of paper and you're going to get a random draw, but at the same time, we can't do much. The tournament is good still.

The comfort against FalleN is always nice. I play AWP as well right now, but in this game I played more hybrid. I was not feeling so comfortable in this match to play it because FURIA plays a little bit faster, so I have more impact playing with a rifle than an AWP and I just swapped very fast in the match.

You said you don't like this format, why?

Sometimes some teams who have a higher rank can have easier matchups, so I don't like this format too much. In the old RMRs too, I saw a lot of teams that, if they have a little bit tough opponents, they would not [be] supposed to go through. But anyway, that is how the tournament is, it's fine.

Bring up these players on this team now, getting to this Major, getting this first win, starting to put these results up — how does that feel for you with not having leadership in your hands anymore?

I can lead them, like help them, be better humans and better players. I push them hard a little bit sometimes, when they need to get pushed, but our leadership comes from NEKIZ. I'm really happy that he is IGLing. When I was IGLing I was a little bit emotional, so if I got something wrong in the game I would be frustrated, it would affect my game. So I just stepped down and told NEKIZ, 'It's up to you now, I know you're going to do the best job,' and he's doing a great job and I like it.

Does it feel better for you to not have that emotional responsibility either?

Yeah, for sure. In the game now, my emotions are totally controlled, I control most of the rounds when I want to like, 'Okay, keep calm, chill. Come three guys here, one guy here, we need to group this site, let's retake this, let's do that,' telling them to jump for each other. The kind of small mistakes that people commit because they are in high pressure, and they don't commit because they are getting a lot of help too.

Going into your second game here today, there's going to be some pressure with the chance to go straight to 2-0. Any thoughts on that game?

I think we play against Cloud9 if I'm not wrong. We practiced against Cloud9 a lot to be honest, for the Americas RMR, and the game was kinda nice during the practice. But practice is practice, so in the tournament we're going to be very focused to beat them.

Who was winning in the practices?

It was like... 3-3 I think? So three for them, three for us, so it was kinda 50/50. Okay, so I think we have a chance (laughs).