GUM: "We're the best Chinese team, but far, far away from EU"

Lynn Vision's coach can still take positives from the young squad's 1-3 finish at PGL Major Copenhagen.

Yifei "⁠GUM⁠" Dai's Lynn Vision surprised the world when they took down FURIA on day one of PGL Major Copenhagen, but the Chinese No. 1's journey was cut short by regional rivals The MongolZ to keep their record at 1-3.

The young squad let their age show at times, with Sike "⁠z4kr⁠" Zhang attempting a brave knife kill that could have cost LVG against FURIA, and emotions rearing their head in a positive and negative fashion.

But "the future is bright," GUM tells us after their elimination. "In Counter-Strike, you can aim very well, but you need to know how to use your aim. That's the next step, to give everyone the chance to shine."

Lynn Vision will be back in action at IEM Chengdu, for their fourth international CS2 LAN and another chance to gain invaluable experience before the home Perfect World Shanghai Major cycle at the end of 2024.

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Give me your initial reaction to the loss and elimination.

The journey ends here. There's a lot of regret. In my mind, we have a lot of things we need to do better, and I hope we can make it up next time.

What did you make of the draw against TheMongolz, such a regional battle and one they normally get the better of. Did you wish it was a different opponent?

Yeah, I think their playstyle is kind of difficult for us. On the other hand, for this duel, we are very familiar with them. We know how to play with them, but today we could not control ourselves. The players could not calm down. So we made a lot of mistakes, and we missed a lot of key information, key timings. Unfortunately, today's match, most of all, our pre-match preparation was good but we didn't play as we planned to do.

That's been a theme for the tournament, the high highs and low lows, keeping emotions in check. It's such a young team, right? How do you plan to flatten those highs and lows out?

We need to play more international tournaments to get used to this kind of pressure, these kinds of situations. We need to bootcamp in Europe, to play stronger teams, to get more experience. Sometimes you get unconfident when you lack the experience, lack the ability. We need to grow stronger.

If you zoom out a bit, you're the first Chinese team at a Major for a while. You took the scalp of FURIA. There's lots of positives.

Yeah, you can see that we had a lot of raw performance. The individual performance of every player was very good. We know our strategy, how we make the plan for the match is good. It's basic things for our matches, that are good enough. That's what we learned. Next step is, on Counter-Strike, you can aim very well, but you need to know how to use your aim. That's the next step, to give everyone the chance to shine.

This was your third big CS2 international event, do you feel like there has been a progression every time?

Sure, step by step we are at larger tournaments. One year ago we never made any international tournaments, then we go to EPL, Sydney, CAC, we made it to the Major. Even though we lost here, we can see we already progressed a lot compared to where we were one year ago.

How cool is it to be the flag bearer of Chinese CS? Established as the best Chinese team now, Chinese major coming up, is it still sinking in?

Actually, it brings a lot of pressure from it as we are the only Chinese team. The only thing for us, we don't want to fail people believing in us. We really want to make the region strong, not just one team. You can't make a scene strong with only one team.

We need more competitions, more teams, more matches. Then you can find the one who is the best to come to international tournaments against teams from other regions. It's very hard. We know we are the best Chinese team here, but we also know we are not good enough. That's very sad, because you are one of the best in your region but you're far far away from the EU and CIS region.

On that same note, to end positively, that FURIA game is a proof of concept that you can compete when things are clicking. How positive can you be, in terms of looking forward to Chengdu, the experiences will keep coming. How are you looking towards the future?

This team, they are young. They know how to improve, they are the hard working type. The future is bright.

Bit of pan-Asian love too, between you and TheMongolz at the end there. Are you cheering them on for the more spots?

Sure, why not? We are very good friends in real life, and even before the match we know who wins the game will become the face of the whole Asian region, not only China. The pressure is now on their back, they need to try their best. I hope they can do it.