volt: "When it came to the BO3s, our map pool lacked a lot"

GamerLegion were jetted into the Major at the last minute and struggled to reach their best level in Copenhagen.

Sebastian "⁠volt⁠" Maloș took the time to speak to HLTV after GamerLegion were eliminated from PGL Major Copenhagen by Imperial.

The No.15 team in the world initially failed to qualify at the RMR but, after 9 Pandas were forced to pull out, they were handed a last-minute invite.

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At the Major, that showed in a shallow map pool that was over-reliant on their trusty Overpass pick and in what volt called "rusty" aim as GamerLegion had to compete against teams that had been bootcamping since the RMRs.

Even under those circumstances, however, the Romanian rifler expected more, saying that he "had high hopes that we would be able to make it past this stage, with the teams that are playing here." Instead, they suffer another heartbreak and end the Opening Stage with a 2-3 record.

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Just tell me how you're feeling right now.

Pretty gutted. I had high hopes that we would be able to make it past this stage, with the teams that are playing here. Under a lot of circumstances, it wasn't as easy for us to be able to perform as well, our preparation was so last minute. Even looking back to the Eternal Fire game, how close it was, it just makes it a bit more painful.

If you look at it like that, with so little preparation and even going 2-3, are there positives?

I wouldn't say so, to be honest. The two games we won, we were heavy favorites, and we should have won. So, it's expected. But when it came to the best of threes, our map pool lacked a lot. Even today, against Imperial, Mirage and Nuke are really good maps for them but not for us, not much we can do. We have our Overpass but beyond that, there isn't much more. We did what we could. Nuke could have gone differently as well, if we had won that fourth round maybe we could have strung some more rounds together and won more. But they played great and hit really nice shots. So not much else to say.

How hard is it to go into those vetos, being so unprepared? Your Nuke, you had not played it for a month, and it's not like you were bootcamping to prepare it, given the late notice.

Even last night, when I was looking at the veto. We were waiting to see if we would play TheMongolz or Imperial, and in both games ,the veto just wasn't going our way in the end. We knew what was going to happen, we expected Mirage and Nuke but the adjustments we tried to make can only do so much without putting them in practice and refining them. Just not good enough.

In terms of your role as well, sat in the middle, a bit louder, are you trying to take that on a bit more?

Sitting in the middle doesn't have anything to do with being louder, but I've been trying to give more energy. We don't have the loudest team in general. I'm not a loud person myself, but I'm trying to give some energy and contribute in other ways as well.

You're a type of team that, when you're at your best you perform above the sum of your parts, do you think that teamplay was just a bit off at this event?

Starting from the first game I would say we were all super rusty in our aim, it was obvious from the CT side against AMKAL. We were all whiffing, and that's why we struggled so much in the first half. In the second half, we managed to get back, but for the first three games you could see that we didn't put much into the game, that we didn't have the typical Major preparation that all the other teams have.

Our team play is generally been pretty good but what's been keeping us down is a lot of different micro mistakes that end up with us losing rounds we shouldn't, like 5v3s and 5v4s, giving entries away without a teammate to refrag, flashes, loads of things. Even looking at the SAW game, if we got a pistol round or didn't lose a 5v3, or won a clutch that didn't go our way... Same with Eternal Fire, so many big clutches, and multi-kills, because we didn't trade. Today we just got smacked so it wasn't the same, but overall it was just micro mistakes.

What's next for the team? You had to deal with a pretty tough loss at the RMR, and now having to go through it again. What's next?

I can't say, but these results, obviously we expect more from ourselves and it just hasn't been good enough. That's to be seen after this event.