zipeL: "I think we are the org that has made it to a Major with by far the least resources"

The Danish co-owner of ECSTATIC spoke on the team's future after their run in Copenhagen.

ECSTATIC entered PGL Major Copenhagen as the only lineup composed solely of Danish players after the shortcomings of Astralis and Preasy in the RMR. Kicking off their run in the Opening Stage, Patrick "⁠Patti⁠" Larsen's troops were far from favorites to reach the Elimination Stage, but the team recovered from an early 0-1 deficit to finish with a 3-1 record, beating The MongolZ, Lynn Vision and Imperial.

Vying for a chance to compete in front of a Danish crowd, ECSTATIC got off to a poor start in the Elimination Stage, falling to the 0-2 pool after losses to MOUZ and Cloud9. The Danes briefly recovered with a hard-fought win over FURIA, but ultimately met their demise after a close match versus G2, with an in-form Ilya "⁠m0NESY⁠" Osipov sending the squad packing from Copenhagen with a 1-3 record.

After his team's elimination from the Major, ECSTATIC co-owner Oliver "zipeL" Behrensdorff spoke with HLTV regarding his team's run through the Major circuit, how the organization is approaching its future, and the potential financial impact from their campaign.

We had ECSTATIC here yesterday with a heartbreaking exit from the Major after a loss to G2. First of all, can you tell me how you felt after that, and how you felt having the chance to watch your team compete at the Major?

I would say that after map one, a pretty convincing map for G2, and that clawback on Vertigo, I don't even think that I believed in it. At one point, being down 1-8 against a team like G2, I don't think there are many teams in the world, if any, that can do that. Seeing that obviously gave me confidence that we could do this.

Starting on map three, we go 4-0, m0NESY just starts clutching, 1v1, he drops the bomb, 4-2, and then they just string eight rounds together. From there on out, it looked dark, but the boys kept fighting and kept winning rounds they shouldn't win. There was one unfortunate Glock round, but really it was just a great showing from them.

I think they could have won, but aside from that, there's nothing else to say. I'm proud of them, they gave it their all, and those rounds in the end showed they just never gave up.

As one of the owners of the organization, can you tell me about making the Major as an organization that is not established and not one of the big names, and the kind of impact that has for you?

I think when I joined the org it wasn't that long before we reached the RMR in Malta, and that by itself was an outrageous experience. We came into that [IEM Rio] RMR when we had maNkz, thinking we get to play G2, then we got 16-0'd and a quick 0-3 exit from the tournament. We had a crazy comeback on Nuke against B8 where we turned a 3-15 deficit into overtime, and then lost the first round of overtime. It felt like we were spectators in that RMR.

Then, coming into this one, we almost didn't make it through. In the qualifier that got us to the closed qualifier, we were down a decent amount of rounds against UNiTY, and then managed to push it to OT and win. Maybe one play away from not even making it to the closed quals. Then we make closed quals, we made it to the RMR, we made the Major, and we make it out of the Opening Stage, and we just keep on surprising and pushing what we think is possible.

It just all happened so quickly, so I don't think anyone has had time to sit down and reflect on the whole thing. As an organization, we can obviously see that there are more opportunities in terms of sponsorships and people reaching out. There's a lot more traffic in that regard, but it's not really anything that we have had time to do anything with. When you look at bigger organizations, if they're going into an RMR they're probably already looking at sponsorships six months in advance. From an organization that, on paper, at least before qualifying, would be looked at as a T3 organization at best, you're not reaching out to brands asking them for sponsorships if we do qualify.

I don't know how to describe it, I don't know if this answers your questions, but I just think it's a very sudden thing, and now we need to go home and get an overview of how we do things from here on out.

The way you describe it makes it seem like it's almost harder than you think; getting far in the Major isn't 100% a benefit when you're an org this size and you're too caught off-guard by it. Is that right?

No, I mean, obviously it's a massive benefit because there's a huge monetary gain in making it. It's what you do from here on out that counts, right? You need to do the right things and you need to sort of... you know how it is with small organizations that do well. Players get poached, it's always the same thing that you try and rebuild or try and protect it all costs and then the organization shuts down. There's a lot to think about, and there's a lot of different routes you can take from here.

As one of the owners of this organization, being able to compete at the Major in general, but especially one in Denmark, can you tell me how that was for you?

I remember us being at the RMR and seeing some losses here and there, and then at one point we were saying, 'imagine a world where we're the only Danish team that gets here.' Astralis not making it and us making it here, HEROIC having a Danish core but us being the only fully Danish and Danish-owned team was absolutely surreal as well. As I said, everything happened so fast that we haven't really had time to soak it in. I think I've seen a lot of support from everyone, and it's been great.

You say there's a lot you're going to have to figure out leaving from here. What is the current short-term plan or initial ideas in your head as you leave the Major?

We just want to utilize the momentum from having been here. Talk to different companies and sort of see if we can make a longer-term plan that actually makes our organization sustainable, because it is a huge opportunity. In Counter-Strike right now as it is, especially with the majority of prize money going to players, there's not really much [of a chance] for an organization like us that doesn't even have a sponsor, well at the time, now we have one, to make any money. It's really either you apparently get to a Major, or just go bankrupt, that's literally how organizations have been running.

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I think we've done it a bit differently. We've obviously operated at a loss, that's a given, because how would we not have? But still, not at an aggressive level, trying to source players from new teams, well not new teams, but up-and-coming players, and trying to work around that. It's obviously been hard, we have success with one player, maNkz, and then's he off to M80, and FASHR was off to fnatic. When you know that every time someone performs in the past they've sort of just been poached, the fact that we managed to have these guys together for so long now and actually make it to the Major is very impressive.

I think if you think about other organizations that have made it to a Major, I don't think there is anything comparable to this. I think we are by far the organization that has made it to a Major with the least amount of resources, so it's impressive and I'm proud that we made it happen, and the players are insane.

Lastly, the financial impact of stickers has been talked about for ages, especially with the amount of emphasis there is on just qualifying for the Major, with some people saying that the RMR is more important. Just from the financial side, what kind of impact does that have on an organization?

It's kind of an intimidating thing, because when we qualified we were just like, 'How does this even work, what happens now?' It's all new because, let's be real, it wasn't on anyone's bingo cards that we would be here at the Major. When that happens, you hear about the success of Paris and how much people got for that tournament, and then you hear about how little people got at Rio. You can't really make any plans because nothing is guaranteed, you don't know what you're getting.

We're still just approaching it in a very sensible way and then seeing how it ends. [Hopefully] it's an amount where we can run the org in a different, still sustainable way, where we don't have some aggressive strategy of signing some really good team, and then if we don't make a Major we have to close the company, which is obviously not the goal. We want to be here for a long time, and if it means having to manage with a little bit less that's better than having to shut down, I think.