Magisk: "It's definitely going to be a confidence boost for SunPayus"

"It makes me happy to see that he stepped up in the most important moment," added the Dane.

Falcons have had a rough 2024 so far, with many of their players not finding form in CS2. Confidence has been at an all-time low as their members have looked dejected on player cams time after time, but Emil "⁠Magisk⁠" Reif hopes their recent victory will be a boost in self-belief.

The squad traversed the IEM Cologne Play-In with wins over ALTERNATE aTTaX and BIG to make it to the group stage, with Álvaro "⁠SunPayus⁠" García looking sharp against Johannes "⁠tabseN⁠" Wodarz and company.

After their qualification, Magisk spoke to HLTV about their start to the season, SunPayus's performance, and his expectations for the rest of the event.

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Magisk, a hard-fought 2-1 victory to send you to the group stage. Maden had said before the series that he wanted this to be a match where you could get your confidence back. Do you think, looking back, that it gave you confidence?

I think both yes and no. I think we would have closed it out easily 2-0 if we hadn't lost some stupid rounds on Mirage, the full eco and also the 4-on-3 where we had a good situation and knew exactly where they were. I would have loved to have won 2-0, but at the end of the day, we got the win.

Obviously, it was a bit stronger opponent today, so that helps with the confidence, also to win a few games in a row, which is a good thing, because we have been struggling to get the Ws at the end. It feels nice to finally be able to close out games, also the close ones. Obviously, it's more confidence than going out. It was a tough game, but I think we also finally managed to have the nerves on our side.

SunPayus had a fantastic series, probably one of the best he has had since he joined the team. At least for him, it was probably a confidence boost, don't you think?

I think it was definitely most needed, to have this breakout series and multiple good maps in a row. Of course, it makes me happy to see that he stepped up in the most important moment and also had some really huge rounds. So yeah, it's definitely going to be a good confidence boost for him. He's obviously been having it a little bit rough the last few games, so it's nice to see that he can break out of that barrier and kind of move on and focus on the next game in front of him.

Can you walk me through the series? The first map was kind of easy for you. Then, on Mirage, the intensity died down a little bit, and then on the third map, you almost had a huge lead slip.

On Dust2 we just had the momentum and we managed to close it out before it got close. So that was obviously a good feeling. Mirage, it also felt like we had it in our hands, but, as I mentioned, we lost the full eco and also the 4 vs 3, which shouldn't happen. So I think that if we had managed to close out those two rounds we would have won the map pretty comfortably. But at the end of the day, that's Counter-Strike. You win some of those and you lose some of those. We obviously need to work on closing out those rounds if we want to win the maps.

On Anubis, they only won one buy round on the whole T side, so when we had such a big lead we maybe went a bit away from what we know and what we usually do good, kind of forgetting the way we flash for each other, where we take certain areas and stuff like that. So we became a little bit too sloppy and that cost us a lot because we got kind of broke, economy-wise. So the game got close. We managed to close it out with a force buy. Again, that's Counter-Strike sometimes. They won those on Mirage and we won those on Anubis.

Yesterday, it felt like after you beat ALTERNATE aTTaX the vibes were still not very good. Today, there were certain moments when players appeared to be shutting down a little bit, especially on Mirage and now towards the end on Anubis. What can you say about the team atmosphere this past couple of months?

Obviously, we would love to have better results. I think it's quite obvious that with the players we have on the team, it would be nice to have better results. But at the end of the day, we're having a lot of talks and are kind of trying to set the expectations right.

Right now, we probably just have to accept that we need to be patient, work long-term, try to improve from game to game and make sure that we make fewer mistakes every tournament and every game we play. It's tough when you keep losing and you don't have the results you want to have. I think our mindset has changed a little bit, in the sense that we need to work long-term and make sure we try and improve as much as possible.

Being here in Cologne, we want to do our very best and we want to go as far as possible. I also know that if we play at our highest level, we can beat a lot of the top teams, but it does require that we step up individually and play well as a team. And probably our biggest problem right now is the inconsistency in the individuals but also as a team sometimes. That's definitely something we are trying to improve, make sure that we get better at it and get to know each other. What people like and don't like and kind of find our own way.

I was reading an interview with zonic and he said that It sees a different team in practice. Why do you think that the team hasn't been able to carry what you do in practice into official matches and tournaments?

I think it comes down to the fact that we have had so many tough losses. Very close losses that could have gone our way. And when you keep losing those games, you become in some way more scared to make mistakes and be the reason that you lose those rounds and be the difference between winning and losing. I think it comes down to confidence. There's also, as I mentioned, the inconsistency, but that kind of goes hand in hand with confidence.

If people have confidence, they will also take the right duels and go for what they usually do in practice where there is not the same pressure. So yeah, I think it just comes down to confidence, and sometimes you have to break that cycle with having some success, and that's also why it's nice to finally be on the winning side and make that step further into the tournament. So we'll see what happens.

You're now through to the group stage where you'll join the big dogs, let's put it that way. What are your expectations for this next stage? What would you be satisfied with?

At the end of the day, Counter-Strike is Counter-Strike. I feel that almost all the teams within the top 20 can beat each other on a good day. So we're going to go in with everything we have. We don't have much expectation from the outside, we don't really have any pressure on our shoulders. We should just go in, play with confidence and play to win. Take the duels we like and make moves on the map whenever we feel like it.

That's obviously what we want to do. Doing it is a different story, but I think we should just enjoy the fact that no one has the biggest expectations for us, and I even think that people might underestimate us. But at the end of the day, if we don't play good Counter-Strike, if we don't play well as a team or individually, we will not be able to beat teams. So we will definitely need to be more consistent in this stage if we want to make it further.

So you think you can take advantage of the surprise factor?

I mean, people knew us as players obviously. I think people might underestimate the team as a whole. But of course, if we don't play well individually, it's going to be very tough, because when you are competing against the best teams in the world, you need to have good individual performances. Right now, our problem is that it's mostly one guy who is having a good performance and the other four are kind of lacking. I think we need to hit a level where we have two to three guys who are playing well individually. If you want to beat the best of the best, you need everyone to be performing at the highest level. Otherwise, it's going to be very difficult.