Magisk: "Sometimes we only start playing proper CS in the elimination matches"

Magisk spoke positively about Falcons' recent progress but noted they are still in a position where they need to play as much as possible to grind their way up.

Falcons have experienced a modest uptick in form in recent weeks, whilst not always earning results commensurate with their improved play. At IEM Cologne they ran MOUZ close across a 1-2 series loss, took FaZe to overtime before being eliminated, and they just made it to the qualification match of BLAST Premier Fall Showdown by virtue of confident victories over M80 and Complexity.

The beginning of Falcons' campaign at BetBoom Dacha began in familiar fashion, with the team playing reasonably well and running 9z close, but coming out on the wrong end of the result.

Having bounced back with a comfortable win over BetBoom, Magisk sat down with HLTV to give his insight into the teams recent modest improvements, the reasons for the uptick, and his thoughts on his team's firepower.

The 26-year-old was also asked about recent rumors of Nikola "⁠NiKo⁠" Kovač being close to joining the team for 2025, but did not give a straight answer either way.

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What are your thoughts after that game? It must be nice to get a convincing 2-0 victory.

Obviously it's always nice when you win 2-0. I felt like we had it in control most of the match, it was a little rough at the beginning of T-side Nuke, but I think we adapted pretty well today, which was a good thing. We also did some good individual plays, but overall I feel like it was a pretty comfortable win.

I'm just happy we are improving slowly, getting better from game to game, and also this is one of the reasons why we want to play as many official games as possible, to get to know each other and get to know how we should react, have a lot of learning from official games. That's where you learn the most, how you should react to certain situations and all these types of things. Right now, we're just trying to get as many official games under our belts, so we can get data about how we should improve.

At the start of this Falcons roster, things were a little rough, but from the outside, it now seems you are starting to creep in the right direction. You are in the final of Showdown, you played pretty well in Cologne, you played well against MOUZ and could have won the first map against FaZe. Does it feel like that, like the progression is getting going now?

Ever since we got dupreeh, I feel like it was the first time we could actually create a foundation and have the proper structure around the team to build up our tactics and playbook. From there, you just need a lot of official games to get to know each other and, in some way, get up to date with the meta. At the end of last year, me, Snappi and zonic missed the beginning of CS2 with official games, so we kind of had to catch up all the time. With the first edition of the team, I felt like that was impossible. Since we got Peter, that was the first time we felt we could build a team, a structure, and a playbook we could rely on.

Since then we have been improving tournament to tournament, a little bit slowly, of course, but it is moving in the right direction. Against MOUZ in Cologne, we should probably have won that game. On the third map, Ancient, we had five rounds in a row where we could have broken their money, we had advantaged situations, and they made hero play after hero play. Sometimes that's what you need to convert those games.

When we lose, we most of the time lose 1-2 and in close games, where we have the idea that if we just converted the advantageous situations we had, we could beat the best of the best. There's a long way from saying that to actually doing it, and that's what we're trying to do right now, find the consistency in the team and individually finding our plays. Obviously, we don't have a superstar, so it's difficult sometimes with the roles and all these types of things.

We are all just trying to learn, there's a lot of people in new positions who have to learn a lot of things and get comfortable. As an example, maden is playing Conn for the first time in his career and there's a lot of learning lessons, about reactions, how to help people, how to take the space on the map, all these types of things. I think that's the process we have been going through, and also why it has been going a bit slow. But it's going in the right direction, which is the nice thing.

What about dupreeh coming into the team allowed you to make this progression? Was it just having a more set five-man lineup, or is there something specifically he brings?

Obviously, I love Peter, but I just think we needed a consistent five-man who could actually be professional in being there, all these types of things, and someone we could rely on. This is one of the reasons he was picked up, you can always count on dupreeh and count on him being a professional, someone you can trust in-game and outside of the server. We needed that in the team.

We could have taken a gamble in getting a young talent, but sometimes you don't know what you're getting, and with all the rough times we were going through at the start of the team, we needed consistency and we needed to know what we could rely on. We felt it was a better choice to go with a veteran than a young talent, because we needed to get the foundation straight.

How important are tournaments like this for a team in your position? There aren't all the top teams in attendance and you could put together a deep run. Do you see it that way, as a good tournament for a team in your stage?

We were not supposed to play this tournament at the beginning, but after we couldn't qualify for the playoffs in Cologne we wanted to have more official games so we could get more data and prepare the journey for the RMR. Right now, we are in a position where we need to grind, we need to grind the ranking to stay at the top. It's a bit different from what we are used to, but that's the world we live in and we need to accept that. We are not at the level we want to be right now, which means we need to give everything, be able to look ourselves in the eye and say we gave 100%.

If every other tier-two team is capable of playing tournament after tournament, then we need to put in the effort, and get the data we need from the official games to learn all the time. It's just what we needed, we needed to play more to get up in the rankings but also get the lessons learned, learned the hard way sometimes. That's why we're playing a tournament like this. There are a lot of games, a lot of opportunities, and a lot of best-of-threes.

Recently the CS transfer rumour mill has been turning, and KRL said on stream that Falcons were looking to bring NiKo in for 2025. Have the team heard anything about this, have you had any discussions about these rumours?

I'm here to focus on BetBoom and the BLAST Showdown, I'm not familiar with anything. I'm just focused on being present and being in the now. I cannot comment on rumours and stuff like this, so yeah, I'm here to just focus on BetBoom and BLAST Showdown.

As a more general point, does the team feel in a good place in terms of firepower? It's the one thing where people will look from the outside and, like you said earlier, see that there is no superstar. Are you happy with what you've got?

I think on a good day, we have the firepower to beat the best of the best, but doing it consistently is a problem. That's what we are working on, to find consistency in the individuals so that everyone feels comfortable, and also to get more experience in their new positions, to get all these teamplay things. We are a new team and although some people have played together, it's a mix of ENCE and Vitality. The only way you get to know each other is by playing official games.

Sometimes we have lost games because we don't turn up individually, the way CS2 is right now you need to be consistent and make the least amount of mistakes because it's not that many rounds anymore, and with the economy and everything, you need to be really sharp from the beginning. Sometimes that's been our weakness, we start playing proper CS in the elimination matches, where the experience kicks in because it's all or nothing. That's something we are trying to work on, to be ready from game one. Sometimes the individual firepower is a little bit too inconsistent, but we are getting in the right direction. We are also now winning games when we don't feel like we are popping off individually, and I think that is a good sign.