woxic: "It needs to be the main goal for us to go for first place"

After mixed results since the PGL Copenhagen Major, Eternal Fire have their sights set high.

After securing a quarter-final finish at PGL Major Copenhagen, Eternal Fire has struggled to replicate their heroics from the all-important Danish event, dropping from 7th to 19th in the world rankings over the past four months, further compounded by a recent early exit from the IEM Cologne Play-in.

As such, Engin "⁠MAJ3R⁠" Küpeli's troops are aiming for redemption at BetBoom Dacha Season 2, with the Turkish side already getting off on the right foot with an opening victory over Aurora.

Date	Matches
BetBoom Dacha Belgrade Season 2 Play-in
25/08/2024	Eternal Fire Finished 2:1 Aurora	Match

Shortly after his team's victory over Aurora, Eternal Fire AWPer Özgür "⁠woxic⁠" Eker spoke with HLTV regarding the match versus the Russian side, Eternal Fire's aspirations for the event, and how the team has dealt with their decline in form since the Copenhagen Major.

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Congratulations, what are you feeling after that series?

At the start I was not feeling good, but in the end, when you are bouncing back and managing to come back to this kind of games, I feel happy.

I wasn't personally ready for the first map, because I had a stomach issue and I came too late to the computer. So I had like one or two minutes to warm up, because we had to go and walk and after that we just started instantly. It's not an excuse, we should have won that first map as well if we did not do small mistakes in clutch situations, or in entering site situations. So yeah, I'm feeling happy about the result.

So was it just small mistakes that threw the 10-5 lead on Mirage?

Yeah just small mistakes, not understanding each other, little communication issues, these kind of things happened to us. Also aiming issues I personally had in the first map, kills I should get I didn't, which also affected the game. Maybe it also happened for the other guys, but I don't know from their perspective. I had to do my best to come back on the second and third map, I just kept my motivation and my mental.

Is this a type of tournament that Eternal Fire aim to win?

Yeah of course. First we need to qualify, and after that we should win this kind of event. Of course, maybe you cannot win a Major, Pro League, or these kinds of IEM tournaments, but this kind of tournament, it needs to be the main goal for us to go for first place. I think we can do it, if we just do what we did in the last two maps, if we just do this for all of the tournament, I think we can beat anybody.

Eternal Fire had a big peak at the start of the year, you had a really good finish at the Major and hit your best HLTV ranking, but things have fallen off since then. What do you think has happened there?

I think after the break our performance went down a bit. We were showing good Counter-Strike and we were feeling very nice inside of the team, but after that, the bad result after bad result, we lost our confidence a bit.

We've just overall redone our tactics and playbook, everything we just switched up or changed. Small changes, if there's a smoke for example, we are changing the smoke so it won't land on that timing, these kinds of things. I think we are going to show our good side of Counter-Strike, like we did before, and I think we are not far away from that because we are working really hard at the moment. So I think we are going to get the prize in the end.

Do you think, once you hit the peak at the Major, the motivation dropped off a bit after that?

When there's a Major, it's like you are, personally and as a team, having a different kind of mindset. Mentally you just want to win that tournament, or do as much as you can, because it's a Major, it's a legendary event. In the other events when we fell off after that, like in India or in Abu Dhabi, even the TeamSpeak is not the same as when we were playing in the Major games. I think this is our minus side. If we improve that, we will not get these kind of results in this kind of tournament.