lux: "The statistics probably say we can't, but I think we can win this tournament"

After paiN's strong run in Belgrade so far, lux believes that a trophy-winning campaign is possible.

paiN are a team whose stock has been on the rise in 2024, and they've continued to justify their growing stature with their campaign in Belgrade thus far: the team are yet to drop a series at BetBoom Dacha Belgrade.

Their most recent game against HEROIC wasn't without adversity, however, as the Brazilians had to deal with a 5-13 spanking on their map pick of Vertigo before rallying admirably through a tough battle on Dust2 and closing things out comfortably on Nuke.

Lucas "⁠lux⁠" Meneghini spoke to HLTV after the victory and had plenty to say about the crazy clutches that hauled his team over the line on Dust2, told us a story of an exploding hand warmer, and gave us his opinion that paiN can go on to win the trophy.

If you cannot see the SoundCloud embed above, listen to the interview here.

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How does it feel to start the main event with a win?

It's really good because this gives us confidence for the other matches. It wasn't a win that we expected, it was kind of tough. On Dust2 we won two pistols with incredible clutches, and I actually said to the guys that God doesn't want us to win this match (laughs) like come on, what are these pistols. But then we managed to control the map, and Nuke was better.

I think that on Vertigo we were kind of sleepy, for me especially, I didn't play my game, I wasn't playing the gaps that I usually play and wasn't feeling the flow of the game. Then we activated more and we managed to win the match.

Was it hard to come back from that Vertigo? It was your pick and it wasn't close, you got smashed.

Yeah. We've had a lot of matches like this but it was hard, because we knew what to do but we couldn't do it. It was in our hands but we let it slip, it's kinda tough. But that's it, CS is a rollercoaster and it has ups and downs, so we need to be prepared for this.

On Dust2 snow was huge, he was 10-0 at one point. What was that like for you as a teammate, especially from someone who is so young and has just joined the team?

It was kind of funny because after the clutch of the pistol, the hand warmer of kauez just exploded! It was a tech pause and we couldn't celebrate (laughs), and it wasn't like the biguzera clutch, just shoot and shoot, it was really smart, and we couldn't celebrate!

After that he was 10-0, he was really feeling the game, just headshotting the guys and playing very good. He's playing really good in this tournament, I think he was in the top two for rating in the Play-in, so it's really good to play with him.

Looking forwards, it's going to be either Eternal Fire or MOUZ for you guys. Do you care who you play, or have any preference?

Looking at the maps and history, MOUZ is stronger, but we already played Eternal Fire at the Major and it wasn't really good, it was a stomp (laughs). They have XANTARES and woxic, so they're a really tough opponent. We need to focus on ourselves, we need to focus on the mistakes that we did in this HEROIC game because, like I said, the pistols made us come back in the match.

Now you've got that confidence, do you think you can go and win this tournament?

Of course I think we can win. Probably the statistics say of course not, but like I said, CS is like a rollercoaster, everything can happen and this is why we love this game. It's nothing obvious, someone can just win. Like in Cologne, Spirit suddenly were eliminated. So we need to believe.