headtr1ck: "I'm feeling way more confident here, and that each teammate and coach respects me"

The Ukrainian player joked about joining NIP's TeamSpeak channel by mistake before the match against his former team.

We spoke to B8's AWPer Daniil "⁠headtr1ck⁠" Valitov after he and his teammates finished their first day at Elisa Masters Espoo 2024 with a victory and a loss in Group A.

Date	Matches
Elisa Masters Espoo 2024
16/10/2024	Ninjas in Pyjamas Finished 14:16 B8	Match
16/10/2024	The MongolZ Finished 2:0 B8	Match

The 20-year-old's first LAN match since joining B8 came against none other than his former team, Ninjas in Pyjamas, albeit only Fredrik "⁠REZ⁠" Sterner remains as a former teammate and the Ninjas are at the event with Jacob "⁠jocab⁠" Nerheden standing in for Max "⁠maxster⁠" Jansson.

After a lengthy tech pause, headtr1ck and company took the match in overtime before a superior The MongolZ claimed the top seed from the group in a two-map winners' series.

"It's not bad to lose against The MongolZ, they're just fairly better right now," headtr1ck said. "They showed it at many tournaments. We should just take it as a good slap on the face so that we can wake up. "

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What was it like to face your former organization? A lot has changed; only REZ remains from your time there, but I'm sure there were still some emotions flowing.

Yeah, there are still many people there I was working with. It was a bit weird because when I joined TeamSpeak, I accidentally joined the NIP room, and the admin was laughing about it.

It was a good match, I didn't think they played bad, they played pretty good CS. I'm happy with our T side, we managed to show a good start. There were some important clutches, and overall, as a team, on the T side, we were doing pretty well.

Everyone was doing their job, what they need to do, but on the CT side it felt like they had executes all of the time and it worked pretty well against us.

I'm happy we managed to win, eventually. We were peeking well together, everyone was getting their kills, and that's very important — especially in best-of-ones. It's good to beat them, I was feeling more confident.

The MongolZ was a bit tougher. Nuke was a washout, so how was it trying to get back into the game on Inferno?

We started good on Inferno. It's not a map like Nuke where we can be lurked around and get surrounded by the Ts, so we were feeling more confident. We showed a close CT side, but when we lost the T-side pistol, that was the key round. They started to get a better economy, which is very important on Inferno.

On Nuke we were just not as good as we had been in the NIP game in terms of individual duels. We lost many duels. If, at the start of the match, some of the rounds went our way, we won some retakes, the game could have been a little bit different.

Inferno was a lot closer, but we just need to reset better, and everyone needs to find their way to reset. After a first map against good opponents, it's very important to be stronger in the second map. I think we did, but eventually, it felt like nothing was working — especially on the T side.

You and The MongolZ both ban Vertigo, and you banned it in the first round of vetos this time. Was that a show of respect towards them?

I'm not sure, actually. I wasn't in the veto. It's our permaban, we always ban it. I think we didn't want to gamble in case they don't take this tournament as seriously as IEM Rio, and maybe they would play our permaban. I think they think they are better than us, individually, so I guess we didn't want to take that risk.

I can say that we played their two good maps and our good maps in terms of online tournaments. I think we played Nuke and Inferno kind of well, especially lately. We had a bootcamp before this, so I think that they're just better as a team right now and they're feeling way more confident individually. They're not afraid to take duels, so it's important to take risks on our team.

You played in NIP, npl had a short time on NAVI. cptkurtka023 and alex666 have some experience, at least at the RMR level. How is this B8 coming along? You've been in the top 30 for a few weeks now, so where do you see this B8 team, and what direction is it taking?

It will be a very important few months for us because we have three LAN tournaments, which will be very important in terms of getting more points and more invites next year. That's very important for us and for B8 as an organization. I think we've showed some good CS. We started from the bottom. We lost my first five officials with the team, but we've started to gain some confidence.

We've had a winning streak and we've won against some great teams online, even top 20 and top 30 teams. We found our way to consistently play well online, but now it's very important to keep doing it on LAN. It's a way different atmosphere here. We have experienced players, I just think we need to get back in shape for the upcoming matches no matter who's next.

Many of us have already played on LAN. Maybe not esenthial, but the rest have. We all need to be 10 or 20 percent better at everything, in terms of communication and individually, and then we will be fine as we are online. We have good potential, but the upcoming months will be very important.

How important is it to get to play at a LAN like this? Even if it's not the biggest or most prestigious, you get to play teams like NIP and The MongolZ.

Definitely. We're taking this tournament very seriously because we bootcamped before it. We knew it was the right time because we have three tournaments almost in a row and we want to show how good we can be.

It's not bad to lose against The MongolZ, they're just fairly better right now. They showed it at many tournaments. We should just take it as a good slap on the face so that we can wake up.

This tournament and the upcoming ESL Challenger Katowice are both equally important for us. We need to gain experience and it would be perfect to play some matches on the stage. It's very important to have some stage experience to become strong on LAN consistently.

After spending some time in the international circuit and on an international team, how is it for you to play for a Ukrainian team now?

After NIP it was a really tough period for us, like for me and for k0nfig, people who were in the old roster because at the time we were kicked, it looked bad from other teams' perspective because we lost 0-3 at the RMR, nobody had a good individual level, and in terms of that it was hard to find the confidence to show yourself as a team and as an individual.

But yeah, I'm pretty happy that I managed to find a new home. I'm feeling way more confident here, and I feel that each teammate and coach respects me. That's very important to me, and I feel that everyone takes criticism well.

We're here to grow and we don't have selfish players. Sometimes that's good in big teams, so they can have kind of star players, but I feel like each of us has good positions now.

I remember that after the RMR it was really hard. The first days I was feeling really bad because it was the first time in my life that I was benched. I didn't know what to do, but after I took some time to rest and find my way back emotionally, I was so ready to play and I had a very big desire to compete again. Even if it was online matches, they helped me get my confidence back. I think it will be good. I think we have a lot of potential and I'm very happy where I am right now.

I heard you guys shout, "One, two, three, B8!" Why in English?

That's a good question.

[laughs]

I don't know. Maybe so everyone can understand. In the second game we didn't say it in English, that was in the first game. Honestly, we were just thinking about what to shout and we just chose some simple words to not overthink what we should scream.

Is there a team you would rather play in the arena on Friday?

I would rather play NIP because I think they're better than JANO, and we need to play against good teams. I think it could be an interesting rematch. It will be a best-of-three, which will be longer and will give us more space to work as a team.

We played one best-of-three and then two kind of quick maps, which I don't think is enough for us as a team to find our way here at the LAN. It will be a fun match, and we can take this loss as a good slap and show some good CS in the next game.