MATYS: "We have very strong individuals, and that's what we sometimes lean on"

"I'm really happy we managed to show that we can play against every single team here," added the Slovakian rifler.

fnatic came into the RMR fresh off signing Tim "⁠nawwk⁠" Jonasson, who joined the team less than two months before the tournament in place of Aurélien "⁠afro⁠" Drapier. The team struggled for results following the Swede's signing, but Matúš "⁠MATYS⁠" Šimko says the team doesn't want to use the lack of preparation as an excuse.

In Shanghai, fnatic began their campaign with a loss to Natus Vincere but bounced back with a dominant win against Rebels to finish the day in the 1-1 pool. After the win against the Polish side, MATYS talked to HLTV about fnatic's RMR campaign, his first full year in the team, and his wish to qualify for his first Major.

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

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You finish day one with a 1-1 record. Are you happy with what you've shown so far?

It could have been worse, but it could have been better. I think against NAVI, we lost twice. We won both pistols and we lost both second-round forcebuys. In a BO1, that's going to hurt you. We also lost all the breaking rounds with money. If we won one of the breaking rounds with the money against them, then the game would be positive. But they are number one for a reason, so they also played very well.

Because the matchups were known a lot in advance, did you hope the prep could help you beat a team like that?

When you face top ten teams, it doesn't matter if it's top one, top two, or top five, you always want to have some prep. You always want to know why they are where they are, you know. So we always want to see what they do, what they do better than the other teams. Always helps, for sure.

The second game was against Rebels, which looked like quite a comfortable win for you guys. Did it feel like that too?

It helped us a lot that we played our game. They let us play our game, usually that's going to help us a lot, especially on a map like Ancient. That was why we managed to win the game that early.

How did you feel coming into the game? Because this time, you were the favorites in a best-of-one. Did you feel any pressure coming into it?

Not really to be honest, we just focused on the game. The steps we want to do or want to achieve in the game are going to go well for us because we have very strong individuals, and that's what we sometimes lean on, and a little bit of teamwork in the game.

In the last RMR, you made it to the Last Chance and failed to make it through. Will that experience help you this time around?

It's 100% going to help us. Maybe not now, we were still a little bit stressed for the first match against NAVI, which I think makes complete sense. Sometimes the first games are a little bit rough, but we already helped each other in the second game. It was very easy to see that we are playing better and better each game, and that's what we want to show in the following matches.

At that Copenhagen RMR you didn't have blameF and nawwk, two experienced and well-known players. What did they bring to the team, in your opinion?

I think you answered the question with what you asked. They add experience, especially in clutches. The calmness in situations I think helps us a lot compared to the previous RMR.

nawwk came in a bit less than two months ago. Did you have enough time to get ready for the RMR?

From a certain point of view, yes. Now it's in our hands. I don't think now we can use that excuse, to be honest, we had to put in a lot of work to make it work, and I think we did a really good job so far. It's up to us to prove it now.

When he joined, the results didn't show that it was working at the start. Did you have to change anything to incorporate him into the team?

Sometimes it's rough to adapt because everyone in the team has opinions on how to play the game. We had a little bit of a struggle in the beginning because of that, we tried to connect in the game and make everyone comfortable, that was the biggest problem at the start. But we did an amazing job on this, every one of us, it required huge resilience from every one of us since everyone wants to do something on the map sometimes.

There's one more best-of-one and then best-of-threes. How do you feel about your chances of making it through?

It depends on who we're going to get because so far I have no idea who we're going to get in the next match. But for me, the most important thing is that we've shown we can play our own game in the second match against Rebels, and I'm very happy because of that. We also showed a little bit of our weaknesses, that's for sure, but overall, I'm really happy that we managed to show that we can play against every single one of the teams here.

If you do make it, it would be your first Major. How much do you want to achieve that?

I want to do everything in my hands to qualify for the Major. Last time it was rough, we needed just one win, I think we were 2-1 up last RMR but we lost all of the games after. I want to do everything possible to qualify.

You will spend one year in fnatic in about ten days. How do you look back at it?

To be honest, this one year in fnatic was so fast that I blink, and it feels like it was two or three months ago. It went that fast for me. That's why sometimes it's hard to live in the moment because everything is going so fast. So that's why I now understand that it's time to show myself and show how I want to play the game. As a unit, we want to qualify for the Major, that's for sure the goal.