fear: "I lived with my team for eight months and we never had toxicity"

Passion UA moved in together when fear joined the team, and their "300-day bootcamp" has helped them go 2-0 on day one in Shanghai.

Rodion "⁠fear⁠" Smyk and Passion UA have caused a stir in Shanghai after defeating Virtus.pro and Spirit in back-to-back best-of-ones.

fear's troops have been on a hell of a grind in 2024, racking up 366 maps and counting this year since he arrived in March; a rate of 1.40 official maps per day.

"Our team, we're young, we were on bootcamp for eight months [living together], grinding a lot," fear tells HLTV.

"We watched around 900 demos, I don't know, a lot. Every day, we watch three or four demos. Every time. With the team, individually. But they don't watch my demos. And that's why they don't have the advantage — I have the advantage."

Date	Matches
Perfect World Shanghai Major 2024 Europe RMR B
21/11/2024	Virtus.pro Finished 14:16 Passion UA	Match
21/11/2024	Spirit Finished 11:13 Passion UA	Match

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2-0 after day one, that's VP and Spirit. How good does that feel?

It feels really good to start day one with two victories. Many things to say... First of all, everyone thinks we are underdogs here but I don't know why. Every game is 50-50. Even right now, we win two best-of-ones with zero pistols. It's always 50-50. They don't have an advantage.

Our team, we're young, we were on bootcamp for eight months [living together], grinding a lot, and we always watch these top 10, top 15, top 5, teams. We watched around 900 demos, I don't know, a lot. Every day, we watch three or four demos. Every time. With the team, individually. But they don't watch my demos. And that's why they don't have the advantage — I have the advantage.

When I play Spirit, I understand, donk is doing this thing, the others are doing that thing, we just chill. But they don't know how we play.

Tell me a bit more about this 8-month, 300 days, of what is essentially a bootcamp living together.

You need to understand it's the first team for the other four players, and they are very young. I had experience playing with m0NESY, b1t, headtr1ck, and at that time it was their first professional team as it is now for my players. And this means that they have a bright future ahead of them. They improve every day, and our goal for this first day was at least 1-1 because we want to stay longer. If we stay longer, we will improve, day by day. Overall, huge respect to my players.

What about your role in this? You are the one with a bit more experience but you're young yourself, this is still, other than WePlay and a Polish LAN, pretty much your first LAN, too. So what is it like being the 'father figure,' almost?

I joined eight months ago. They already had structure, many ideas, but I gave them many things to improve. They gave information very badly, but they had many ideas, so we just, Kane and I, stuck together and made a plan and it's working. One more game, and it's a dream come true.

But beating Spirit, someone like donk, so often today, was getting one kill and dying, you were trading so effectively. What was the key?

One time, I think the second gun, I said, 'we need to peek him before the molly,' and we failed. But the rest, we just traded well.

Overall, our system is about tradeability. Don't overpeek; focus on economy. Many high-level players and teams don't focus on economy, and it's really important in this system, MR12. It's really important. Our system is to play disciplined, get traded, don't do YOLO moves.

In the future, we will bring our potential, take the next step, and it's really nice. It's really nice when Kane and I know the next step. We still make very simple mistakes.

I wanted to ask about a specific player, jambo, he's the highest statistically at least. What's your take on him, are the stats true?

Right now he's in his best form. I really like his character, he doesn't care who he plays, what player, what team. He doesn't care. He's a very chill guy. I found him maybe four years ago, I remember, I think it was after NAVI Junior, I created a mix team with 'The Witchers,' and I took him from FACEIT because he was high ELO.

Now, he helped me and invited me to Passion UA. If you give people something good, they will give it back. I always said to him, 'jambo, I don't know how long I will stay with you. I will give you everything, I will try to improve you. For sure, you have talent. You will leave for a team.' In the time after The Witchers disbanded, he said, 'let's go,' and I said yes.

It's a good story. Can I show you a picture? Jambo was living in Odessa, in Ukraine, when the war started. He had no light [because of Russian rockets]. We had no sponsors, but he moved to my grandmother's house in Horodok [a city further west], together with me. It's a really nice story.

How important was it for you to be in NAVI Junior? How much did it shape you?

NAVI gave me everything. They taught me how to speak with the media, not in English, sorry [laughs]. But overall, they gave me in-game lessons, psychology lessons. NAVI Junior have the best academy system.

Did you have much contact with B1ad3? Is it a top-down approach, how linked is it to the main team?

I remember, three months into our first bootcamp with NAVI Junior, B1ad3 was always coming to us and giving some lessons. That's why we played similar CS. aMi, my first coach, he's very skillful. He's still in NAVI's structure, creating rosters for other disciplines, Dota 2. He's my first coach, my best coach, he gave me everything — more than B1ad3.

Okay, back to the here and now. 2-0, still under people's radars, how confident are you that you can convert this into the Major, and get that one BO3?

It's not over. Before we started the event, it's not about 2-0, 0-2, 1-1, it's about three games, win or lose. It doesn't matter. 2-0 gives me more time to work and improve here, in China, in Shanghai, because we still have jetlag. I don't know about other teams, I talked with m0NESY, headtr1ck, B8 and G2 still have jetlag. Now, we have more time.

In BO3, we are comfortable. All the maps are ready.

How important would it be to get this Major? For you, the team, even for the people back home, like Zinchenko?

It's a dream, of course. Our first goal was to make the closed qualifiers online, then the RMR LAN, and we're going stage by stage.

For me, it's really important to win time. With these victories, we win time. If we make the next stage, we will win time to improve more. We have huge potential. We're very young players. Every time we talk about the game we are improving, each detail. They're very nice people to work with, they always listen.

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I lived with them for eight months and we never had bad dialogue or toxicity. Never. Maybe me, I was a bit emotional, but everything was good vibes. Eight months, I don't know if some other team could do that for eight months and never fight. It's impossible.

Huge respect to my teammates: They carried me today. I still played 20% of myself. I said to the guys, if I had a bit more aim, shoot more bodies, we would finish this 13-5. We lost four pistols, we were so unlucky.

I had adrenaline, [hits table], I hit the first two headshots against VP in the pistol but didn't kill. And I felt like, 'Let's go', but then adrenaline made me jiggle a lot, I struggled. It was the same for Jambo, he clutched 1v3, we talked about every situation in-game, and he said he felt the same, like he would win everything and 30-bomb, but then adrenaline came and it's more random. So, we always talk about staying calm. Every time. The first match was harder than the second, emotionally, trust me.