rigoN: "Our rule is just 'no regrets,' I learned this with Bad News Eagles as well"

BIG scraped through to the Elimination stage with rigoN shaking off a bad start to the qualification series against Complexity.

With a hard-fought win over Complexity in the final Swiss round, BIG passed through the Perfect World Shanghai Major's Opening stage.

For Rigon "⁠rigoN⁠" Gashi, it means a return to the top-16 stage, one he has now reached for the fourth time after missing out on Copenhagen in his last ride with Guild Eagles altogether.

"When we won, I got some tears in my eyes. It's just the biggest tournament, I want to win, I want to compete. I'm just happy I'm in the second stage for the fourth time now," he said in an interview with HLTV after BIG qualified.

It was a more difficult campaign than BIG's flawless run through the RMR, rigoN admitted, but their confidence going into the Elimination stage remains. "It didn't work how we wanted in the first stage, but I think we are really confident and we wanna take the big dogs."

You can read or listen to the full interview below:

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

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Yesterday it was such a tough finish for you in the first qualification series, and then you go into this series and lose the first map in a bad way. Tell me about this comeback and making it happen in the end.

Yesterday we had the game on Mirage, I think, we just didn't play our game. Today, we lost Anubis, I had like 4-16 again and I was just tilted at myself because I'm playing like 4-16, I don't see people on the map and I just die every time.

In the half break I just went to the aim_bots server, I killed some bots, and I got ready for the next two maps.

It looked like you were pretty much in control after that. What was the team talk like going into these two maps after the Anubis loss?

Our rule is just "no regrets," and I learned this with Bad News Eagles as well. It's the fourth time I'm here now, and it's just "play your hearts out, whatever happens, happens, if you lose, you go out with a good face, but at least show a good show."

You joined this team for this Major cycle after missing Copenhagen. What does it mean to you to make it to the second stage and to be able to have this run again?

Now when we won, I got some tears in the eyes, it's just the biggest tournament, I want to win, I want to compete. I'm just happy I'm four times [in the second stage] now (laughs).

Heading into the next stage, the competition is only going to get tougher from here. You showed a great face at the RMR and made it happen here, how confident are you going into the second stage and about your chances?

I'm really confident, I must say. We went 3-0 in the RMR, and in the first stage it didn't work how we wanted, but I think we are really confident and we wanna take the big dogs.

Did that come as a surprise that you had to struggle through this stage?

It wasn't really a surprise, I think just FlyQuest caught us off-guard, so we lost that game on Nuke. We didn't hold our protocols and everything. We rewatched the demo yesterday against FURIA as well - we should have won on Mirage, in my opinion, and we don't really have anything special. We'll just prepare for the next stage.

I was looking at the seeding and it turns out you're going to play HEROIC in the first round. Do you have any thoughts on what that could look like after you guys played them in the RMR?

Yes, we played them recently. To be honest, we don't fear anyone, we just play our game, it's a best-of-one and anything could happen, the rounds go so fast. We will probably prepare and play our hearts out again.