nqz: "Micro decisions make us lose"

nqz feels that, despite often giving "excellent" teams tough games, paiN are let down by individual mistakes.

Long paiN have been a team of promise, seemingly on the cusp of breaking into the elite, but it hasn't quite happened. They kicked off the year in promising fashion, making BLAST Bounty Finals and running Natus Vincere agonizingly close, but form has oscillated significantly since.

They have gone from exiting IEM Katowice Play-in, to a promising showing in PGL Cluj-Napoca, to now exiting ESL Pro League prior to the playoffs. Their EPL campaign was far from convincing, even in Stage 1, where they scraped their way past lesser teams to get this far.

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Eternal Fire end paiN's Pro League campaign

"We were expecting to be better in the first stage," Lucas "⁠nqz⁠" Soares admits of paiN's run in Sweden. "All the games were such complicated games that shouldn't have been."

With a disappointing EPL campaign behind him, nqz sat down with HLTV to talk about paiN's run in Stockholm, his team's plateau in performance, and what they must do to take the next step.

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How are you feeling after that series?

Of course not good. We had our chances and I think that every round that we couldn't make a mistake, we did, so it's a terrible feeling right now. We have to move on, it's experience for us, and I think we will become better after these tournaments and losing these matches in this way.

Do you think it was more individual mistakes rather than something tactical that went wrong?

Yeah. I think that almost every round we had a good idea of what Eternal Fire wanted to do, there were rounds with three or two on the right site, but the shots were not hitting. I think that was the main problem today, not tactical, but more individual.

How do you feel about the tournament overall, how paiN did?

Maybe decent. We expected to go through the first stage, but not in the way that we did. I think that everyone, including ourselves, were expecting to be better in the first stage, we almost did not qualify. All the games were such complicated games that shouldn't have been.

In the second stage we got completely demolished by G2, against NAVI we had a chance on Train, but overall I think that we did not play good CS. So yeah, time to improve.

Last year everyone was excited for paiN, you were a young team on the comeup. It feels like you've hit a plateau and levelled out. Does it feel like that for the team?

I think that we have our peaks. We make good matches against excellent teams, but right now the main point for us is trying to break that bubble and start to be more consistent, and be able to win those matches. Because all these matches against better teams, we feel like we had chances, we all feel that we could have won. Micro decisions from one person there, or another person here, make us lose. For now it's about breaking this bubble and trying to find consistency as a team.

Is there a mental side to it? It might be one of those things where once you get over that hump, beat one of these teams, it unlocks something.

I don't really have an answer to that, to be honest. Maybe yes, maybe no. I think we have a good mental, all five players, but the tiny mistakes and little decisions that cost the matches cannot happen, and they are happening with some frequency. I don't know how to answer that, being honest.

For you personally, your Stage 1 stats were much better than your Stage 2 stats. Do you have any explanation for that, or thoughts?

I think the most obvious one is because the level in Stage 2 is way higher, but that's not an excuse. The teams here in Stage 2 punish me way better than the teams in Stage 1 did. Whenever I made a bad rotation or late rotation, the teams that we played in Stage 1 did not exploit or punish that. Almost every team that we play in Stage 2, if you don't think fast or wise, they will punish you, or you might not even get a shot with the AWP. I think that's the main point.

Is there any point at which you think as a team that you need to make a change to take the next step?

Being honest, I think that we have to stop committing the same mistakes. Because for all the players right now, we make a mistake, we watch it together, some time passes, and we come back to making the same mistake again. And it's usually when you cannot do these mistake, and it usually costs us matches.