woxic: "I think this is our seventh playoff, so I hope we can win it this time"

"I'm not gonna say big words, I don't want to jinx it," the Turkish AWPer added.

Aurora, who were still representing Eternal Fire at the start of 2025, began the year with an incredibly hectic schedule of back-to-back tournaments.

Since their organization switch, however, the team took more than a month off from officials in a bid to revitalize their playbook.

"We wanted to do a bootcamp, but there were earthquake issues, so we just decided to do it from home. We renewed our [play]book and everything," Özgür "⁠woxic⁠" Eker told HLTV about the period of inactivity.

Aurora returned to the server at PGL Astana, where they made the playoffs after a 2-0 demolition of ODDIK in the 2-2 pool.

After the game, woxic spoke to HLTV about the tournament so far, his expectations for the playoffs, and the squad's relationship with the fans after their organizational switch.

---

I'm here with woxic after Aurora made the playoffs at PGL Astana. Except for this last ODDIK game, it felt like you guys really had to grind out the results, so how satisfied are you with what you've shown here?

We are not satisfied overall with how we played, but I think we're satisfied after we had a break of officials for almost one and a half months. I think we still managed to qualify for the playoffs with an unsatisfying individual level and team play. We just started to get better day by day and get used to it again. I'm happy in the end because we made the playoffs anyway, and a win is a win.

Do you think this break is the biggest reason? Before, you had a really incredibly busy schedule, and then you took a month and a half off. Was that the reason why you guys are probably not at 100% here?

Probably yeah, but I think we are just starting to grind again, having practice and officials every day. I think it's gonna put us in the same shape again like before, and as I said, in the end, when you're making the playoffs, it doesn't matter.

This month and a half off. MAJ3R said you guys had some issues with bootcamps and visas, so how did this last month and a half go for you?

We wanted to do a bootcamp, but there were earthquake issues, and we didn't want to go and stay in the same place. We were not sure if the building was going to be safe or not, so that's why we just decided to do it from home. We renewed our [play]book and everything.

Previously, what we have shown, we use some of that, but I think you need to add more things because every day people are just seeing your strats, and they can just do anti on them.

And also, when you're playing at tournaments day by day, you don't have time to add many things. So I think we used that time to fix the mistakes in the tactics and also add new things.

Coming into the playoffs with these mistakes fixed and new strats. What is the goal? Is it the trophy?

Always when you go to the playoffs, you are aiming to win the tournament, but we couldn't do it at all [so far]. I think this is like our seventh playoff, so I hope we can do it this time. I'm not gonna say big words because I did before, and it didn't help, so I don't want to jinx it. We'll see. We'll do our best to lift the trophy, we are one of the favorite teams to win the trophy in the event right now.

I just wanted to ask you about this move to Aurora. It feels like, at least from the outside, things calmed down a bit recently. Do you feel that as well?

Yeah, also we feel that because these kinds of decisions you are making are always in hot times. It can always happen, this kind of issue, but I think now people have started to get used to it.

Was it hard to calm down the fans? I saw you made a lot of tweets, as did the entire team, trying to talk to the fans. Given you have a very special connection with them, was that hard to do?

At the start, it was a bit hard. We had to explain ourselves a couple of times, because they are mostly emotional people. It was hard, but I think we did well.