khaN: "zweih is a full monster blyat, carrying the game. He's motivating me with his calmness"

1eer's banter and zweih's serenity have taken Nemiga to Stage 3.

Nemiga's fairytale run through the Austin Major will continue after a win over HEROIC.

The team were 49th in the world at the start of June but they have succeeded in two stages off the back of Aliaksandr "⁠1eeR⁠" Nahorny's leadership (and trash talk), Beksultan "⁠khaN⁠" Ospan's clutches, and the fragging power of 17-year-old starlet Ivan "⁠zweih⁠" Gogin.

Date	Matches
BLAST.tv Austin Major 2025 Stage 2
10/06/2025	Nemiga Finished 2:0 HEROIC	Match

A win over HEROIC, however, was a new height for the team and khaN admitted that nerves started to creep in as they tried to close out a 10-3 lead on map two.

Like most players, he told himself that the 2-2 match was just another game. "But when you start the game, it's Major, so you just start to be a bit nervous."

"We started to lose, round by round. We were making very stupid mistakes. I didn't play as I should play. But after that, thank god our coach took the last pause."

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First, I've got to ask about the 1v2 on Mirage, the prediciton spray.

In my head I was twisting. You know, when you are going out B, it shouldn't go like this in my head. I'm 1v2, everyone's screaming where people are. I took a pause to think, 'they're both low HP, one back-site, one car.' Car guy, for sure, won't peek first and it's LNZ [back-site] so it's better to just peek the guy on the left. No offence to LNZ. But, it was easy clutch. Maybe it looked better on live stream.

The one that looked even better was the 3K from Window and up Short, that was the big game changing one.

Whole Mirage you can describe in this round. Force, force, buy, buy, buy. This round I didn't even expect that it will go like this. Usually good teams expect everything but I guess this game was so nervous that this guy in Jungle didn't want to peek me. This guy, going through the murder hole, I killed him okay. But this guy in Jungle was scared and he let me peek, so I killed him. Thank god I then jumped Short and killed TN1R. Then my teammates closed it out. And thank god, this round was brilliant I swear.

On the second map, it got a little bit nervy towards the end. What were you thinking?

[laughs] Blyat. On second map, to be honest, I didn't even understand what was happening. My team is just destroying them T side, I didn't do that much, we just did our gameplan. I saw the score and I'm just praying, 'guys, don't troll.' We just need a few rounds, full focus, I was saying.

And after that we started to lose, round by round, we were doing very stupid mistakes. I didn't play as I should play. But after that, thank god our coach took the last pause before a force-round, at 11-9, called the thing. He said, 'guys, blyat, stop playing like this. If we play like always we win. And now, push Tunnel.' Then we pushed Tunnel and won the round and everyone was screaming. After that, our team, when we took the 12th round, everyone took a deep breath. No pressure now.

Can you describe the pressure you're under in these 2-2 games? xfl0ud's starting to scream at you, it's all bubbling up, what is that even like?

When I was approaching the game, I didn't think that it's 2-2 and everything. It's just another match. At least, I believe I was thinking like that. But when you start the game, anyway, it's Major, so you just start to be a bit nervous.

But we have zweih, full monster blyat, carrying the game. He's motivating me sometimes a little bit with his calmness. He's a really calm guy, I really like it. He's not screaming and everything but he's steady, calm, just playing his game. For example, me and 1eer are usually screaming in TeamSpeak so there is a balance. I really like that, even though we have nerves, on 2-2, everyone is helping each other.

Especially 1eer, as well, you just... how do you say in Russian, you take the mountain off your shoulders when your teammates are screaming, it's a good vibe. zweih is just [deadpan voice], 'okay guys. Beskultan, I drop you this. Okay, nice. Uh huh.' Every round he is calm. It's just another game.

Did you expect to make Stage 3? Or is this the proper dream scenario?

To be honest I didn't have expectations from this Major. I just wanted to play as well as we can as a team, do whatever we can for a win every game. I understand that we are not Vitality or Spirit who don't even feel these kinds of teams. But, for me, we need to fight for every round and every game and put more and more pressure. While we were playing, in my opinion, we gained very good form as we can see, it's better and better every day. After that, coming to Stage 3, it's a really good result for me. Next step is playoffs.