MAJ3R: "Every tournament this year we had made playoffs, so the minimum here was playoffs"

The Aurora captain is disappointed with his team's performance at the Major, but is staying positive for the second half of the season.

Aurora were on an eight-tournament playoff streak, but after falling behind 1-2 in the BLAST.tv Austin Major Stage 3 best-of-ones, they were eliminated in the fourth round by MOUZ, going out 1-3.

The Turkish team's in-game leader, Engin "⁠MAJ3R⁠" Küpeli, tried to keep positive after the heartbreaking loss. "Every time a door closes somewhere, there's always a window open," he tells HLTV. "That's my favorite quote, so I will look for this window and hopefully I can see some birds and some sun, and it will be okay."

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You suffered a tough loss to MOUZ, you're out 1-3. Aurora, as a team, you were expected to be here fighting for playoffs and instead you were fighting for survival. How did we get into this situation?

Every tournament this year we had made playoffs, so the minimum here was the playoffs, but we're at the most important tournament of the year and I think that we failed. We played the first day 1-1 and then we lost the G2 match, a BO1, and we were in the position to play MOUZ in the 1-2. We had a chance to beat them today, especially if we won Train and Inferno, 2-0, but we tried to fight and it wasn't enough.

You started 1-0, then you went 1-1, and then there's the match against G2. FURIA we saw play really well, and they went through, but then you're up against G2, who it looked like were struggling before the Major. Did it hurt your confidence going into today? Did it shake you in any way?

Yeah, obviously. Everything after 1-1... When we lost to FURIA, on paper, if FURIA just go to the playoffs, they played really well here in this tournament, but we didn't know that when we faced them. After FURIA, 1-1, we said, 'Okay, the next match is very important, it's BO1.'

I think, in the BO1, the map pool wasn't enough, maybe, because we played with a bit of pressure against G2 on Inferno. We lost three ecos, three forcebuys and one very bad four Glocks and only one AK. When you lose a round like this as CT, it breaks your economy so hard and after that you lose like 9-3 or 7-4, and then if you lose the pistol on T side, it becomes very difficult.

BO1s are very different from BO3s. The nerves were maybe not on top this day, and that's why we lost. Then we had the chance to bounce back against MOUZ, but it was not enough.

Speaking about MOUZ. You had the two first maps being pretty even, but that Mirage, it looked like they got ahead and you were lagging a bit behind. What happened there, why couldn't you keep it as competitive as you would have liked to?

There was a key round on the CT side, when it was 6-4, they went B and they won a 2vs3 situation when torzsi just went Underground, rushing Connector, and xertioN took some space. We knew that he would take some space because torzsi just rushed instantly on A, underground.

After this round, economically, we're broke, 6-6, and after that we lost the pistol on T side and I really felt like they had a really good analysis because we had to plan with the team, with my coach, to play slow. Middle control, etc., playing a little more on A, but they were just throwing four molotovs behind the box, opening two times, and we didn't have control on Middle and they were just smoking underground two times.

It's normally not something that's happening every day, I think they had a really good analysis, and everything goes so fast... We didn't fight on T side, and I'm very sad about it.

At the beginning of the interview, we spoke about how you're a playoff team. Why do you think we didn't see the best version of Aurora here in Austin?

One of the reasons is that, individually, my players weren't in top form, first of all, so it was hard for me. Then, maybe, my responsibility, also, a little. I think it's just a group responsibility, you know? Like, on Mirage we lost both pistols, so we didn't start really well. It's kind of the team's fault, everyone had his own responsibility this tournament, but I think that the BO1 nerves, the BO1s killed us a little.

In a BO1, starting CT also didn't help a lot. We lost twice against G2 and FURIA, like 8 or 7-4 or something like that, we didn't start the CT side really well. We have to bounce back, fix our map pool a little, because we did a bootcamp in Serbia for a week, and we tried to look a lot at Train, but unfortunately we didn't show it. It wasn't enough to beat MOUZ on Train, today.

I really believe that if it was another team we could have won Train, but MOUZ is a really great team on this map, also. It was a hard matchup, and we had a chance to win, but they played better, so congrats to them.

You've played a lot of Counter-Strike this season, a lot of tournaments. Going into the second half of the year, are you going to revisit the way you go to tournaments or don't go to tournaments?

I'm not making the decision on what event we participate or not, I'm just a soldier. They tell me we play there, so we play there. The management will make the decision, they will think about what's good for us and what's bad for us, but we're obviously competitive, and playing Counter-Strike is what I love.

At my age, I try to just enjoy that every day, even if some failure happens, I try to bounce back and just keep positive because in life anything can happen to you — bad things —, and you have to bounce back. Every time a door closes somewhere, there's always a window open. That's my favorite quote, so I will look for this window, and hopefully I can see some birds and some sun, and it will be okay. [Laughs]