dumau: "Losing today was not really a loss because we could see we could go much further"

Legacy's Cinderella run may have come to an end in Austin, but dumau was in good spirits as he believes Legacy has room to improve.

Legacy's fairytale run at the BLAST.tv Austin Major was ended by MOUZ just shy of the playoffs after the Brazilians failed to convert leads on two maps and multiple advantage situations into an upset victory.

The Brazilian team was never meant to play at the Major, but got the call-up as the first in line for a replacement invite after BESTIA were ruled out due to visa issues. They completed a Cinderella run all the way from Stage 1 to the final match of Stage 3, taking a best-of-one win over tournament favorites Vitality and a best-of-three win over FaZe in the process, but their mistakes at the eleventh hour proved too costly to overcome.

Eduardo "⁠dumau⁠" Wolkmer was in good spirits despite the loss, however, telling HLTV that the team has plenty of room to improve.

"We have the vision of how far we can go, and losing today was not really a loss because we could see, 'Guys we can go much further. We didn't play our best today. We disconnected sometimes,'" he says. "Most of the time we were connected in the rounds in past games and [here] we disconnected, but if we keep it, we can win 2-0, we can dominate the game."

You can listen to the interview here.

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Commiserations on the loss. An insane run from you, but unfortunately it ends here, and in heartbreaking fashion as well, you had leads on two maps. How are you feeling after that?

I'm feeling... kind of weird, in my mind, because I felt we could win because our minds were really there. We were playing really hard, but they played very well as they did the comeback. We gave a round up to them on Inferno [which allowed them to] come back.

These kinds of details that we missed could let them come back, but if I could see more fire at these moments we could've won, but we missed it. They deserve it. They played better. That's pretty much it, there is nothing much to say. Just head up and keep going.

A lot of the conversation this Major has been about you not really having the pressure on you because you weren't supposed to be here. Obviously now in a 2-2 game with playoffs on the line, do you feel like the pressure got to you a little bit?

No, I don't think we had pressure because the pressure that we are putting on ourselves since, not at this Major, but when we lost [the MRQ] in Brazil, we kind of said, 'Guys, we don't have pressure here. We just have to pressure ourselves to play our best as possible.' So our minds have changed since that.

The pressure we really put on ourselves is like, 'Guys we need to play our best CS, pay attention to details everybody, because I cannot tell you this detail.' You have to understand that, I have to understand something. So we push each other, that's the pressure we put on ourselves. But when we are playing you don't want to really think about, 'Okay you're losing, you're winning,' just go forward, keep believing, keep playing, keep shooting the heads and that's it. You cannot get your mind out of it.

When I say that, I more mean... so on Inferno when you were up, I think 11-6 or whatever. There's two back-to-back 5v4s that you lost and it did seem like you were a bit disconnected. Like there were some over-peeks, there's some-

Yes, those are the times that I'm [talking about]. These times we kind of disconnected and fucked up a bit. I don't know why, but it's a part of the game. But at these moments we were trying to push each other to get it done, and it didn't happen unfortunately. But we cannot let ourselves down just because of these moments. It happens, we are humans, we are tired too. Since Stage 1, I haven't slept more than seven hours a day. So not for me, but for everybody it's hard.

When you say you were trying to push each other to get it done, do you mean that you were trying to close it too early or what do you mean by that?

No, no, no. I mean get it done. When you have an advantage, that's what I mean by getting it done. I'm trying to translate it, because when I say getting done, it's like, we connect and then we win the round. If we connect, we're going to win. If we don't connect, we have a gap to lose. So we are kind of used to saying get it done. But yeah, they played better.

Talking about your overall Major run, still a massive success for you. I think you're up into the Top 20 of the HLTV ranking, up in the top 20 of the VRS ranking. I'm sure it's heartbreaking right now, but how are you feeling with what you did and how you came to represent Brazil and Legacy overall?

Individually, I feel myself in another way. I just want to win and I will do everything that's necessary for my team. Like these screams I do, it's not because I'm [faking it]. I scream for my team because I feel they need energy. And if people say that, 'Oh, you're too loud, you're very annoying,' man. I don't care. Actually, I don't think about what people think. I just think about what my team needs, I will do it, and I have to scream, I have to go first, have to jump, I have to support, I have to lurk. I will do anything to win.

That's the main goal in my mind, and I know the situations will ask for it, so I feel the game and play with the best situation possible. And of course I feel fear, but I truly believe in myself, and my balls I can say, to go forward and help my team to win. Of course we didn't win. It sucks, but winning and losing are very close sometimes as it was now, if someone watched the match it was very close. We kind of lost on some rounds, they played better but we cannot just have our heads down and wait for something to happen. We've got to have some attitude next round. Go forward, go have some idea, explain the idea and things like that.

Overall though, how do you feel the event went for Legacy in terms of just how you ended up playing and how this is going to work out for your future? Because it has elevated you, and clearly, you're trying to make a case to become a consisten contender in the regular circuit, right? So, how does that feel?

I'm very happy that I could represent my country. I know people from my country, they care a lot, and of course we want to win the Major. Not only be here, we are here to win, but we lost. That's not pressure, that's only what we want to do, day by day, win every time and soon we get the Major. But I'm very happy to represent my country, very very happy. People in Brazil need this fire, they need this energy, and I'm ready to give it. We didn't win today, but I know people will keep cheering for us because we have this will. We are not just players, we have this will.

About Legacy, we won a lot of points and it will help us. It will help us a lot in the future, but our focus now is to just keep moving forward and have these details in our minds. Even with getting a vacation now and everything, just have details in our minds so we can be ready to play the next tournament, and the next. I hope one day we can win, but yeah, it happens, we are competitors. We just need to play and be our best and that's it. Go out and win.

I need to ask, out of your 10 mice, how many did you use this tournament?

Oh, you saw? (smiles) I'm using one from Razer now, I like it a lot, I felt the grip. But I tried a lot of mice just to see the grips and how it was. We were here in the United States, before the Major we were here, so I was trying a lot of mice and it was very cool to have some experience. Before, I changed them a lot, but after some days I found a mouse that was comfortable, not... fucking my grip, you know? So then, everything was okay.

So you were you changing mice for the first couple of days?

Yes, because I bought a lot of mice to see and I didn't know how they were. There are a lot of brands of mice now, and I was trying to find one that fits well in my hand, that felt comfortable and the Razer one was the most [comfortable] right now.

Was that during officials or just in practice?

No, not officials, just in practice. Yeah, just in practice. In officials I just kept it the same.

We're going into this tournament break, so you're going to have some time off and then obviously come back for practice after the break, right? How do you feel heading into the break and then for Legacy after that?

People can see how much room we have to improve. We see a bit of a way through these things because we know what's bad from us inside and we know what's good, so we can see this room a bit further. We have the vision of how far we can go, and losing today was not really a loss because we could see, 'Guys we can go much further. We didn't play our best today. We disconnected sometimes. Most of the time we were connected in the rounds in past games and [here] we disconnected, but if we keep it, we can win 2-0, we can dominate the game.'

These are things to work on, and not only in the game but in our heads. When we know we have an advantage, or when we know we don't have an advantage but if you do something, you can create some advantage. It's things from the game and from the head. It's all playable, and we are looking forward to getting better every day. Losing is part of the game.