Snappi on r1nkle and xKacpersky: "We needed to activate both, and I think we succeeded"

NIP made crucial headway in the Major race with a second place finish at StarSeries Fall.

Ninjas in Pyjamas have all but secured their place at the Budapest Major after placing second at StarSeries Fall.

It's been a long, arduous, road for a team that started the year with no VRS points and has had to fight through online qualifier after online qualifier.

But when Marco "⁠Snappi⁠" Pfeiffer's troops have made it to LAN, they have usually impressed: Two grand finals at Fragadelphia, playoffs in Astana, top 12 in Cologne, and now second place here in Hungary.

Date	Matches
StarLadder StarSeries Fall 2025
20/09/2025	Ninjas in Pyjamas Finished 0:2 Natus Vincere	Match
21/09/2025	Ninjas in Pyjamas Finished 2:0 B8	Match
21/09/2025	Natus Vincere Finished 2:0 Ninjas in Pyjamas	Match

"It feels good to get closer to the Major," Snappi told HLTV after the final. "In this system, you really need to have a decent rank in January because you can see this time, 14 of the EU spots are decided in July. That's pretty much how the system works, as long as people protect their own points and don't play lower opponents."

The outspoken Dane has made no secret of his opposition to elements of the VRS, and says the head-to-head adjustments make it too difficult for lower-ranked teams to break into what is, in his view, a bit of closed shop at the top of the scene.

But to his credit, Ninjas in Pyjamas have seemingly forced their way in.

Listen to the interview here.

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What's your take on that series?

We were in the series, but we had too many key rounds lost, and mistakes. On Nuke, we lose T pistol and the following, on CT we lose the second round so that's five-six rounds for them. We were competitive, if we get one each, it's a 10-10 match or whatever and it's anyone's game. On Nuke, they won the key rounds, mostly. We lost an anti-eco each.

Then for Inferno, we controlled it a lot. But we made two significant mistakes on our T side. The first was when we lost four guns hunting, and we didn't take them down. That left our economy in a very bad place. Then in spawn, we had the perfect call to block Banana but we ended up blocking each other and don't end up getting the molly-nade off. Then they ended up swinging Banana.

And after this, I don't think I controlled the game well enough. I should have left ewjerkz alone on Banana and worked A, but we kept trying to punish makazze on Sandbags and we weren't successful. I think it's a game we were in but small details and key rounds lost it.

How much do you think that's down to this five-man lineup not playing, especially recently, tonnes against top teams?

This definitely helps. Also yesterday against them, we were definitely in it, but then b1t does a 1on4, Deagle with 10 HP, four one shots. Maybe it's one of, if not the, best highlights of the year. Small things like this, but that's also why NAVI are such a top team. They have some of these individuals that can do stuff that other team's can't, and they're good at punishing mistakes.

Does it give you a lot of heart to know that you were in a lot of these maps, if not all of them?

It's very good when we look at it. Yesterday, we're losing 4v2, 5v3, 4v2. We did better in that area today, but instead we lost in other areas. It really sucks, when you lose a final it feels shit, you sit and think about all the things you should have done different. Inferno probably comes out in our favor if we don't screw up.

But then again, there's a lot of positives to take away from it. We got a lot of points coming into the Major race, we 2-0'd every team here except NAVI, and all four maps — despite the scoreline being 13-8, 13-9 — they were actually...

Also, Aleksi made a great gesture and told me that we were hard to predict. It was very nice of him. But it feels good to know that we were in those four maps.

You gave NAVI some good games, does it feel good to put yourself above those top 20-ish teams? To know roughly where you are?

It feels good to get closer to the Major, the last event before the season cut off. In this system, you really need to have a decent rank in January because you can see this time, 14 of the EU spots are decided in July. That's pretty much how the system works, as long as people protect their own points and don't play lower opponents.

The 14 teams were decided in July and it didn't matter how bad they were. You can see it's borderline impossible, Liquid and VP were in trouble because they only lost the whole season but they both saved it last minute. Two wins for VP, that was pretty much enough. There's got to be some sort of way for the teams that play below, we will eventually lose sometimes to tier two teams and the head-to-head punishment is so severe that teams just avoid it. Like BLAST online, 3DMAX, GamerLegion, they know to avoid it.

Was that why you were so pumped up after beating B8? Because you know top-two here was a big step in terms of VRS?

I was pumped up because that game meant a lot in the Major race. We put ourselves ahead of the competitors with that win. Obviously, we're not 100% but we put ourselves in the best position. A win here would have fully secured it but we got really close, and that was a nice feeling.

Video: Snappi pops off after NIP confirm the win over B8

You've talked about the change in approach on broadcast, after Frag, rewriting the playbook. Does it feel nice to get some vindication?

Obviously this last Inferno didn't feel nice, the T side wasn't great, but we worked on a lot of maps. Maybe we left Nuke out, we knew we weren't going to play it a lot until later in the tournament, we worked a lot on Train, Dust2, Ancient, Inferno to pick up our pool because Nuke was obviously a staple for us. That left a few holes in our Nuke on the other end buty now we get to go home and continue the work with it. There was a lot of good takeaways from this, a lot of good learning.

What was your philosophy when you were rewriting the playbook and changing direction? What was the broad strokes?

Trying to, kind of, mirror a bit how we did it in ENCE. But also, to make sure we got the players comfortable. Especially Kacper and r1nkle, last season's playstyle didn't really fit... Well I guess it did fit Kacper but it didn't fit so much with r1nkle playing next to him. So therefore we needed to find a way to activate them both, and I think we succeeded. Kacper played a good tournament here, and so did r1nkle.