kyxsan: "Something is happening to us in these important games, and we've been working on it to fix it"

Falcons have only lost four matches in the last three months but they are yet to win a title with kyousuke.

Falcons' expenditure since signing Danny "⁠zonic⁠" Sørensen as their head coach has been designed for one single goal: Trophies.

They did win one, at PGL Cluj-Napoca earlier this year, but it was an event without several top teams and the team's MVP was an AWPer in Abdul "⁠degster⁠" Gasanov they benched soon after.

Evidence of the refreshed team's quality, since adding Ilya "⁠m0NESY⁠" Osipov and Maxim "⁠kyousuke⁠" Lukin, has been present in group stages, and Falcons topped their pool in Chengdu again.

Date	Matches
IEM Chengdu 2025
08/11/2025	Falcons Finished 0:2 FURIA	Match
09/11/2025	MOUZ Finished 1:2 Falcons	Match

But in playoffs, they have fallen short, with 'Falcons rounds' and viral radar screenshots in lost 4v2s or 5v3s emblematic of a team that is yet to fully find their groove.

"Sometimes when it comes to these high pressure games, sometimes we make some mistakes that we usually don't do," Damjan "⁠kyxsan⁠" Stoilkovski told HLTV after Falcons secured third in China over MOUZ.

"It could be the pressure, it could be the mentality, it could be something else, I'm not sure. But something is definitely happening to us in these important games, and we've been working on it to fix it."

Listen to the interview here

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Walked away with third place in Chengdu. You started the match off very hot, lost Inferno, and brought it back on Mirage. Talk me through that game a bit.

We played a good Ancient and Mirage, obviously Inferno was a bit harder. It's map that we've had some struggles on in the past, then we worked on it, but now it again feels a bit harder than before. We just need to recap some of the things and remind ourselves of what we need to do on Inferno to be a little bit better.

You really turned your pistol rounds around at this event. It was a big issue at EPL, and you told me there that you had tried so many different things to try and fix it. What did you do between then and now to turn that around?

I don't think we changed that many things. For me, the biggest problem in the past with pistol rounds was that we often did some mistakes in the mid-round of the pistol round that cannot be set from before that, so the players have to make individual decisions. We became better at that this event, we didn't change much about the pistol rounds, we just talked about some individual decisions that everyone has to make during the rounds, and that helped us.

You're 4/4 against MOUZ this year. Do you just have their number, or why do you think you keep beating them?

Yeah, we beat them a few times now, but I think they're a pretty good team and I feel like it's always a bit hard to play against them. Maybe our map pool fits against them because we have a good Ancient and we always win it against them. In the last game we also won Inferno against them, so maybe the map pool could be the reason. I'm not sure.

m0NESY had a pretty rough Inferno T side, he actually had 0 ADR, went 0-10 in that entire half. What was going wrong from him?

Just the whole team didn't play as we usually do. We played way too static, we didn't apply too much pressure to them in Banana, not too much pressure in Mid, so they were always one step ahead of us and it was really hard to call and just play the game. i think everyone felt like that. Obviously that is maybe a little bit on me, but also on the whole team because it's a map where everyone needs to be connected with each other, needs to give information of how many smokes they used, where we expect them to be, and these kind of things.

Take me back to yesterday as well, a difficult loss against FURIA. Why did it go that way?

Now we've said it maybe a few times, but it was just an off-day for us, maybe. Overall, this event we've been playing good, but sometimes when it comes to these high pressure games, sometimes we make some mistakes that we usually don't do. It could be the pressure, it could be the mentality, it could be something else, I'm not sure. But something is definitely happening to us in these important games, and we've been working on it to fix it. I think we've gotten better at it, the game against FURIA yesterday, obviously the first map was hard, but we could have won the second map in my opinion. Then who knows what would happen in the third one.

You say you're working on it to fix it, what are you doing?

We are just talking about it. Everyone is sharing how they feel, how they think during these games, and also we have talks with our mental coach who has a lot of experience with these kind of situations. That's how.

Can you give any insight into what kind of feedback you'd get from your mental coach in these kinds of situations?

I wouldn't like to go too much into detail, but he's just trying to help us to be more relaxed, calm, to play the game like every other game, because the game against FURIA didn't feel like every other game for us, it felt a bit different for some reason. That could be because of the pressure, as I already mentioned, it could be because of stress, I'm not sure. But we're trying to work on it and I think we're improving.

I also wanted to touch on playing a third-place decider, it's become more common in CS. What are your general thoughts on it as a concept and of playing in it?

I think it's a good thing, especially when it's an arena game. Obviously it's fun to play here, in front of all the fans, especially in China, but overall it's a good thing. It might be a little bit annoying since if you lose the semi-final, then you have to play a third game decider, but overall it's a good thing. You play one more game, and for example, today we won, so we are going to the next event with a win even though we didn't win the event (laughs).

Do you like that it's best-of-three, or do you think being best-of-one could add a little bit more spice to it?

I think best-of-three is fine. I wouldn't like to play best-of-ones in CS2 (laughs).

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FURIA make IEM Chengdu final after third consecutive win over Falcons