arT on Legacy: “My teammates have enormous potential, and they have many years ahead of them.”

It’s always unpleasant to find yourself in this kind of situation. I think we had plenty of opportunities to perform much better, but at the same time, we were lacking in many areas. As for my own play, I wasn’t performing at my best.

My teammates have enormous potential, and they have many years ahead of them. It all comes down to handling our current tasks correctly and giving it our all. I think we can work hard to achieve our goals, which are to win Tier 1 tournaments and, hopefully, a Major. I think that’s the most important thing for us. But at the same time, we need to manage our expectations, because when we don’t achieve these goals, we get really frustrated. That’s what happened when we lost in the group stage of the last tournament, and when we lost a few tournaments right before the break. It’s always hard for us to deal with that. I think it comes down to things like that, first and foremost. We need to manage our expectations; otherwise, we won’t be able to play the kind of CS we want to.

Everyone influences the team: psychologically inside the game server, outside of it, and directly during the game. When you’re not mentally prepared, it makes a huge difference. You play like a loser, you play a little strangely, so you need to calm down, think things through, and see it through to the end. I think it’s the little things that make all the difference for us. If we have the right mindset, we can win. And when we don’t, we lose—just like we recently lost to FURIA in a very close match. 

We can sense the energy from the way the players talk. When they speak clearly and openly, when you can feel the desire to play and the fire in their words. You can tell from things like that whether they’re mentally ready to play—and then you just have to crush the opponent. Sometimes players get a little frustrated. That’s normal for CS players. It happens to me, too. At some point, everyone runs out of energy; everyone gets frustrated or angry. So when you learn to control that, play to win, try to give it your all, and don’t dwell on mistakes, it helps the whole team.