kaffs: “I think I’m getting a little too old for The International qualifiers—they’re incredibly nerve-wracking.”

We communicate in-game in English and Spanish—I’d say Spanish is used slightly more, maybe 60 to 40. Sometimes it gets in the way, but it’s the approach we’ve found that makes everything work. It’s not perfect, but it works.

There are people at LGD who speak English, but not everyone does, so some of our communication goes through an interpreter. Sometimes it feels a bit strange because a lot of information gets lost in translation: we have to send the same message several times and clarify the context. But so far, everything’s fine—it’s a learning process.

I think I’m getting a little too old for The International qualifiers—they’re incredibly nerve-wracking. It feels like no matter how well you’ve played all year, if you don’t qualify for TI, you’re a failure. That’s how it feels, and it causes a lot of stress. But this year, we didn’t really deserve a direct invite—we have no complaints about the invitations.

The dates for the EWC 2026 qualifiers fell between two of our tournaments, and we simply didn’t have time to return to South America to play the qualifiers—so we played the European qualifiers instead. We’d agreed on this with ESL in advance, and they accommodated us and gave us permission. Everything went smoothly: we beat Natus Vincere and qualified for the EWC.

But for the TI qualifiers, we did have time to return to South America—and that’s a good thing, because TI wouldn’t have allowed us to play in Europe even if we’d wanted to. This year, the rules were very strict: if you have three players from one region, you simply can’t play in another.

The qualifiers for DreamLeague Season 28 and ESL One Birmingham 2026, which we lost to PlayTime, were the first two of the year. Back then, the players weren’t affiliated with any organization yet, and we were really exhausted after last season—we only had an 11-day break, and we were working our butts off.

We played every tournament because we’d performed well at TI and got invites to just about everything, and we spent more than two months away from home in Europe, traveling from tournament to tournament. So by the end of the year, a break was absolutely necessary—there was nothing we could do about it. And even back in the planning stages, we knew that the first qualifiers—especially the very first ones—would be tough: that PlayTime team was truly hungry. They had Scofield and Parker, who used to play for us; in 2025, they didn’t make it to either TI or the EWC, and they were desperate to prove themselves. They had fire in their eyes. I actually predicted in advance that we’d lose the first qualifier—that’s exactly what I told my boss: “We’re going to lose this qualifier; I’m sure of it. Let’s just factor that into the plan right away.”