Ospreay on Team Yandex: “To be honest, we didn’t really put much effort into keeping the team motivated.”

Overall, everything is going well. The organization gave us a very warm welcome. Right now, we’re trying to figure out the best way to structure communication within the team so that everyone is satisfied, so that everything runs smoothly, so that everyone knows what needs to be done, and so on. That’s because the guys hadn’t really been part of a major organization before. Now they’re getting used to certain media aspects, to streaming-related activities, and things like that. We’re gradually getting used to it.

The main challenge in adapting isn’t on the gameplay side—because everyone understands who we are, what we’re trying to do, and how we want to play—but rather from a media perspective.

Let’s put it this way: there were some communication issues regarding the Esports World Cup 2026 and the MSC 2026, but we accepted it as a fact because… What else could we do? Of course, we were disappointed, but at the same time, we had another tournament in Moscow, so we played in that and tried not to think about anything else. That’s why we accepted this fact more or less calmly. I know that a lot of teams and fans from other regions were very happy that Verso Time didn’t go, but it is what it is. We just accepted it and are moving forward.

Actually, we didn’t really put much effort into keeping our motivation up. We understood that we were doing what we could do right now. Now, after a long period of work, we’re at a point where we’re facing a reality check—that is, we’ve accepted reality and the fact that we need to work every day regardless of the situation.

We’re very happy that there will be a LAN event this year. We’ve been waiting for it for a very long time—it hasn’t happened for two years, if I’m not mistaken, maybe a year and a half or two years. We’re really glad it’s coming back, and we’re glad there will be three slots for international events. We’re glad that with the wild card, there are three slots to qualify for the main event, and we already have one slot secured for the group stage—so we can already start planning for that.

What’s a bit disappointing is that, as it seems to me, the level of teams in this MCC will be lower than last year, unfortunately. Because some of the teams we expected didn’t make it to the tournament, and others are starting to make some roster shake-ups. It seems like the level of the players and rosters will be just a little lower than last season. But again, it’s a matter of the talent pool—this season it might be weaker, next season it might be stronger, so we can’t say for sure yet.