BIG successfully qualified for the IEM Rio Major: tabseN interview

You made it a little close at the end there, a lot of close rounds with some overtimes in there. Especially on Mirage, there were a few rounds on the CT side where it looked like you were just lacking communication, I'm just wondering what was going on there?

It was not really communication, it was just, I think, misunderstanding. Overall we had a game plan without really talking, like we managed to do our game plan which was basically holding the sites, not focusing on middle, and in the beginning it was not like we were holding the plan.

I'm sure that's also been much harder with the fact that faveN keeps missing out on events, you've had to have stand-ins a couple of times. What has that been like for you, with needing to adapt and call around that as well?

Thankfully, s1n, Elias is a very good player for that, for his age and also for his experience. He managed to play all the things which I needed to call on the fly very good. We had a bootcamp where he arrived two days later than us, he was grinding a lot, he was just living CS, he was breathing CS, and it was one of the steps which we needed to make to be able to play this Counter-Strike, especially on the T side. As I said, he's doing a fantastic job as a stand-in, and he's far better than we all expected I would say.

During the tournament break, you recommitted to BIG. There were some rumors swirling about whether you would go to G2, you were kind of playing off that as well, but to re-sign with BIG alongside gob b through to 2027 — what was the commitment from you like in that sense, what was [behind] your desire to make that commitment through to 2027?

It was just an easy decision for me personally. I'm working with people who do the same like I do, they live, they work, they love basically, they live for it each day and they make my life the best I have. They deserve the most like I do, and that's why I want [them] to achieve the same thing what I achieved, they deserve the same. I just want to achieve the best what I can achieve with them, and we have a plan for the future as well. I have a plan for myself for the future, I'm looking forward to just being with my guys who I love to be around with, and obviously I want to help the German scene as well, there's not so much left.

Coming off the RMR here, you are going to head into the BLAST Showdown online, and then you'll head straight into the Major after that. What's the preparation plan like between now and the Major, and what are you hoping to do with that when you go the Major?

Now the preparation is just to relax a bit. We had intense days, bootcamp, and we are just happy that we made it, and now it's just time to relax. After, we have some online practices, we will play BLAST Showdown as you said, and we will just try to play it as good as we can without so much preparation since it's also online, we know the enemies, we have all preparation done already, some teams were in this tournament as well.