In an exclusive interview with Skin.Club, peacemaker discussed the EWC format and possible upsets, explained why he currently rates 9z above paiN, and shared his view on the biggest problems holding South American Counter-Strike back. He also spoke about BIT’s impact on 9z, the lack of new talent and coaches in the region, the pressure created by the VRS system, and what the Buenos Aires Major could mean for South America.
What do you think about the EWC format? Do you like having best-of-one opening matches at a tier-one event?
I really like what I saw from the Open Qualifier, from EWC, bringing the old 1.6, back-in-the-days vibes with everybody in a big hangar playing together, everybody connected, obviously very far away from what we’re used to nowadays. But format-wise, we’ve seen tournaments like this in the past. GSL, right?
Groups with four teams going through, four teams being eliminated. And I do like the fact that it does bring the excitement of the underdog teams, the teams that are not as favorite as the big dogs, because this tournament is very stacked. We have all the top teams, so the smaller teams do have a chance of upsetting some of the top teams and then perhaps doing a good campaign in the tournament because of it.
We have in the opening match, for example, JiJieHao, who did great in the Open Qualifier. Now they play Spirit in the opening game. Who knows if they have a good day, if they do a good match? At least, I would say that the best-of-one obviously helps the underdogs. And not only if they win, but also to give them confidence moving forward in the tournament if they are able to do a great performance against a top team.
Even if they lose to Spirit, but it’s a 13-10 score, 13-9 or something, it makes the underdogs believe that they can accomplish more. Even though it sucks for the top teams, I think it does bring extra excitement for the tournament. I like it.
Which underdog has the best chance to upset a stronger team in the opening matches?
In these opening games, taking a brief look, I think that Falcons used to have a slow start in tournaments. I think that K27, the Russian team, depending on the map, can certainly upset Falcons, especially based on what Falcons performed in BLAST Bounty. I think it’s totally possible.
Group C, 100 Thieves against Vitality. It’s certainly possible that they could surprise. Vitality, with all these uncertain circumstances of having jL as a stand-in in the future, I don’t know what kind of Vitality comes to this tournament. I think they are certainly favorites, but again, best-of-one against 100 Thieves. 100 Thieves did great in the latest matches. They performed really well online as well against top dogs.
So 100 Thieves, possible upset against Vitality. I don’t think JiJieHao has a chance against Spirit. I think they’re capable of doing a great game. BIG against Aurora as well. BIG surprisingly is a heavy underdog in the odds. I think it’s more than double odds for BIG beating Aurora. So in terms of odds, I think BIG is certainly capable of beating Aurora. Aurora hasn’t proved themselves at all with this new roster on LAN.
BIG against Aurora is one of the games that I’m really looking forward to seeing, because I don’t think the odds make any sense. People are seeing BIG as a heavy underdog and it doesn’t make much sense for me. I think in all groups, we can fairly say that there could be upsets, there could be surprises.
9z and paiN are two South American teams facing each other in the opening round. Whose style and way of playing do you like more, and why?
It actually will be 9z. Nowadays, I think that the thing with paiN is that in the last few years, they did a great job in building the foundation of the team. But the last few months and the last year have been very underwhelming. They haven’t been capable of rebuilding the roster. The roster moves they made proved to be bad for them. They brought dgt, for example, who’s playing in 9z right now. dgt couldn’t perform in paiN Gaming and then in 9z, he’s one of the best players there. And it happened over and over again, where they are incapable of developing the players they bring to the team. And when they leave the team, they perform better elsewhere. So that is a problem. They have problems with their map pool as well. In terms of the match being a best-of-one, it does help paiN tremendously, since they don’t have that deep a map pool.
But in the other aspect as well, if 9z is smart enough to just take away the only map that paiN has been capable of having success on lately, which is Nuke, mostly Nuke. It’s the main pick from paiN Gaming. They only win on this map lately. So if they’re capable of taking Nuke out, if they are humble enough to take Nuke out, even though they like to play it, and just take paiN slightly away from their comfortable zone, I think 9z has not only an advantage in the veto, but also in the way they play right now. I think that 9z did a great job with rebuilding their roster, coming from zero to top seven in the world right now on HLTV, to being one of the top teams in the Valve ranking as well, in less than a year.
They accomplished more with this 9z roster than paiN Gaming did in the last two years or something, in terms of ranking. So gotta give credit to them. And I think 9z is the favorite here. But again, it comes down to the veto. And it’s also a local matchup. These players know each other. There’s history behind it. So anything could happen, but slightly favorite for 9z.
9z started the year with no VRS points, reached the Cologne Major playoffs, and are now number three in VRS. How much credit should BIT get for this rise, and how much comes from max?
I think there’s something with max and the coaches from 9z always, because every coach from 9z in the past as well, it does seem like every single individual that coached this team has been able to pull performances, has been able to develop the people there.
And it definitely has something to do with max and his abilities as an IGL, maybe with how open he is to listening to the coaches. I feel like there’s always good synergy between max and all his coaches, but BIT, for me at least, is one of the best Brazilian coaches right now, if not the best.
Because it’s really easy to say that sidde from FURIA is a great coach, but sidde has all the pieces, has KSCERATO, yuurih, YEKINDAR, FalleN as one of the best IGLs in the world, and FalleN by himself can lead the team without a coach. He can do anything. So sidde, in my opinion, has an easier job than BIT.
And when it comes to BIT, for example, he’s not only been able to develop these players, he’s been able to bring dgt, for example, with no confidence after struggling in paiN, bring him to 9z, and he’s one of the best performers in this team. luchov from BESTIA as well, a player that showed talent in BESTIA, but coming from BESTIA, playing in Brazil, in South America, and then having the numbers that luchov has with this team right now. One of the best riflers as well, he performed really well at the last tournaments. Everybody is keeping an eye on this guy.
At some point, you have to say that it’s no coincidence that this team goes from zero to top three in VRS, goes from zero to playing very well against some of the teams. meyern wasn’t even an AWPer; he was a rifler back in the days. Then he transitions to be an AWPer. Is he a superstar AWPer? I don’t think he is. But still, he pulls up good numbers.
So there’s no coincidence for me that every single piece of this team is capable of doing their role pretty well right now, and things are clicking together. And it definitely has BIT’s hands on it. I would give a lot of credit to him, actually.
Besides FURIA and 9z, which South American team has the best chance to make a big step this season?
In this season, I would say that I’m afraid to say this, because Legacy often disappointed me in the past, especially when they have these periods where they bootcamp a lot, or they practice a lot, like they did right now. They didn’t play in BLAST Bounty.
They didn’t play for a while now. They had a long bootcamp from what I know, and a lot of time to just sit, watch all these games, all these teams, how they’re playing. They had the pleasure not to play Cache yet.
So they had the pleasure to watch many Cache games, maybe implement these in their map pool. They could come to this tournament with a lot of surprises as well. And I see this tournament as probably the most important tournament besides the Major in the season.
The prize pool says it all. It has all the top teams. And I think that Legacy is the team that, if they’re able to kick off the season in this tournament doing great and make it to the playoffs at least, I think they’re going to be the next South American team that could surprise in this season.
But between them and 9z, I would still say that 9z is slightly ahead in the way they play Counter-Strike right now. I think 9z has more tools than arT in his very specific style of how he likes to approach the game with Legacy. So I still gotta see more from Legacy, but between 9z, FURIA, and if I had to say one more, then Legacy.
What is the biggest problem in South American Counter-Strike today?
There’s a lot of problems in Counter-Strike in South America today. And it doesn’t only have to do with opportunities.
Obviously, that is a big topic: having more qualifiers, more tournaments that they are able to play. Right now in South America, there are a lot of tournaments happening, local tournaments that gambling sponsors are investing money to run these events.
It is great for VRS. It is great for all of that. But one of the biggest issues is the contracts that some of the players sign. I think it’s very abusive in South America in the sense that the buyout clauses are extremely high, which makes it very hard for the teams to buy better players for their rosters, to make roster changes and all of that. So the market in general is a big issue in South America right now.
And also, one of the biggest issues on why South America doesn’t develop in terms of in-game for me is the lack of good local coaches who are capable of developing talent. If you look at our talent pool right now, we haven’t had a single talent coming from Brazil ever since insani came to MIBR three or four years ago. So there’s no new talent. We lack AWPers, we lack IGLs, we lack good coaches.
And people just want to be star riflers. And they don’t really understand the other roles in the game. And I think that has to do with the organizations doing a poor job of developing these players, bringing capable staff in order to enhance performance in the region.
And I think that this is the reason why now, with MIBR, paiN, Sharks, which is DENDELE right now, these teams playing in the region, it’s going to be even harder for teams like Imperial, Fluxo, all the smaller teams to find spots in tournaments. Because these teams are so far ahead, like MIBR, paiN, DENDELE, they’re so far ahead of the level in Brazil that they’re just going to get every single spot. There’s no challenge for them.
They’re just going to win all the spots remaining in South America. And it is great to some extent that these smaller teams will have the chance to play against these teams. But I still doubt that a lot of the teams in Brazil, a lot of the teams in the region, will understand how to play against them, how to practice against these teams, how to learn from these teams, because they just simply don’t have the knowledge.
They don’t have a good coach. They don’t have a good IGL. We’re having riflers having to play AWP roles because there are no AWPers in the region.
And when there are, you can’t buy these players because the buyout is insane. So it’s multiple issues that are affecting the region right now.
South American teams used to travel to Europe for practice and bootcamps. Has that situation improved?
I think it hasn’t improved mainly because right now it costs a lot for these organizations to get VRS points.
Back in the days, some of these tournaments would still pay flights and some expenses to some extent for teams to go to Europe. And then what teams in Brazil, in the region, would do is they would try to qualify for a tournament. And then when they make sure that they qualify for any tournament in Europe, they would do a bootcamp as well because the tournament will pay for the flights.
Then they would take advantage of this, run a bootcamp, only pay the expenses of a bootcamp. And then the flights to go to Europe and go back to Brazil would be paid by the organization. That’s what everybody tries to do.
And right now, with the new VRS system, these organizations are spending a lot of money locally, having to fly teams to, for example, São Paulo or other regions in Brazil to play at these LANs that are happening locally. So they have to fly five players plus staff, plus coach somewhere to play on LAN in Brazil to get VRS points. They have to pay hotels, they have to pay flights, they have to pay their salaries, they have to pay food, they have to pay everything.
So on top of having to have a good roster, pay salaries, pay everything, they have these extra costs right now to be able to fight for VRS. It’s not a guarantee that they’re gonna get VRS. So they spend a lot of money, they go to LAN, and if they don’t do great, they wasted money, the prize pool doesn’t pay for it.
And then on top of that, they would have to spend even more money to go to Europe, probably lose a lot of games and not get much VRS in Europe either, unless they get some CCT invites, or they have to find a way to play a tournament in Europe to try to fight for VRS to maybe be worth it. But they’re still gonna lose a lot of money.
So right now, for the companies in Brazil, just as it is elsewhere in the world, it is really hard for the smaller organizations to see the value in investing money. Why would we spend even more money and probably break the whole operation of the organization if we don’t have a chance of making it to the Major, or it’s just so hard right now to get VRS?So I think it has become worse, especially after the new VRS system got into place.
There will be a Major in Buenos Aires in 2027. Can it really help fix some of the problems in South American Counter-Strike, or will the effect be temporary?
I think having big events like this in South America certainly helps to bring attention to the scene. I hope they do a great job there hosting the Major. There are no problems with security, all the stuff that always comes into everybody’s minds when it comes down to running events elsewhere besides Europe.
So I hope people are able to get visas. Everything is handled perfectly. But I think there’s way more things that need to be done by Valve, by the TOs, by the organizations. There are things that are more important than having a Major.
I think having the Major, having people look into South America, having the teams competing there, practicing there, certainly helps a little bit. But I don’t think that it’s gonna help fix the problems that we have in the region. I think it goes above that.
