We caught up with Falcons’ AWPer, Ilya “m0NESY” Osipov, at the BLAST Rivals Season 2 media day in Hong Kong to hear his thoughts on the team’s form this season and their outlook heading into the final stretch in Asia.
“To be honest, I always look very, very optimistic,” m0NESY tells HLTV despite recent struggles, including a 7th-8th place finish at IEM Beijing. “I always know that we can win tournaments.”
The Flash also says that Falcons are good at not losing faith in their ability to win, even if he does say it’s hard to be seen as contenders right now. “As a team, we believe we can do better, and we know we can do better,” he says, “and we’re confident in the improvement that we can make.”
You can listen to the interview here.
You’re coming straight off IEM Beijing, where you said it wasn’t the result you’ve been looking for. It seems like this whole season has been a lot of not the results you’ve been looking for. So what are you looking for in this end of the season?
For now, I’m looking forward for us in this tournament and the Major. This tournament, I expect us to make playoffs, and after that we will see, because it’s hard for now to say that we are title contenders, because we don’t show the best results, and inside the server we don’t show the best game. So, hard to say that we’re title contenders, but I expect us to make the playoffs here in this tournament and in the Major as well. This is what I expect for now.
And what would it take to save the season for you guys? Do you think you would need a title, you would need something extra maybe at the Major as well?
To save the season? To be honest, I always look very, very optimistic. I always know that we can win tournaments, and these last two tournaments to give our best, to give everything, because what else can you do as a player? You always want to give your best in any tournament, even if you struggle with, I don’t know, with the game or anything; you always believe in yourself, and you always feel confident to beat anyone.
And also, we have a very strong team to go through any, how to say it, to go through any obstacles like issues. But to save the season, I don’t want to say it, but it would be good also to win BLAST Hong Kong or maybe the Major, or even maybe two tournaments in a row. We will see. Don’t want to put a lot of pressure. I’m not that guy who likes high expectations.
I don’t think the noise from the community is really a distraction for us, for the players
What is it about what Falcons is going through now that has brought you to this point? Because last season ended with, of course, winning the Major, and it seemed like everything was moving forward, and then this season has deflated. So looking back at these first months, what do you think went wrong?
On the Major and on the last two tournaments before the Major, I think everything was clicking for us. Finn joined the team. We took two second places, and after we won the Major, I think it’s a great result. Yes, in theory, the best result, maybe for the fans, maybe for everyone, would be winning all three in a row. But sometimes you have to know you cannot always win. You have to lose in order to achieve something.
We took two second places in Astana and in Shanghai, and we won the Major. I think it was very, very good practice for us. It was the first three tournaments for Finn with us on the team. Everything was good on the server. I think everything was just clicking. I don’t know how to even explain it.
The classic honeymoon, right?
I’m not the guy who kind of believes in this honeymoon, you know?
Right now I’m not sure what we struggle with because it’s hard to… like, if you take the game, when we played against NAVI, and if you take Mirage, a lot of rounds that you just lose are not losable. And I think for NAVI as well, it’s hard to believe that you win these kinds of rounds. I think if you don’t take the NAVI game, but in general, I think we give away a lot of rounds that we are not supposed to lose, and these rounds can cost us more rounds, for the economy, for a lot of other things, for the snowball effect.
So it just constantly happens and we are trying to improve it, obviously, to not play scared in these situations, to not think about being afraid to make a mistake or anything. The most important thing is just to fix all the issues that we have right now, fix the discipline in these rounds, and it should solve some problems.
We deserve where we are [in the ranking], like top seven or something, top six, maybe top eight even
We’re not even at the end of the season yet, and there’s already all of this talk about like, ‘Oh, are Falcons going to make some changes at the end of the season? Changes are coming.’ Is this a distraction for you guys now as well, kind of getting into these last events?
I don’t think so. I don’t think the noise from the community is really a distraction for us, for the players. For me, no. For other players, I don’t think so. We’re just focusing on our game, because as a team we know we can show better results, and this is the most important thing.
When you are down and you’re losing a lot of tournaments, you’re dropping from the groups, not even making playoffs, I’m talking about other teams —they can start doubting themselves that they’re bad or shit. But us, the team, we don’t think that we are bad. As a team, we believe we can do better, and we know we can do better, and we’re confident in the improvement that we can make. And this is kind of an optimistic side, but we believe in this, and this is the most important thing for the team and also for the players.
If we look at the ranking now, MOUZ just became No. 1 after winning Beijing. It seems like everybody’s shifting a little bit, and it seems a little bit open. How do you see the general state of the ranking right now, and where do you see Falcons falling into that?
First of all, I see us where we are right now. We deserve where we are, like top seven or something, top six, maybe top eight even. Yes, I can say for myself at least, what I think: We deserve where we are at in the ranking right now because we don’t show the best results, so it’s true, a fact. I don’t know how to say it. For all the other teams, I didn’t look. MOUZ are top one right now, right?
Also, the ranking can work a bit weirdly or differently, you know? You cannot expect yourself to be always stable if you don’t win, or I don’t know. It’s… the ranking can be weird. So it’s hard to say, but I think right now also the state of the whole teams is a different topic, but everyone can win anyone at the moment in the top 10.
Everyone has ambition, and everyone has good form. Maybe not us, but to win [against] other teams, you know… Even we can win a lot of other teams. Maybe people don’t expect it. We can do it, and I think this is really, really interesting.
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And why do you think it is that we’ve got to this place where everybody’s competing with each other? We had, for a while, the Vitality era, they were the dominant team. Now it’s a little bit more open. Why do you think we got here? Is there something that you can relate to the meta of the game, or why do you think it is?
I think first of all, there are a lot of tournaments that have been played. This year, and last year also, but this year even more, and there is a lot of data on every team. You can check a lot of things that the teams do just on the website, like on the usual Skybox that people use. You can install a lot of demos, a lot of games that you can just get a lot of data from the teams. And obviously other teams can, let’s say, prepare against them better. They can take a lot of strats from them.
It’s also less time to prepare because, let’s say, now we have Beijing, and immediately after it’s Hong Kong. We don’t have a lot of time to prepare, so we’re kind of forced to play the same game with the same strats. We can add some strats, but you don’t have time to prepare at home like it was two years ago, when there was no tournament after tournament.
So first of all, it’s a lot of data on the teams. Second of all, people are not stupid. Teams are not stupid, and they improve. Let’s say Legacy; they improved a lot. BETBOOM, they improved a lot. They can win a lot of teams. A lot of other teams. So every team is improving now in CS2, and the meta has been changed. Could be a reason.
Yeah, and just to close it out, I just want to touch on what you just commented about there being a lot of back-to-back tournaments. How will you prepare for the Major?
Yeah, we’re going to start traveling from Hong Kong back home. We’re going to spend some days at home. We will practice at home, and after that we’ll have a bootcamp before the Singapore Major. And after Stage 3, we’ll start. That’s the road for us.
