Qikert: “Spirit are one of the youngest teams, but it already feels like they’re pretty experienced”

Outsiders finished the best-of-one portion of the IEM Rio Major’s Legends Stage with a positive record, going 2-1 with an opening loss to Heroic followed by victories over Ninjas in Pyjamas and Spirit.

The Russian-Kazakhstani team is following a similar pattern than they did in their Challengers Stage journey, which started with a loss to MOUZ before three straight victories put them through to the next stage of play.

The Kazakhstani player took some time after his team’s match against Spirit to speak to HLTV about Outsiders‘ run at the Major so far, the importance of their latest victory, and what form his side are in after major structural changes to the team in the past half year.

How important was it to win this game against Spirit and go into the 2-1 pool instead of the 1-2 pool, where there’s teams like Vitality, NAVI, maybe FaZe?

In the sense that we need two wins, it’s not important. In the end, we need three wins. It doesn’t matter if we go from 0-2 or 2-0 or 1-1 or 2-1. In the end, it’s only important to get three wins and get to the playoffs and it doesn’t matter who we play against.

You’ve beaten some good teams here like Vitality, fnatic, NIP, and Spirit. What form are you in right now?

It’s hard to say because in the Challengers Stage we lost to MOUZ and had a shaky game against IHC. It was hard for us even though we knew everything about the teams, but then we won against Vitality and fnatic and we got some extra confidence. Now I think we’re doing great, although we lost to Heroic and it was pretty upsetting, but we came back today and won against Spirit.

It was a 30-round match on Dust2 against Spirit, very close. They almost pushed through on the T-side and in the end it looked like it could go either way. What was it that got you over the line in the end?

First of all, Spirit is a great team. They have a new roster and they’re one of the youngest teams in the world, but it already feels like they’re pretty experienced, so it’s not easy to play against them. It was important for us to win this CIS derby and it was amazing.

You mention Spirit playing with a new roster, w0nderful had a pretty good game and he’s been showing up for his team lately. What do you think of him?

I was playing against him on FACEIT and he dropped a 50-bomb, so I thought, ‘who is this guy?’ Then he went to Spirit and I thought, ‘oh, they improved their roster.’ This roster is pretty good, so let’s see how he will do in the future.

Talking about changes, you’ve had fame and n0rb3r7 on the team for a while now and had time to adapt to each other. How is progress going there?

We’ve had like six months together and we did huge work in terms of repositioning and taking new roles. FL1T, fame, n0rb3r7, me, everyone started to take new roles and we had to adapt. We’re not the players we used to be in our previous roles. Now we need to improve in our new positions and I think we’ve done good.

We’ve created great structure, great chemistry in the team. Everyone is friendly, hyped, focused. n0rb3r7 and fame are doing amazing, I’m very proud of them. I’m also really proud of FL1T, he’s doing a great job during the games, he’s helping a lot in the team.

Helping how?

Let it be secret information, like nafany says.

You’ve been in Brazil a few days now, do you guys practice at all here?

Since the tournament started we didn’t practice a lot. We played a lot of deathmatch, aimbotz, we watched a lot of games. We didn’t have many opportunities to practice, there weren’t a lot of teams or needed maps, so we played mostly deathmatch and aimbotz.

You’re one series away from the playoffs now. How confident are you in making it through?

Really confident, after this game. In terms of important games, this was one of those which gives us a buff in terms of confidence and chemistry. It’s really amazing and I’m pretty confident in our future.

You had the crowd out there cheering for you today, which I imagine was a nice experience for you. Does that give you any extra motivation to see what the arena will be like?

Yeah, it’s definitely extra motivation. At the start of the game I didn’t feel the crowd yet, it was a little bit silent because when I was watching FURIA play it was crazy, and when NAVI played Vitality it was also crazy. Today I had that feeling in the last round, when the crowd went wild. They exploded and it felt amazing, it was a great feeling.