Russia kicked off the tournament in Spain by splitting points with Virtus.pro, then survived a scare against GameAgents before picking up a win against Belgium, earning a spot in the playoffs of the WESG EU & CIS Regional Finals.

seized really wants to continue his Major-attending streak

In a talk with Denis "⁠seized⁠" Kostin after their final game, that they closely lost to Envy, the Russian touched on the importance of this event considering his current situation, as well as other topics.

Starting with you putting together this team and applying for WESG, what were the first thoughts, how did you get these five men together?

It was pretty easy because we have almost the same lineup for 3-4 years for national tournaments. Before, we played TWC with hooch, me, flamie, Dosia and WorldEdit. We played all national-team tournaments with this lineup. This year I decided to bring electronic instead of hooch, because hooch has a team and I think we have more firepower with this team. It was no question, everyone accepted it as the best possible lineup in Russia. We know each other, we are real friends, so it was really easy.

electronic is an up and coming player, how has it been playing with him now in this team? Especially since there is that funny part, with him replacing you in Na`Vi and you doing the opposite and going to FlipSid3?

I like this guy, he is really good, he is playing really, really well, he can give some ideas in the rounds. He is a really important player in the team and I'm happy that we are playing with him in team Russia.

Now that you are not in Na`Vi anymore, being in FlipSid3 and having to qualify for all the events, which is not easy these days, is this event more important than it would be normally?

For me it is a really important tournament because I really wanted to go to the finals in China. We did it and I'm really proud and happy of that because I'm not certain about my future after the Major, there is a chance I will not stay with FlipSid3, maybe I will try to make some new team or go to some other team. Nobody knows, I just want to play with them at this Major Qualifier, do my best to help them to get to this Major and not break our streak, mine and markeloff's. Me, him and Zeus are the only CIS players that made every Major, so for me, it's really important [to qualify for the Major].

About this tournament, it's the biggest prize pool wise, and I've never been in China, that's why I want to have good results here. I like these guys with which I'm playing and we can really go far if we will be on point. The only bad thing is that we can't practice together because of our teams. I'm pretty sure that if we would practice together more than zero hours, we would be much better. We are just trying to play good with our communication and skill here, but I'm pretty sure that before China, we will have some time to practice.

The first game you played was against Virtus.pro, they won both pistols but you ended up tieing 15-15, talk to me about that match for the start.

That match started pretty good for us, because we lost the pistol and then got six rounds in a row. I don't know how to say it, but it's not a problem for us to play against Virtus.pro because they are playing like a team, they are not superstars who can go and kill everyone, so it's not hard to play against them. You have some advantage when you are a mix and playing against a team with structure, you can do stuff that they can't predict from you.

Later, we started bad on CT, we lost the pistol, the first buy round, and we decided to change positions. I said to flamie that he should go A, and I will play B with WorldEdit, he will AWP. We started to win all rounds after, and to be honest, we threw the game because at 14-14 they got pistols with nades and we messed up. We were in bad positions, if we would've just played a default setup we would kill them and I'm pretty sure that we would win that match. Anyway, a draw against Virtus.pro is good.

In the end you finished second in the group, you lost to EnVyUs in the last match, what are your thoughts on the whole group stage, how happy are you as a team with the result?

We are happy because we reached our main goal here, we got a spot in China. Especially in our group, I think that our group is the strongest one, if you compare it to others, it was really, really hard to go out of this group. Belgium is really good, Virtus.pro and EnVy, I don't need to say any more about them.

I think that we just lost the last game because in the minds of some players we already got the spot to China and you can see from our game that not every round was played with 100% focus. Some guys would peek when we already had advantage... I'm pretty sure that if we play like the first games, with 100% focus, and we win all the situations with an advantage, we would win [against EnVyUs]. I didn't see anything special from them.

You reached your first goal here, what do you think you can do now?

For me, it would be a good result if we get a top four here, it would be really good because, for a mix, who didn't play together at all, I think top four will be enough here. Now we are just playing for the prize money. We will do our best tomorrow, and even if we don't win other games it will be fine, we will prepare well for China I guess.