







Ahead of the Faceit Major Legend Stage, I was able to talk with Woxic about his journey with HellRaisers, the players on his team and his goals for this event.





So previously, I believe it was bondik who said in an interview, that the original goal for you guys was to just make it to the legend stage, although during that stage you were able to beat teams like North Gambit and OpTic, has this raised your expectations coming in to the legend stage do you feel more confident playing against the big teams?





So firstly, we are playing all the time, kind of, North and OpTic online. We know how they play and their game-style and stuff because we are always watching and practicing with them. So against them I am confident and probably my teammates as well. Although in the overtimes it is unexpected as it is best of one and everything is possible and we are making mistakes, they are doing mistakes, they are punishing our mistakes and we are punishing theirs but in the end we won.





It's been a year since you joined HellRaisers, did you ever imagine you would be able to reach a major this fast when you joined?





Firstly, when I joined, after 1 week, we had to play EU minor qualifiers because we didn't have bondik in our roster we had Zero. We lost 3 games, against AGO, Space Soldiers and Valliance. I remember all games were super close. After we were eliminated we decided to change Zero and we took bondik to our roster and then Faceit asked us whether we wanted to go to CIS minor or EU Minor because we had 2 European, 2 CIS and 1 middle eastern, and of course we decided to play in CIS because it would be more easier than Europe. When we were in CIS I knew we were going to come here (Challenger Stage) but I never expected this to come to legend stage in just 1 year. We worked hard, we deserved it I think and I think we need to keep working hard and we can manage to reach last 8 if we play good.





Ange1 has a track record of improving and developing players, how has he helped you developed, from when you joined to now where you are probably one of the best AWPers in the world.









Another big part of HellRaisers is Johnta who has been part of HR over 2 years I believe, how much of an impact on the team does he have?





Johnta is helping in our strats and is in teamspeak with Ange1, he is watching demos and trying to create tactics. They are always talking about how our players are playing, if we use our players in a certain way, what we can do. They are talking before our pracs and explaining to us what to do. Most of the time he is just creating strats with Ange1 but outside of the game he is a good guy as well, we can do everything with him. For example the previous CIS minor, he's asking you “lets go to gym, lets go to city, lets drink together.” That's why he is good guy also, I love him, he is helping me also, he is giving me confidence as well.

You are a very visibly emotional team, do you think this a benefit or does this hinder you, I've noticed that Johnta is sometimes telling you guys to calm down?





I think this is a good thing, because as I know Johnta and Ange1 were emotional players before when they were like 18 and 19 and that's why they understand like how I am yelling with Issaa “lets go guys we can do it!” because it's going to be our first major legend stage and they came here like 7 or 10 times, I don't know exactly, but we are hungry for it, that's why I'm showing how hungry I am for this tournament and that's why I need to do my best because of everyone watching from Turkey right now, and with space soldiers eliminated, everyone is just watching and supporting me right now and I can do this and stuff. I am getting lots of messages everywhere, telling me I need to show my best and show how good turkey can play and stuff. If I manage to get to last 8, I will be first Turkish player to do this, not talking about Tarik and gob b because they are German and American, like american-turkish but I am 100 percent Turkish that's why its a bit different. I think it also gives you confidence when everyone is yelling, also the opponent can hear this, and you are also breaking their mentality, and we also want to win outside of CS, so when we are yelling each other, we are giving each other hype. The opponents, we can hear them, they are hitting table and stuff and we understand they will get more tilted and we can beat them easily. That's why I'm trying to do this a lot. I was doing this a lot as well in local Turkish LAN tournaments, I was yelling stuff like “can you join the server!” [laughs] and then they are starting to argue with each other and if they are fighting each other it's perfect because you can win more easily. But against more professional teams it usually doesn’t work.





One more thing I wanted to touch on, kind of related to that video HR posted about the “mean comments” players receive, was DeadFox, who seems to get a bit of flak, because of his stats. However, because he does a more supportive role he allows you and ISSAA to succeed, so how important would you say he is a piece of the team and how does he help to make the team work?





Everyone, is talking about first DeadFox, because he is not fragging like us because he is a supportive player. But he showed everyone how he can play good on this major and how he clutched a lot of good rounds and he showed everyone why he is in this team. He doesn't have to talk about this anymore because when we are playing with him he is doing his job and same for other guys. For ISSAA and me it is a bit different because of our roles but normally in CS community everyone is just checking frags. For example Ange1 is playing all the time with minus 5, minus 10 frags but what people do not see is how he controlling the game and how he is calling. Also if I am asking, for example, DeadFox if he can flash for me, if he flash I can kill this guy, but if there is no flash I don't get the kill but people are not thinking about this. This is teamwork.





Lastly, what would you consider a success at this event?





Here top 3, top 5. I'm sure we will pass this stage, otherwise we need to win at least some games because I don’t want to play in the minor again.





Thank you very much woxic, good luck.





Thank you.