MARKELOFF -> 0:41 -> 1:22

Montreal, Canada is just awesome for me, I'm here for the first time and I like it so much.

Speaking about the event, ESWC, it was really great.

Everything was awesome, but the network issues that was the only thing which was a problem for this event and the organizers.

The other things like the schedule, PCs, configurations, and everything else, and support stuff from the ESWC who brings you water, Red Bulls and such, everything was good.

BONDIK 1:23 -> 1:43

Actually I like Canada, I read a lot about it; about the economic system, and how the population of Ukranians in Canada is so huge, it's like two million people.

I love Canada! I'm really impressed.

HIKO 1:44 -> 2:29

I mean you look at, in the past Counter-Strike's like in 1.6, we had a good scene going, and once we had the Chinese and all the other Asian countries in, it really propelled the game to the next level, and really had a severe increase in spectators.

I mean, look at League of Legends, look at Dota, both games have these very impactful Asian countries that are actually playing at the top level and the viewership just increases tremendously which means all the tournaments get bigger.

The increase of popularity of Counter-Strike in these other countries definitely are helping grow the game, and it's so exciting to see a team like QeeYou as you said, beating a French team, which, you know, in the past year or two in CS:GO, that would have been unheard of.

HECTOR 2:30 -> 2:31

What did you think about the food here?

BONDIK 2:31 -> 2:42

Oh, food here is pretty good, it's like, you know, mix of NA food and French food, so it's really good, it's awesome.

HIKO 3:07 -> 4:51

I think B1ad3 is one of the... so there's a lot of different styles of in-game leading in the world, B1ad3 is one of the more... he knows in his head how he wants the run to play out; he knows pretty much almost to a tee, where the other team is going to be playing at almost all times in the rounds.

So any time you have a leader that can really predict that kind of stuff, and hopefully you expect him to be able to manipulate his teammates to actually compliment that, and I think he's very very good at doing that.

Even just listening to the way he talks when he's speaking English to me about you know, how he wants me to play and where he wants me to go, he seems very very knowledgeable of the game, and a strong in-game leader like that is something that the American scene could use so badly.

There's very very few in-game leaders left in the US, and someone like B1ad3 would definitely be able to make the top one American team.

The main thing of all the maps was to learn all the spots.

All the guys speak, like, while their playing, it's 100% Russian.

So, trying to teach them how I call all the spot names was the biggest problem, because what happened during the games was, when we first played the very first day, we were running around... I think we were playing against Team Liquid, and we were playing Mirage, and I was making these calls, and they had no idea what I was saying.

And they were trying to talk to me, and they were calling it in Russian, and obviously I had no idea what they were saying.

So, the biggest obstacle for us the entire weekend was just the spot names, and mid rounds were... no matter what, mid rounds were going to be a problem, and you just have to accept that.

BONDIK 5:09 -> 6:49

Actually we wanted to go through our group, which we did it on the first day.

About Keyd Stars, we knew they were pretty good, they have had pretty good results on the internet, and we were prepared to beat them, but we didn't expect Cobblestone against them.

We thought they would want to play something like Mirage I think, or something else, but not Cbble.

The Australian guys were pretty good, everyone knows it, so it's not the first time they step up to top eight I think, so I think that team has pretty talented players.

The last one was a Chinese team, I was really impressed by them, I mean, they won against LDLC, and I think that LDLC is a pretty good European team, and they beat them like... 16-13 I think.

I hope that Chinese CS:GO will have more progress, so we'll see more Chinese teams in such tournaments in the future.

JOHNTA 6:49 -> 7:09

When I realized that we were going to play NiP, I wasn't thinking that the tournament was going to be over because they were a good team.


I woke up early and watched a lot of the events.

ANDERS 7:28 -> 7:36

...No grenades they're zoning him out with so he's got the angle for it, going to walk in and take down Markeloff, no defuse this time. Friberg is still hiding in the corner, he goes for the spray but he goes down...

MARKELOFF 7:38 -> 8:05

It was really great to beat NiP, and we played really great, not including of course the first map 16-1 on Inferno, we made really really bad decisions.

But on the next map Mirage, Hiko especially played really great on CT side.

HIKO 8:06 -> 9:07

Markeloff as I said before, he's a very consistent support player which is something that, again, you don't expect that from a player that's from this era.

That actually makes him sound really old, but I guess he actually is.

But no, he's very experienced, he's been in every situation I can imagine that's possible, he knows exactly what to do at all times in the round, he'll never over-commit or over-peek when he shouldn't, and that's the one thing that just so... you can't put a value on that, it's literally just experience.

So really, as I said before, I really did like playing with him, and my experience playing with him at the small sites really changed the way I think about playing small sites now.

Going back home to the US, I expect that same level of support from whoever I play small site with now that I've played with Markeloff.

HECTOR 9:07 -> 9:10

He called you the best support player he's ever played with in his entire career.

MARKELOFF 9:12 -> 9:41

Wow, that's... that's awesome, I don't know what to say.

I'm really glad that I impressed him so much, I really tried my best to do so, I tried explaining to him what we need to do, how I go into play, some micro moments, and almost everything worked out well for us.

HECTOR 9:41 -> 9:46

Talk about your interactions with Hiko throughout this entire trip.

BONDIK 9:46 -> 10:06

Actually he's a good guy, I like him.

He's calm, he's not toxic like some people say, that's bullshit, you know?

So, he's a good guy, and our team liked him.

JOHNTA 10:06 -> 10:30

All the time when a team which has a low rank beats a top team, people usually cheer more since they're the underdog.

Maybe this is why everyone was like, helping us a bit, made us confident.

BONDIK 10:31 -> 10:49

We just focused on our map, it was Mirage I think.

We won, then we played Overpass, and I'm really happy that that we helped plan it.

HIKO 10:50 -> 11:04

We actually, I think, at eleven or twelve at night we just sat in front of a laptop, and literally just went over all of the maps we thought we were going to play, and Johnta just had a cheat sheet with all the spot names. The Russian one, and the American one right next to it.

HECTOR 11:04 -> 11:07

Did you do any preparation before day one of games?

HIKO 11:09 -> 11:20

Not really, I literally got off the airplane and came to the hotel and that was my first time meeting three or four of the people from the team.

MARKELOFF 11:22 -> 12:04

I would like to thank our sponsors, Vulcan, TorGuard, Zowie and Raven, for supporting us.

I also want to thank our Flipside staff, you guys are amazing, I love you, thank you very much for supporting us.

And of course all our fans, cheering for us, supporting us no matter what, in our losing or winning moments.

You're really helping us get back up, and gives us motivation to move forward.

Thank you very much.