Part of the ENCE team that made the Major semi-finals this time last year at PGL Antwerp, Maden has been one of the consistent figures if ENCE’s gradual rise back to the top of CS since then.

With Snappi feeling confident about the team’s chances here in Paris, thy reinforced his claims about ENCE’s chance to win the Major with a strong 3-0 performance in the Challengers Stage.

After defeating their hardest opponent yet in FaZe, we spoke to Maden about the series, his crazy 1v4 on Nuke, and his excitement about potentially going to Disneyland on their days off.

A surprise 3-0 team

You've qualified 3-0, how are you feeling?

It feels great. It was a tough match like always against FaZe, I'm really happy we closed out Nuke after a bit of throwing and it gave us a lot of confidence going into Anubis.

Are you surprised to beat FaZe?

I'm a little bit surprised, but it felt like a very 50/50 game. Now with Nertz we have a lot more firepower so we all feel very confident.

Snappi was saying before the Challengers Stage that he feels like you can win the Major, are you feeling that way right now?

I can never say I feel like I'm going to win the Major, but I hope it will happen. As I said we have a lot of individual skill and if we keep having good days, then sure, why not?

Stephanie Lindgren

Snappi also said in another interview that he feels your results on Anubis didn't show how good you can be on that map, are you happy now with a couple wins that people can see that more clearly?

Of course. I think after beating OG 16-3 and FaZe 16-8 on the map that we are very prepared on the map and we're showing it right now. I feel like all the losses before were very close 16-14, or overtime, and in a lot of those, we had a lead and control over the game but we threw and made mistakes. Afterwards we worked a lot on the map and we talked about it and what we could fix coming into the Major. It's working out really well.

You had a 1v4 clutch on Nuke, can you take us through it?

I was 1v4 and ropz had smoked Ramp, we went through it and two of us died. I heard someone moving on Ramp and I turned to the smoke spraying and praying as there was nothing else I could do, and then all of a sudden they took two 1v1 duels against me and I won both, which was pretty nice. I had a molotov to molly Double Doors after getting it to a 1v2, then picked up the AWP and played it really calmly. I felt like I could never win it because they closed out the angles, but I was calm and it all worked out.

Stephanie Lindgren

You move onto the Legends stage now, what's the plan between now and then?

Tomorrow we'll probably chill, maybe see a bit of Paris, we might even go to Disneyland [laughs]. After that, we'll have two practice days and prepare as much. Rest will also be important.

Are you excited about the chance to go to Disneyland?

Haha, for sure! That was the main motivation to go 3-0 and get the off days.