After another year that's exceeding expectations, it goes without saying that Snappi is one of the best IGLs in the world.
A loss to BIG in the BLAST Premier Fall Showdown means we won't be seeing Snappi in Copenhagen's Royal Arena at BLAST Premier Fall Final, but ENCE's former over the year means that they have qualified for BLAST Premier World Final in Abu Dhabi.
Following the announcement of their qualification, we spoke to Snappi about having the event to end the year, the release of CS2, and what it would have meant to qualify for Fall Final.
You recently qualified for World Final, how are you feeling about that?
It feels super good. We were close last year, but because of how the BLAST Leaderboard works, OG made it instead. This year we did even better, so I'm super happy it was enough to secure the spot this time as a non-BLAST partner.
It obviously means a lot since it's the last event of the season, which also affects the rankings over the player break where invites go. On top of that this time, it really looks like the seven best teams of the season are there, so it’s going to be a great event in terms of the competition.
Do you think that having that extra LAN is even more important now that CS2 has been released?
It’s important, but not because of CS2. It’s just important to end the season well in order to potentially go into the player break satisfied if we do well, but also to score points so we get into the tournaments starting in the Spring of 2024.
Back at Cologne, sAw spoke about how it felt like your season was cut short, even if you don’t fully echo that sentiment. How important is it to the team and carrying momentum that you’ll be at that last event of the year?
It just feels nice to have something to “lockdown” the season. We can plan for when we need to peak. Hopefully we will be able to do good at the event so we can feel good about ourselves going into the holidays and secure a straight invite into Katowice 2024
There were a few weeks between your group games and playoff games at Pro League, as a player, how do you approach that sort of gap? Do you lose some momentum in the tournament and need to warm up again?
You take some days off and then you go hard going into the playoffs. Sadly for us there were some issues regarding visas, so our preparation got really screwed. People had to travel to different capitals of their home countries in order to search for a VISA for the CS2 Asia Championship in China. Unfortunately some things went wrong in terms of papers and other small details, so we ended up losing most of our practice days due to this. On top for that, one player didn’t even get the VISA application done yet and will need to redo it again. It was some unfortunate circumstances, most of it out of the teams control.
With CS2 now out, what does the game plan look like to maintain the team’s current level? Aleksib said that NAVI will be doing a lot of individual practice before team practice. Is it the same case for you guys?
Play a lot and then learn what you can abuse and what is now bad. It’s an ongoing process that will keep developing with the updates to the game and what you also see other teams abuse.
What is your CS2 bold prediction?
We are going to see a lot of weird results, but I don’t even know if that is bold.
How much would it have meant to the team to also add Fall Final to that end of year tournament calendar?
It would have meant a lot to me since it’s in Copenhagen. Had we been a Danish team, then the priorities would have been different for sure. But we had to protect ourselves and make sure nobody burns out before we reach Christmas, so we didn’t prioritise this event. It’s really tough for non-BLAST teams to prioritise any events within that circuit, because the chances of making it are not worth the energy spent, that could be spent elsewhere.
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