YEKINDAR: "Maybe I'm naive, but I truly believe we can win the Major"
YEKINDAR's arrival on FURIA may have come as a huge surprise, but it's worked out pretty well for the Brazilian organisation so far.
The team impressed in their debut event, PGL Astana, placing fourth after only narrowly being defeated by Spirit in the semi-finals. Now able to bootcamp before the Major begins, YEKINDAR tells us that he believes FURIA could go on to make playoffs or even win the event.
In our chat with the Latvian fragger, we also discussed his start with FURIA, whether or not he'd like to stay with the team, and if he would ever consider IGLing again in the future.
"The Major is magical and anything can happen there"
You're still very new to FURIA, how has it been so far?
I feel blessed to have an opportunity again, after the benching there was a lot of decisions to be made on how and where to continue everything. I think FURIA came up with a great opportunity for me, checking it all out and not forcing a contract instantly, it's great for both sides in that sense.
I feel amazing here, everyone in FURIA is super good as players and also willing to work, this was something that I noticed during Astana and I've only been impressed afterwards.
You guys finished fourth in Astana, was that better than you expected going into it?
I stopped thinking about how far I want to go in events a long time ago, I don't have any expectations and especially not in a new team, we only practiced for a week and then we had to go and play Astana, so we were just fixing things as we went along.
We just wanted to play as many good games as possible against good opposition so we could understand our level. During Astana we showed that with the right approach in the future, we can definitely give a fight to the top teams. We took a map against all of the high-ranked opposition we played, and had close maps outside of that, that gave us a lot of confidence.
At the same time, it elevated our expectations for Dallas, and that was a little bit of a problem. We knew we could've beaten Spirit in Astana, especially after map one, so going into Dallas there was still some inner frustration that we didn't do so.
Now, after Dallas, we've been bootcamping and fixing our foundations on all of the maps, we're trying to get to the same page.
YEKINDAR previously played for Liquid, making the playoffs of the BLAST.tv Paris Major.. Photo: Stephanie LindgrenYou mentioned Dallas and the raised expectations there, on face value the result there doesn't look good but when you see the teams that you lost to, they're all teams that made it to the playoffs. So, how are you looking back on it? Is it still a positive result?
In our eyes we're looking at Dallas like it was single-elimination. We traveled for more than 20 hours and then played against The MongolZ on the same day.
Honestly we just weren't there during that game, we brushed it off and understood it's not the CS we're capable of playing, and then we lost against GamerLegion, which was a winnable game, but props to them because they played really well and were really prepared.
With the limited practice we've had, the travel we were having, we just reached our limit in terms of what we have. Dallas we didn't take that seriously, which is a bit sad because we could've gotten some invites if we beat GamerLegion, but at the same time, I'm easier on myself for that tournament. I know how it is for a new team, and now we're having a long bootcamp to see how strong we can get for the Major.
FalleN has said that he would like to keep you around after the Major, how are you feeling about it?
It all depends on the Major. I can't answer this yet because anything can happen there, maybe it will sway me to the good side of wanting to be here, or maybe it will sway me or FURIA to the other side where we want to go in different directions.
It's not even one hundred percent down to whether they want me or if I'm deciding myself, it's about both parties being open for that option after the Major.
You enter the Major in Stage 2, is that where that kind of decision comes down to performance-based thinking or results-based thinking?
There is a difference between gimmicking your way into winning a couple of games and going far, so it's more about the feeling between the players and how natural it is, if there's a flow between us and the team looks good.
If we can see the progress, if we can see the mistakes that don't happen anymore and that the talks we have had have worked, if we can see all of that we can still finish in last place. Obviously we don't want that, and typically results come naturally from the progress.
I think they're intertwined, the performances and the results, I mean.
You've looked revitalised as a player so far on FURIA and you've spoken already about the individual difficulties you had during your time with Liquid, but do you feel at all like Liquid was a bit of a poisoned chalice for you because of the lineups and the tactics that made you play?
I don't think I was always necessarily the only aggressive player and on an island, but I think in terms of roles, there was definitely some limitations, jks and NAF were basically the same player and jks had to adapt.
We were missing one of the lurkers being aggressive, and the problem was that if Twistzz and myself were in the pack, then maybe the sides were too passive. That's why there was a lot of role switches and as soon as they come, you're already not playing comfortable and so eventually I started getting a little bit less vocal space, which I think is one of my strongest traits on both sides.
As soon as you start doing that, you understand you're now playing a completely different game, and from then on, it's probably going to end up bad.
YEKINDAR would later become the IGL of the team following nitr0's departure. Photo: Stephanie LindgrenYou also had the IGL stint for a while, is that something you'd consider doing again?
I would IGL, I learned a lot during that time. For me, the biggest problem wasn't necessarily the IGLing part, it was the leadership itself. I struggled with finding the right attitude to lead the team with, especially when we were losing a lot, it was hard to hold in my emotions and cope with some of the mistakes we were making.
I feel like if I was to have a secondary player who was vocal and supporting me as an IGL, I would do it in the future. Right now, I don't think so, but in the future, yes. I'm not fully dropping the idea.
You said you don't do expectations earlier, but has the team set one for the Major?
Not yet, there's still some time before we get started there and we still have some time to lay the groundwork with our map pool, with understanding what game we believe in and how we want to play.
After we're done with that and we know our strengths, that's when we can start talking about the minimum.
Is there a personal goal you'd like to achieve within Austin?
I always see that the Major has some surprising results, there's many examples of lower-ranked teams making it to playoffs or even the final. I truly believe that the Major is magical and anything can happen there.
We've had many magical stories, Gambit in Krakow, Outsiders in Rio, GamerLegion in Paris, I truly believe that, and maybe I'm naive, that you can win the Major even if you're a top 30 team. It all depends on the rhythm you get into at the tournament.
You can usually build up momentum and tempo, go into each game stronger and surprise the bigger teams. So, while I don't do the expectations, I think we are capable of reaching playoffs, we're capable of winning the Major. Everything will depend on us and how we approach the Major as players and as a team.
