Interview with MaxStrafe after the ALGS Championship 2021 group stage

Maksym «MaxStrafe» Stadniuk

It was incredibly difficult on the first day. In two extremely important moments, Nesh had game crashes... Some teams suffered because of the recent update that brought crashes and lags, unfortunately, we were one of the teams. :(

Like a snowball, one moment after another, the tilt was building up, and we didn't play our best game. Realizing that this was a critical issue, after the first day we quickly corrected it during the debriefing. Herman also fixed his crashes, and subsequently, we did not have any problems: we steadily scored points on the next days. I'd say that if it wasn't for the crashes, we probably would have qualified for the finals after the second day.

Maksym «MaxStrafe» Stadniuk

Frankly speaking, I think we were our own biggest enemies in the group stage. But Europe is now at the highest level of the competition: a lot of teams, from whom no one expected much, showed a great game and made it to the finals, leaving the best teams in the world behind in the standings.

Maksym «MaxStrafe» Stadniuk

Yes, there are a lot of teams like that. Kungarna, 789, K1CK, NCD, and most of all Myztro Gaming's performance was surprising. I'd consider this team one of the strongest in the world.

But that's the way the game is, circumstances can work against you: zones, fights, shifts, gatekeeping, loot and many other factors that you can't always influence. There is always a chance to lose a fight that you thought you were supposed to win 100% of the time. Team 789 started the tournament very vigorously! They were ahead of us by points until the third day, but in the end, they managed to score only 17 points on the last day.

Maksym «MaxStrafe» Stadniuk

The format is great, I like it, but this particular tournament should have been held without a group stage for teams that were in the top 10 in terms of overall ALGS points.

Now we see mixed squads in the finals, and teams that have racked up a lot of ALGS points over three seasons and always played consistently, are now eliminated in the group stage.

I think that this is an inadequate decision of the organizers, and I understand the tilt of the guys who did not qualify - we ourselves were one step away from elimination.

Maksym «MaxStrafe» Stadniuk

I've always been against the advantage in the final stage of the tournament. I think that such incentives should remain in the qualification stage, or they should be removed altogether because this is the Battle Royale. :D

Maksym «MaxStrafe» Stadniuk

It really isn't... Stable performance is our strength in all tournaments. We depend on match-ups, unfortunately, and we're gradually building up our knowledge of the game from other positions so that eventually we'll be ready for anything at all.

As for the past group stage, as I said earlier, if it wasn't for the crashes, we would have been in the top 4 or top 5 in our group after the first game day, as well as in the top 9 or top 11 in the overall standings.

Maksym «MaxStrafe» Stadniuk

We need to decide which meta we're going to play with "staging," Valkyrie or Bloodhound. That's what we'll spend our time on. And also on knocking out teams that are thinking of dropping on our location - we won't abandon our spots and we are ready to fight for it in the finals.

Maksym «MaxStrafe» Stadniuk

Thank you so much to everyone, I hug each and every one of you! You guys are setting us up for the right wave and energizing us to win. <3