ENCE breezed through the compeition during the Challengers Stage of the BLAST.tv Paris Major, going 3-0 and beating FaZe in a best-of-three. One day before the action of the Legends stage, Guy “NertZ” Iluz spoke to UKCSGO about his first Major experience, how Endpoint impacted his career, and where Marco “Snappi” Pfeiffer ranks as an IGL.
How are you finding your first Major experience?
It feels amazing, I felt after we qualified for the RMR, I’m like in heaven, incredible feeling, I really hope that we’re going to actually go to play-offs.
When you were playing, you know, for Endpoint, did you ever expect yourself to be playing on a team like ENCE at a Major?
Absolutely yes, I think Endpoint is one of the best tier two teams, and I believe that you have a platform where you can really show what you can do, and you are talking in English, and I think that this is the best way to go for a tier one team.
Can you talk about the jump between Endpoint and ENCE?
It depends, you have a lot of jumps, for me it’s skill-wise, the ideas, the reactions… it’s kind of a tricky question, but I feel overall it’s about more of a reactions base than some other stuff, if we’re talking in-game stuff.
You kind of mentioned there that Endpoint is one of the best places to get your career to the next step, why is that?
I think I should give credit for Surreal and MiGHTYMAX, these guys, they’re playing there for years. They’re give info to the new players, the good positions, a lot of tier two teams that want to get to tier one they’re trying to bait, to get stats, and these guys are actually playing for the team. [They] really want to win, really wants to help, really friendly guys, I really like the atmosphere there, and credit for them, in my opinion.
Moving on to where you are now with ENCE, there’s been a lot of conversation around, you know, the best IGLs in the game right now. Where would you say Snappi should be ranked in that list?
I think right now Snappi is top three in the world in my opinion.
And what would you say puts him above the other IGLs?
I think the way I would say is to build, to set out – for example, it’s amazing, he’s thinking on so many details, and this is why we have such a good structure in ENCE, this is why – him and Eetu [sAw], my coach, are doing a great job.
So on the team you kind of have a lot of big voices, right, you, SunPayUs, Snappi, you’re all very chatty, how do you manage that when you have a team?
It’s actually really hard when you have a lot of voices in the team, I would say in Endpoint I was one of the best voices in the team, and I feel that in ENCE, of course you have Snappi, you have SunPayUs and then you have maden as well. Right now I’m trying to know how can I put in the game to actually talk.
My final question is – what were your expectations for yourself coming into this Major?
Obviously I want to win the Major, but overall I want to show that we can play our game without any thinking, “what if we lose?” No tilt, I want to play my game, our game, and this is what’s important for me at least.
