Less than a month after forming a new roster, Into the Breach qualified for the Blast.tv Paris Major Europe A RMR in a history-making Cinderella run. One of the key components to their success is Polish star, Karol “rallen” Rodowicz, who bewildered many people when he decided to leave the Polish scene and join a British team. From Kinguin in 2016 to Anonymo in 2022, rallen had stayed loyal to his local scene for a long time, but felt that it was time for a change.
In an interview with UKCSGO’s Dafydd Gwynn the Polish lurker went in to detail about his decision to join an international team, the close loss to NAVI and the team’s mindset ahead of the Virtus.Pro game.
Against NAVI it was a really tough game where you brought it close, but couldn’t make it over that hurdle. What was your mindset going into the second game?
It was really nice to play Natus Vincere first game, we know that we have to put in everything that we have and just don’t feel that much respect for them [in-game] even though we know that they are some of the best players in the world. So our mentality was to have fun and do our best and see what will happen. We knew we had good practice and good preparation. Before the RMR we had two off weeks where we didn’t play any officials so we could practice all the time and focus on our game. It was nice. Before the second game we knew we had a good fight with one of the best teams so our mindset was definitely on top because we knew if we fight with [NAVI] we can fight with everyone here. It was nice to start well, even if we lose, because we knew that both teams were struggling to finish that game.
In that first game you didn’t have a single match point, you were constantly fighting back into the game, as an experienced player what were you telling your teammates to keep them in it?
We had more of a speech before the game. So we just needed the second pistol round to get back in the game, but we lost that round and we said “it’s time, it’s now or never.” It was going round by round and it feels to play against better teams than the lower tier because it’s more understandable for players.
Before this RMR you had not been together very long as a team, it had been less than a month and you qualified. How did that happen?
It clicked instantly. For the first qualifier it was really nice because we didn’t have any practise because I joined them before the first qualifier because I had some tests and trials with other teams, so we didn’t have that much practise. We played 90 maps in like four weeks so it was really hard days because we didn’t have much time to prepare our stuff, but it was nice to play officials so we can [see] our mistakes so we know what to work on. Then we had that time in bootcamp to fix our mistakes.
I’m sure a lot of people are wondering, you are very well known in the Polish scene, you have an international reputation, why join a bunch of Brits on Into the Breach?
It took me a lot of time to change my mentality to that maybe I should go international because back in the day I had a lot of good offers from top teams and I was believing in my Polish boys. It’s something special to achieve something with your national because your whole country, esports community from Poland, is supporting you. It’s so huge. I wanted to make a second VP, it was a step by step process, but maybe back in the day I should have made another decision and moved to an international team. There was a lot of opportunities and it is what it is, but now I think I have a lot of extra time to prove [myself] in the next months… I’m back!
You mentioned the Polish scene supporting you, have you felt that support from the UK scene?
I don’t know the UK scene to be honest, also every scene is very specific. They use specific social media, in Poland we use other things, in CIS they are using VK and stuff like that. So I am kind of off the UK scene because I just focus on my boys and we care more about international things than British things.
Heading in to tomorrow what is the preparation going to be?
I can’t say details of our preparation, but our preparation before these two games were really good. I know we are facing VP and I think it’s a good enemy for us. We like to play against them and we know their style. I hope we can do our best, just have a lot of fun and take some headshots with us.
Is there anything else you want to say?
Just support us and let’s see what is going on.
