NEKIZ: "I'm not happy, but I'm ok"

There were few teams in finer form coming into the Challengers stage of the Majors than paiN. The Brazilian side had taken big scalps in an impressive run since Rodrigo "biguzera" Bittencourt took over the IGL role, including a playoff run at ESL Pro League where they beat Liquid.

After starting the tournament with an easy win over fellow Brazilian side Fluxo, the team fell in a close match against FaZe to find themselves in the 1-1 bracket at the end of day one. A dominant performance over Complexity put them on the brink of qualification, but the team crumbled against Apeks losing 2-1 and finding themselves with one last chance.

paiN's last hope of qualifying would be to beat out Monte, a team that was also in fine form coming into the Major. After dismantling the European squad on Anubis, Monte's map pick, the Brazilians got rolled on their own pick of Nuke 16-1. The final map would be a close affair, but ultimately paiN fell 16-10 to find themselves heading home early. NEKIZ spoke to Dust2.us' Ryan Friend after the match.

After falling at the final hurdle, paiN were visibly upset. However, NEKIZ was trying to remain positive when reflecting on the team's performance at the Major.

It's hard to say that we are happy, we were super confident to make it to the next stage. I think it's ok, we need to be more experienced during these events. Probably the next event we are going to play...I'm not sure if it's going to be CS2 or CS:GO. We are more experienced now for the next event.

Despite the loss, the team still showed some good Counter-Strike at the event and in the run up to the Major. Asked if he believed this is just the start for the squad NEKIZ believes the team were capable of going deep into the Legends stage.

Yeah it's just the start, if we didn't mess up a lot of rounds we should go to the Legends stage and I know that we could go very good during the Legends stage. It happens sometimes, you lose sometimes you win it's like that. I'm not happy but I'm ok.

With the season coming towards an end there are few tournaments left for paiN, with the exception of the domestic competition in the ESL Challenger league. Although NEKIZ his hopeful the teams recent performances might grab them some invites.

Right now we are going to go to Mexico, to play the ESL Challenger. We are going to practice over there we know it's going to be hard but it is how it is. I don't know if we have a chance to get an invitation to IEM Dallas I'm not sure, but that's our next step, and then we are going to the player break and rest a little.

Speaking on ESL Challenger, the Brazilian rifler is confident his team are the best in the league but was aware that they need to produce the results to prove it. He also touched on ESL Challenger, an event that he believes is winnable and would cap of a good season for the side.

Yes of course we are probably the best team but we need to prove, we need to win the matches to say that so yeah. We have ESL Challenger Katowice too, I forgot about that. It's going to be a great end to the season maybe winning this event, I don't know.

The entire paiN squad apart from zevy posted positive ratings at the event, but NEKIZ was keen to lay the blame not on any individual performance but on the lack of experience as a whole. He also expressed a desire to bootcamp and practice in Europe more to gain experience against the higher level opposition.

I think everybody did great during this event, we have five players who can win rounds that are unwinnable. Our team is very good, I think we need more experience more practice here in Europe, play more against those teams probably you know. Some things when you try to win, try to win, you are going to win sometimes.

Of course it would be impossible to talk about the match without mentioning the Nuke debacle, a 16-1 loss on your map pick is never a promising sign. NEKIZ puts it down to Monte doing some heavy research and hard countering a lot of paiN's play.

I think Nuke is our best map but we were countered in many ways during the Nuke game. We tried to hit and they molly'd right when we tried to hit, when we were hitting outside they were fighting for lobby. We didn't expect that, I think they probably studied us that's why they played like that.

The more worrying sign for NA fans is that paiN's loss means there will not be an extra slot for America's teams at the next Major.