STYKO: "I feel that we are better than a lot of [the partner teams]"

Coming into the BLAST.tv Paris Major as the sixth-highest seed of the Challenger Stage, Apeks have qualified to the Legends Stage with a 3-1 swiss score, taking wins over Liquid, Grayhound, and paiN, and a loss to G2. Dust2.us' Ryan Friend spoke to Martin "STYKO" Styk about what has changed since the Rio Major qualifiers, his time on Cloud9, and his opinions on the current partner circuits.

From Fragadelphia 17 semifinalists, to being in the Legends Stage of the final CS:GO Major Championship, Apeks have come a long way with only one major roster change. Having swapped out Richard "shox" Papillon for new in-game leader Damjan "kyxsan" Stoilkovski, this big changes has done a lot for the team in a short period of time.

I think first of all, the change as you described isn't big. I think it's tremendous. I think it's huge. One player in the lineup can do a lot and we've been different ever since we went through the trial period and everything. So, I think we're absolutely different, 180° team, from back then. Obviously, this is tied to me not being the IGL as well as I wasn't doing as good a job as kyxsan is doing right now. This is a completely different project to me, despite having similar faces on the on the squad. But what we're doing here is playing good CS. What we did back then was just surviving, I guess.

Since not being able to best BIG Academy at the Fragadelphia 17 semifinals and losing on American soil, STYKO explains that it was their last chance to salvage the season after their unsuccessful attempts to qualify to the IEM Rio Major last year.

In a way, yes, I think the catalyst was really the unsuccessful Major qualification before Fragadelphia, where we didn't manage to get in. And Fragadelphia was kind of a last hope to salvage the season which didn't go well as well. But I think the real pivot point was not being able to qualify to the Rio Major and going through open qualifiers; that was that was it basically.

Back in 2018, STYKO was on-loan from mousesports to Cloud9 during August and September in which time the they did not achieve much, coming in joint-last at ELEAGUE Premier 2018, failing to qualify to IEM Chicago, and placing 12th - 14th at the FACEIT London Major. During that time, he was a given freedom to develop and realize that he can be an impactful player.

The Cloud9 period was two months, two brief months, and I learned a lot honestly, during those two months. It was most probably one of the most impactful two months of my life, not really in terms of Counter-Strike, but in terms of me being abroad, completely focusing on CS, developing myself, going off from the mousesports lineup, where I played as a pure support player into having more freedom and I realized I can actually shoot. I didn't get to do that much in mousesports and it was a huge confidence boost to me.

Going to NA and playing well, it opened my eyes that actually this is something I want to move forward to do. In NoChance and FPX after the Cloud9 stint I was playing these things and it showed me that I am still capable of playing well. I cannot thank Cloud9 enough for giving me the chance back then, Jack and valens, and everyone on the roster.

At the Paris Major so far, Apeks have been one of the loudest and most vocal teams. We asked what that was about and whether it has helped the team be so successful in this stage.

I think we're definitely playing better on LAN and this is one of the biggest factors that means we play so well. The stress, we kind of transform it into excitement, into adrenaline, shouting, being hyped about each other. It's hard to keep that up in online games, in online tournaments and I'm so glad that we are this kind of a team that are vocal and even I started to be myself. I was always a quiet guy, but here, adrenaline and emotions are just flowing, so I'm glad that we are like this, and it helps us.

We also noticed, however, that in certain situations when things would turn south for the team, they would end up being quiet and performing worse and worse. We wanted to know if that's something they're going to overcome.

You hit the nail on the head. I think this is one of our biggest weaknesses right now. It's being able to play well in the match-ups where things are not going our way necessarily, if we're not winning duels. We could see versus G2 on Inferno, we weren't just not winning duels, we were like dead on the TeamSpeak server I would say. It was rough, but we know about it, and we know that we have to work on it. I'm so glad that we are open about it on the team, and we know that this is our loss condition sometimes and we have to avoid it.

Previously failing to even get out of the open qualifiers for the IEM Rio Major, the team is now at the Legends Stage of the following Major, and with a win over Liquid too. STYKO explained his current emotional state, but also that he feels his team and many others alike are underrated because of their inability to play in the top partner leagues run by ESL and BLAST.

Raw emotion is really... I'm being calm about it because I believed 100% that we would beat Liquid. Honestly, if we get more chances to play these teams that are in the partner circuits, I feel that we are better than a lot of them. I'm not going to say all of them obviously. But the thing is, we don't get the chances too often because of our ranking and everything is so tied together on the top level with the BLAST circuit, the ESL circuit.

I think it's completely wrong and I support what Snappi said about BLAST. If BLAST is hosting events and they want to do their best in terms of Counter-Strike, it should be open to all of the teams and have more open spots. I mean, a quarter of the partner teams from BLAST didn't even make it to the Major.

A second quarter of the teams are on the verge of elimination, and this just shows you that teams like us, like 9INE, Into The Breach, GamerLegion; they're capable of playing good CS but we don't get the chance to show it that much, and it’s sad.

STYKO also explains that due to certain teams being partners of these leagues, they are also able to more easily attract players which they are trying to scout. Players want to play in the top events, rather than CCTs and Cash Cups, and joining a non-partner team makes that a whole lot harder.

I don't really understand the economics of the game, and I know it's tied heavily to that. But I believe for me as a player, I'm going to be completely selfish, right now it hurts and sometimes these partner teams have leverage for signing players in worse conditions because players have to choose between a team that is not a partner. But then they had they have an option to sign with the team that is not a partner team, and they often go for [the partner team] without thinking too much. They just want to play the game, and this is what we want as well, but it's different. To play CCT, online Cash Cups every week, compared to IEM Dallas and these things that you get invited to, etc.

Although he does agree that is it possible for some teams to break of the loop being being stuck at the lower end of the rankings and not receive invites to larger tournaments, the current tournament landscape makes it extremely hard for non-partner teams, with only a limited number teams even having the opportunity to do so.

It's really hard to be not a partner team and get into the top 20, and top 20 is actually where you get a lot of these invites. It's like a cycle that only few teams are able to break. Maybe Monte, I can't think of teams on top of my head, but Spirit, FORZE; I think these teams are capable of doing it, but there's very little spots to do so and it's rough. I don't like it.

With their 3-1 record in the Challengers Stage at the BLAST.tv Paris Major, and the highest seed of those teams, Apeks are now set to face Into The Breach for their opening BO1 of the Legends Stage.