nqz on Brazil's strong results: "We are showing our face to the world again"
paiN shocked almost everyone watching the Major as they improved to 2-1 and are just one step away from the Major Elimination Stage. Rodrigo "biguzera" Bittencourt, one of the best fragging IGLs in the game, has been a huge part of that. In the 13-3 demolition of ENCE, the captain had 23 kills, a 98.4 ADR, and a 2.01 HLTV Rating.
One of the other bright spots of the paiN team has been sniper Lucas "nqz" Soares who comes from the Legacy team last November. Despite being one of the newer members of the team, he has had instant impact. He was the second-best player today and a big reason why this team is playing above expectations. In talking with Dust2.us, he spoke about about the surprising choice of Nuke by ENCE, how the Americas region shouldn't be criticized anymore, and explained how his IGL makes everyone around him better.
This article has a few snippets of the conversation while the full interview can be found below and on our YouTube.
A stunner of a match. Can you walk me through how you prepared for that game and how were you looking to go up against ENCE?
When we studied ENCE, we kind of knew they wanted to play something like Vertigo or Nuke, both were the two last maps in the veto. We were kind of surprised they went with Nuke, because starting on the T-side on Nuke is really tough. For us, when biguzera told us it was going to be Nuke, we were happy, because starting CT-side, Nuke is a map we have a lot of comfort and we prepared really well for ENCE's Nuke.
The Americas has been a region that many have criticized for under-performing but now two Brazilian teams are in the 2-1 pool. What do you say to critics of the region?
Personally, to be honest, the criticisms back in the day were fair, we were not playing good CS as a whole. We had Liquid, Complexity, and FURIA, the rest of the teams were not playing well. Now we are stepping up and I feel like Imperial plays really well, Legacy as well, and us as well, FURIA had some shaky games but I think they play well. It's good for us, we are showing our face to the world again.
biguzera is a fragging IGL of the likes that we probably have never seen at the international level. How important is it to have a leader like him top-fragging almost every game?
He frags really well, for me, also, other than fragging, his calls and the comfort he passes to the team are the most important things. He studies the opponents really well, he always shows us tips and tricks we can do in the game. Outside the server and the fragging part, I think he is truly inhuman because he calls really well, he puts us in spots we like to play, and he calls what we like to do. For me, he is inhuman.
