Following the VCT Challengers 3 Europe’s final matchup, Raise Your Edge Gaming (RYE) versus OG, we got the chance to catch up with Patryk “starxo” Kopczyński. RYE made short work of OG, and they were the last team to qualify for the first ever upcoming Masters 1 event in Europe. starxo shared with us a little of his side’s journey through Challengers 3, RYE’s mixed European composition, as well as the decision to pick up Skye on certain maps.

Interview with starxo

RunItBack: Congratulations to Raise Your Edge Gaming and yourself. You guys are the final team to qualify for the upcoming Masters 1 event in Europe. So if you could tell me how you feel about your run through the Challengers stage.

starxo: Yeah, I mean the whole qualifications were crazy for me. We started off with really good games for the first couple. Then we beat Team Vitality. I’m not saying it was easy, but it turned out better than expected. We showed that we can fight against such teams. Then we had some rough two games after where we lost the first map but we showed a better mental performance and we just destroyed them on the following two maps. Then we also had a rough game against Rix.GG, where we lost Bind from a 9:3 lead, even from a later 11:7 score. On Ascent, we made a comeback from 11:3, followed by a won Haven. So that was a fantastic. We got so strong as a team mentally after this game.

And yeah, with OG, I don’t know, I just can’t describe the feeling after this game. Everything was on our side and we just went with the flow *laughs*.

RunItBack: So, we saw an easy-peasy Ascent game from your side with a 13:3 blowout. You then outplayed OG on their own map pick, Bind. In your opinion, what was the main thing that gave your team the victory on Bind.

starxo: We just played our game. We had prepared. We had a little different comp (agent composition) than others. It may be kind of a shock for our opponents. But it fits our playstyle really well. We played like we played on praccs (practice sessions). I think OG prepared against us because they watched our games against Rix.GG. We couldn’t really watch their games, but we did watch some. They had a lot of time to prepare. But we started CT (defensive) side, we started rolling, and we just played our game. Just went with the flow.

RunItBack: Did you do a lot of preparations to counter OG’s strats? Or were you just relying on your strengths? Did you rely on counter-strats?

starxo: Not counter-strats, but our coach (Nbs) and our igl, Koldamenta, were sitting the whole day after the Rix.GG game and watching and analyzing their games. How they move on the map, do they fast rotate, where do they put the utility every round, and we were just aware of those things. And the rest, yeah, we just played our game.

RunItBack: So you had quite a long way to get to Raise Your Edge. You started out on the Polish team Those Guys. Then you went to Entropiq, things didn’t work out. So how are you finding yourself in this pretty new Raise Your Edge mixed European team. How are the comms and everything in general?

starxo: It’s not my first English comms team because I was in Entropiq. But it was not full English at Entropiq because it was four Polish guys and one Ukrainian, so sometimes we would talk Polish and he understood. So now it’s full English comms. We also have BONECOLD, who never played with English comms, he played in a Finnish team. It was a bit of a struggle for him at the start. We had a rough time at the beginning at the team. We had to work on our comms, and we still work on that. But it’s getting really good day by day.

I took the support role because in our team I feel I got chosen to that. I have no problem with the feeling of champions (agents). I can play basically every champion, maybe except Sentinels. It’s just not my thing. So yeah, I’m like the guy that fills every cup that needs filling. Overall, I feel great here with the boys.

RunItBack: We saw you play Skye on Bind. Skye is getting gradually more popular on the scene. But why did you pick her, what are your thoughs on her? Also, how does she compare to another Initiator, like Breach?

starxo: So we picked Skye, basically because after some qualifications, we had a rough time with some champions that we played. We struggled a bit on praccs and didn’t know what to do. So we were like “hey, let’s switch it up maybe, what do you want to do, maybe you want to play Skye, maybe Sage, maybe let’s put in Viper”, and I said yeah, I want to try Skye. So we just picked it on one pracc (Skye) and I played really great. The boys were happy with me. My comms were really clean and good I think. They liked how I called my spells (ability) usage and stuff. And we played really well on pracc. So we just decided to keep this lineup with Viper, Skye, and stuff. And it’s coming along well I think.

And yeah, comparing to Breach. We wanted to try Breach on Split, as he’s the most picked agent on Split I think. But I think it depends on the player. Maybe if a player likes Breach. No one actually likes Breach on our team at all. We tried it with Kolda (Koldamenta), I tried it by myself as well. But I think Skye is more like…I never really thought about, how to compare her. I just play with Skye, like I can play, it’s hard to describe it. But I think you get really good information with her if you know how to do it. You can take map control with the wolf and flashes. If you play it really well with orbs and the whole utility, I think it’s better than Breach. On every map even.

We thank starxo for his time and wish him and Raise Your Edge Gaming all the best of luck at VCT Masters 1 in Europe.

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