Everyone who plays Counter Strike Global Offensive and who would like to play this e-sport professionally dreams of one day being at the very top and among the best teams in the world. But the iNation team is one step away from that dream. Namely, last weekend they made the biggest success for Balkan e-sport because they managed to qualify for the EU RMR, the final tournament before the Major in Paris.
Valve, the creator of Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, decided to hold the tournament in the City of Light this year, and as year after year CS:GO tournaments gather an increasing number of audiences and millions of views, Major 2023 will undoubtedly be one of the most successful. .
Currently the 50th team in the world in the HLTV rankings, iNation during the final qualifiers managed to record three wins and two losses, which was enough for TOP8, thus securing a place on RMR.
As in previous years, RMR is played in a LAN environment, and each region has its own special competition. When all RMR tournaments are completed, we will have a complete list of Major participants.
The team they make Ivan choiv7 Živković (captain), Nikola Dragon Bosković, Vladan VLDN Radević, Vladan Kind0 Mandic i Filip DEPRESSHN Jarkić is the first from the Balkans to be placed on the EU RMR.
"Yes, that's right, we are the first team from our area to qualify for the RMR, it was a thorny road through the open qualifications themselves. In previous years, we lacked that little something to take a step forward, but the effort paid off. Through the closed qualifications, we managed to beat the teams that beat us routinely before, and this is proof that we have progressed, just because we overcame them and managed to qualify for the RMR that will be held in Komenhagen", boasted Ivan Živković, who is CS :GO started training in 2015 after an injury, and has been in professional waters since 2019.
They consider what they have achieved so far to be a great success because it is no small thing to be among the top eight teams, and they hope that their success this year will not end there.
"I think this is a very good step for the continuation of our careers in canter, from our areas we all know how difficult it is to break through. We all want to be like them Hunter i Nikola at G2, we look up to them where effort, discipline and hard work pay off. We will do our best to qualify for the Major", promised Živković, whose team is made up of players from the Balkans, and only two of them live in the same city. That is why preparations for LAN tournaments are more difficult, but do not affect the result.
"We have two players from Belgrade, one from Novi Sad. They are close to each other and we have all known each other for two, three years, if not more, except for Filip (Depreshn), who is new to us, but we see him as a brother. Everything we do, he also does, there are no individuals, this is a team e-sport and we have to agree and respect that. We played LAN matches recently at the beginning of the month, preparations went well, we won that tournament which was the most important thing at the time, and that gave us a wind behind us. For the upcoming RMR LAN, we will have three weeks of bootcamp at the beginning of March, so we will be ready", Živković is sure.
Although the iNation team already has serious successes, it has not been around for long on the canter scene.
"The iNation organization has existed for a year and five months since its renewal, Vladan (VLDN), Nikola (Dragon) and I have been there since the very beginning. Nine players have gone through the organization since then, the last change happened last year and then we didn't have an active roster for about two to three months, because we didn't want to make any more wrong steps. After several months of thinking about finding players, we brought Kind and Depreshn as our reinforcements, and that's with iNation," Živković proudly points out.
During the matches that brought them to the top eight teams, they managed to defeat some legends of the CS:GO game, and they do not hide that such results really affect self-confidence.
"Of course, beating canter legends is always a beautiful feeling. We won in the second round To Taz team "Honoris" routinely, and it was they who beat us earlier this year in a tournament. And then, in the last two decisive matches, we win JW i To Flush, who won the Major multiple times. In the last match, he also fell Allu who is a Finnish canter legend. Getting such players is a confirmation that we are growing as a team day by day", boasted Živković.
However, in order to improve from match to match, they analyze their own matches as well as the matches of the opposing teams. They try not to be a team with established tactics that the opponents can "break easily", but like to surprise whoever "stands on their line" with their game.
"We analyze our matches non-stop. Although we have a very difficult schedule, we play two sometimes three matches every day, every week we try to add some new things so that the opponents don't know what we are doing. We have some of our own stuff that we're adding as a strategy, and we haven't seen that anywhere before. Simply, we want to have some of our own things, which are unique only to the iNation team. I think we surprised a team quite a few times with some new things when it was important", recalls the gamer.
Teams Heroic, Cloud9, BIG, G2, NIP, Vitality, ENCE, Spirit, 9INE, Eternal Fire, Astralis, Monte, Aurora, forZe and 500 will be with them at RMR. who you will be particularly inspired to play, answers:
"Difficult question (laughs). They are all great teams. I will say that the most inspiring thing for us will be to play against the G2 team where our players are. If that match comes, of course, we will do our best. G2 is in very good shape and that's why they are the first in the world".
Some players from the Balkans like ours Pavla Majden Bošković they are part of some world teams. The interlocutor of the Magazine reveals whether, as in real sports, there are transfers from one team to another after such tournaments:
"For now, we are not thinking about transfers. We have our goals that we want to achieve by the end of the summer, and after that we'll see. Everyone is focused on what is in front of them", claims the interlocutor of the Magazine.
The founders of the iNation organization and team, Ivan, Nikola and Vladan, are members of the Serbian national team, and they represented their country in Bali, where the eSports World Championship was held. Ivan explains that these experiences are important for professional gamers.
"Playing for the national team is always a nice thing. You represent your country, just because they are LAN tournaments you gain more experience for such events. This can be helpful later in important matches played in LAN.
Although they have one more competition before the Major that they hope to reach, and if it doesn't happen they won't be unhappy.
"We achieved our goal, we qualified for the RMR, we entered the top 50 in a relatively short time and all this was completely unexpected. After the top 50, we want to be a stable top 30 team, and to receive invitations for better tournaments in the future, even if we hope to receive invitations for closed qualifications for tier1 tournaments", Žuvković does not hide his expectations, whose team is waiting for a joint bootcamp before RMR.
"As I said, we will have a bootcamp at the beginning of March, for three weeks in order to improve all maps together. This will help us to see what we did well and what we did poorly in the period that is behind us. At the same time, the team's joint play in the LAN will additionally help us to go to RMR ready and show everyone that we can compete with the best in the world", concludes Živković.
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