We had the chance to speak with GamerLegion’s star player, Fredrik "REZ" Sterner. In an exclusive interview for Bo3.gg, he reflected on the reasons behind their quarterfinal loss to Team Falcons at IEM Dallas 2025, discussed the team’s preparation for the tournament with a stand-in, and shared insights on their motivation to keep improving.

Your loss against Falcons — you lost 1:2. What do you think happened? What was the decisive point? Why did you lose to them?

I think it was mostly experience issues. We don’t really have that much stage experience in this team, and you could see that we were pretty nervous. I made a lot of mistakes in really important rounds — rounds we were supposed to win, like all those anti-ecos we lost. If we had won and closed those out, I think it definitely could’ve been a closer game, or we could’ve even won it, in my opinion.

So yeah, at this point, we're still in a learning process within the team, and we played one of the most experienced teams in the world right now. I knew it was going to be a tough game, but I think we're really moving forward at the moment.

Yeah. How do you rate your personal performance in that game?

I think I did decent, but obviously, you can always do better. I also made a lot of crucial mistakes that cost us rounds, so there’s no one person to blame within the team — I think it was more of a team issue.

Overall, I think I did okay, but I know I can always do better.

How do you keep the team — or even yourself — motivated after a loss like this?

I think we're motivated because we're still reaching playoffs kind of frequently at the moment. We feel like we’re a strong team, and I think reaching playoffs shows that we’re up there with the tier-1 teams. In my opinion, we’re a consistent top-ten team.

So that’s what’s keeping us motivated right now — that we’re continuously showing we can reach playoffs and beat tier-1 teams.

You played with a stand-in. Do you think just getting to the playoffs is a major accomplishment for your team, or can you do better?

I think at this point — like, in the beginning of the season — our goal was to reach playoffs, and we managed to do that at a lot of events. Now, at this point in Dallas, I think we should be able to reach the next level — like a semifinal, at least. I think we’re capable of that.

And yeah, like you said, we’re reaching playoffs even with a stand-in. So when we have our complete team, with more structure, experience, and time together, I think we should be able to reach the semifinals.

Did all the trouble with visas and having a stand-in mentally affect your team? Like morale-wise?

No, we just tried to focus on what we could control. We got a core at the last minute and did everything possible to keep him in the loop with all our strats and stuff. I think we did our absolute best to lock in for this event.

Let’s get back to the match with 3DMAX. How did you adapt your strategy against a team that picked Anubis — which isn’t really your best map?

Nothing against 3DMAX in particular — I think we had a really good game plan overall. Obviously, Anubis isn’t our strongest map right now. But for the other maps, we had a lot of preparation and a good idea of how we wanted to play against them.

I think that’s why we managed to beat them. A lot of things worked out — we had good reads even before the game that basically won us the match. We didn’t really do that much individually; it was more of a team effort with all the preparation and everything.

You played against Falcons. Everybody knows they have a lot of star players. How did you manage to find gaps in their defense or offense? How did you try to find a way to beat them?

It’s rare that you find gaps against tier-1 teams like that. The only thing you can do is play with rotations and try to bait them into moving where you want them — that’s kind of how you beat tier-1 teams, I would say.

Also, there are a lot of individual moments you need to win against a team like that — you need the clutches, you need multi-kills, or it's not going to work.

I think we did that especially on Nuke — that’s the map we won against them. That’s where we did it best: we won our duels, we won clutches, and we managed to make them move around the map like we wanted them to. That’s how you beat tier-1 teams, and it’s really difficult.

Yeah, I really loved watching your game. It was amazing — a lot of emotions, the energy was crazy. Do you want to say anything to your fans out there?

Yeah, of course. I didn’t expect this much support. When we arrived at the arena, I heard people screaming — even screaming my name in particular. It was really fantastic. I’m really glad to be back playing on stage again.

It’s been a long time. It didn’t happen that often when I was in NiP, so I’m really happy to still have that support behind me. I’m really glad.