After an incredible year last year with ENCE, Snappi, SunPayus, and Maden have so far struggled since making the jump to Falcons alongside Magisk and the eventual arrival of dupreeh.

Heading into IEM Cologne 2024 off the back of another disappointing exit at BLAST Premier Fall Groups 2024, the team had a point to prove, although they tasted defeat yet again as they fell to Eternal Fire on the opening day of the first stage.

With that loss booking them a series against ALTERNATE aTTaX to fight for their place in the tournament, Falcons bounced back with a 2-0 win, although after the game, Snappi was clear that he is still not happy with the way his team is performing.

As well as talking about his team’s performance versus the Germans, we spoke to Snappi about Falcons’ general struggles, whether changes will need to be made, and the individual form of SunPayus.

We try to see the positives in a cloud of negatives

Marco "Snappi" Pfeiffer

How are you feeling after that game?

I don't have the best feeling because I feel like we didn't play the best CS today, we need to step up for tomorrow.

It's also frustrating with me and my individual level at times, but at times there's also not the best help to get back on track in the sense that we're losing a lot of stupid rounds that put us in a lot of stupid situations.

I think there's nothing to do but try to forget about it and move forward, a win is a win and that's obviously a positive so we'll take that away from us.

Why do you think you're losing those rounds that you shouldn't?

I don't know, to be honest. Maybe it's confidence due to the fact that we've lost so many close games, the confidence that would be there then isn't for multiple players and I think that's what hurts us in the close situations.

In a wider sense, since you joined Falcons the results have been quite disappointing but this team has the same team that you had at ENCE and players who, on paper, are arguably upgrades on what you had before, so why hasn't it translated?

It's tough to say, I think we have a really good team but I also obviously think that some of the players I had at ENCE were really good.

I can't really pinpoint exactly why it's not working, but I would say we need to lift 5% harder as a unit because we don't have that kind of star player as we had with NertZ on ENCE. He was a true star rifler, and because we don't have that we need to play better team CS and I think we are actually in positions to win, so right now, I think it's a matter of confidence than anything else that loses us the games.

If you look at most of the games, G2 in Dallas, Liquid in Dallas, Astralis at BLAST, Complexity at Jonkoping, and now Eternal Fire here, every single time, all of these games, if you go in and look at them they are definitely winnable.

We just need to push out more individually and I include myself in that because my level is just tough at the moment, and the frustrating part is that in practice it's really good. I can literally see the numbers be up in practice but somehow I have a hard time translating that in the official. It's beginning to frustrate me a little bit, but there's nothing to do than keep on playing.

Does struggling individually and getting frustrated as a result make it harder to do your job as an IGL? Does it at least mean you can't make a call from an individual play you might make?

Maybe it's harder to use yourself in your calling, but I don't think it makes it harder to call. For us, I actually think the positive side is our T side, the difference between our T side and CT side is pretty big, our T side is what is carrying us at the moment.

Part of that is also because I'm not holding my own and multiple players are having a rough time, so on CT we are obviously not as strong as we should be.

The calling is not affected too much, the T side is still solid, we get more than enough to win from that.

One player we wanted to ask about in terms of individual form is SunPayus, it feels like he especially has struggled in CS2, why do you think that is?

I think it's just about finding himself in the new team. In practice he's doing good, so I have faith that it will come with time and he just needs to believe in himself because when you're having a tough time you start to question your own decisions. He shouldn't do that because he's an amazing player and he just needs to trust himself.

I think it's a lack of confidence at the moment, almost every player has been through it at some point in their career and for the first time since I've played with him he is having one but I'm sure he will bounce back.

Falcons had big ambitions when they started this project that haven't been hit yet, is there going to be a point that the organisation puts more pressure on you?

Obviously, this project is built to win and the ambition is to win, so eventually, if we don't improve the results it is a given that there will be changes. I think that goes for every team you could play in, when you invest a lot of money into a team you expect results and if those results aren't coming then any organisation that is trying to climb will look at changes.

I think they are approaching it in the right way in terms of giving a lot of freedom to zonic and what he wants to do with the team and the direction he wants to take it, so I have faith in the project and I'm sure we'll succeed.

You've said you have faith and that there are a lot of games that are close, but from your perspective, how long can you trust the process before you have to look at something more definitive?

If we keep losing the close games every single tournament then there is obviously 5% missing somewhere. At that point, it's put to zonic to determine where he can find that 5%.

For now, we try to see the positives in a cloud of negatives because as you say, we haven't performed, but I know that it's right in front of us and if we trust ourselves and put out a little more, then we do win these games and that is the tough part because you feel like you can almost touch it. But, we haven't gotten the results and that's the reality, as we've both said, in any organisation that doesn't get results long term, there will be changes.

With that in mind, let's say you win against BIG and advance to the next stage, what would be the minimum requirement after that for you to be happy with this event?

Right now, for me, it's one game at a time, literally. If we lose tomorrow we are out, so I'm not even going to focus on the next stage until we are there.