FalleN: "I treat YEKINDAR as someone who's going to stay with us for longer"

The BLAST.tv Austin Major is going to be a different Major for Gabriel "FalleN" Toledo. The Godfather of the Brazilian scene will play alongside one Russian in the form of Mareks "YEKINDAR" Gaļinskis, and one Kazakh in the form of Danil "molodoy" Golubenko, as FURIA took the international route following disappointing results at the start of the season.

Dust2.us' Editor-in-Chief Jeffrey "Mnmzzz" Moore asked FalleN about how this international experiment is working during the Stage Two media day, his first impressions about molodoy and YEKINDAR, and his honest thoughts about the Brazilian scene.

The full interview can be found below on YouTube or in text form below. All questions and answers below have been slightly edited for length and clarity.

Welcome to the Major. Does it feel good to be back at an NA Major?

Yeah, it does feel great to be back to an American Major. I have good memories from the first major I won here. So, looking to replicate that and go for the third. And so far, everything is great here.

This is a pretty unique Major for you, considering that FURIA has transitioned to an international squad. How's that been for the squad to have kind of changed your identity so fundamentally?

It's been great, honestly, because I think we got very good pieces into the team. I think the way we have been adjusting to YEKINDAR and molodoy's way of seeing and playing the game has been very interesting. I really like that we have been playing well together lately. We got some very good days of practice together. I think 10 or 15 days, and we were able to get a lot of things fixed from what we saw at the first tournament we played. It's looking very promising from inside, and I hope that we can show that here at this tournament as well.

Are there any regrets on your part that you didn't decide to go international sooner? Every top CS team has pretty much decided to go international. FURIA was one of those few teams that committed to being fully Brazilian in the upper echelon.

Honestly, the first time I went international was with MIBR in 2018, and I think at that time we already knew that it would be very difficult to put all the Brazilian pieces together. It's kind of the same right now in the Brazilian scene, and I don't think there are any regrets around it. I just feel that maybe we could have experienced that earlier, but it's not a thought that I had on my mind all the time. It's just the way it is, and right now I'm just looking forward. It's promising what we have in our hands and we're looking to take the most of it.

You mentioned that it has been quite difficult for Brazilian teams to assemble all the top pieces in one team and find success. As the Godfather of the Brazilian scene, what do you think about the current state of the Brazilian scene? Is it heading in a good direction?

It's very hard for me to really have a good understanding of how the Brazilian scene is right now because I have been playing on the top teams for so long, and this doesn't give me the full picture on how the real teams out there are trying to get their way to the top. I feel like the changes to the points on Valve's system make it very hard for newcomer teams to really thrive and to have chances to go through the top. So, maybe this has an influence as well.

I think the Brazilian scene has a lot of players, and a lot of base pool in terms of how much how many players are playing the game. But at the same time, the economics doesn't make it very easy for anyone in the scene. Let's see how it's going to go for the future.

We had a chance to interview YEKINDAR at IEM Dallas, and he mentioned that he really appreciated the level of input he's been able to have on FURIA, even though he's just a stand-in. How's the team evolved since YEKINDAR and molodoy have come into the team?

From my POV, I treat YEKINDAR as someone who's going to stay with us for longer, just because it's not really sustainable, it's not really viable to treat someone coming to the team for three months to 'Hey, you're just going to be standing in. So just play our way,' or things like that. I think the best way to go is to actually play his ideas and use the best strength he has to make us the strongest we can be. Also, because there's a chance he's going to stay with us in the future. So we want to try it as it's already real since day one.

That's why I think it's going very well and why I think we play really well together. And, the fact that we had molodoy coming to the team as well, we want to make sure that he has the possibility to play CS the way he wants to. But also because now he's jumping into the S-tier and tier-one scene, there are things he needs to learn, and there is another point of view that he has to collect from the team. When you're younger, you don't really think much, you just think about how you can kill opponents and how you can really get impact.

But as you get older, as you get more experience, you kind of go towards thinking more on the macro and how the team should work. He's young, so I don't want him to lose that. But at the same time, we're here to help him grow as fast as he can.

Do you think the Brazilian scene has embraced molodoy? What's been the reaction from the FURIA fans, from your fans, to making such a drastic change?

The Brazilian fans are all-in about molodoy. They really like the guy, they like the way he plays. We really think that he can be the one who's going to put us on a higher level on CS again. We are very happy to have him on the team, and I think the Brazilian community is reacting very well to that, too.

Who are you looking to face tomorrow when you're opening best of one?

Honestly, I don't really know who we're going to be playing. I have no idea. I just know that we're going to be playing two BO1s, so it's a very scary day. You can either go 2-0 , and go home very happy, or you can go 0-2, or either 1-1. So, we're looking forward to have good results, and regardless of who we play, we just need to come strong, make sure we get the first pistols, convert their anti-forces, and win the matches.