motm: "I heard the casters saying they were worried about me and that pissed me off, so I made sure to change my mentality"

Marsborne rebounded from a tough opening loss to BOSS and have qualified to the top four at fl0m's Mythical LAN. The result offers a chance at redemption after their quarterfinals exit at FRAG Miami 2 last week.

Jeffrey “Mnmzzz” Moore spoke with Ian "motm" Hardy after their important win over BOSS. motm talked about returning to Marsborne after several months away, Danny "Cxzi" Strzelczyk's IGL transition, and his thoughts on young-gun Adam "Grizz" Golden.

Find the video interview below, with a full transcription underneath. All questions and answers have been slightly edited for length and clarity.

How are you feeling after beating BOSS to make the playoffs?

I'm feeling great. Winning the series is a big relief. Yesterday, we had a big blunder. At least to our team, it was a big blunder to lose to BOSS. It was hard for us to prepare for the game mentally and the Counter-Strike we're gonna play because they're a brand new team and there's no way to prepare for that.

Once we lost to them, they gave us a chance to learn from our mistakes and see how they like to play. Once they did that, they stood no chance

How are you feeling being back after a few months away?

I was benched on Marsborne. It was in good faith; the team just lacked an IGL. Now that Cxzi is back in the team, it's a completely different team. I'm very happy to be back. When I was benched, I was doing media for Marsborne, like making YouTube shorts, X posts, things like that, I just wanted to find value elsewhere.

The people behind Marsborne are very special, and I didn't want to be separated from that. You don't realize how good you have it until you don't have it. Once I got to play again, it was a no-brainer. I came back.

How does it feel to make it to the top four after missing it at FRAG Miami 2?

It's a feeling of redemption. When I was setting up on the first day of play versus BOSS, I heard the casters saying they were worried about me. That pissed me off, so I made sure to change my mentality and come in super focused. It's been working out so far.

What can you tell me about your new roles on Marsborne since coming back?

I'm playing a support role. I play some rotator spots. I believe I'm gonna try to move into some anchor positions. On Nuke, you'll see me upper, anchoring down A bombsite. It's a change because we have an incredible spacetaker, Cxzi. He's also our IGL, he gets to see the game and take the space. I have a lot of experience, eleven years, and that allows me to play some of these late rounds and post plants really well and even win a lot of clutches.

How do you feel about your overall position in your career right now?

My career has been turbulent to say the least. When I was younger, I had a lot of attitude problems. As I got older, I just kinda learned a lot about myself and how life really is. It really helped me. Counter-Strike, playing these games, it's a young man's game. As you get older, if you're not willing to evolve, you're just gonna fall out of relevancy.

I love to teach people and I'm a completely different person than when I was younger and that allows me to play the roles I do now. I have to be calmer. I have to be more precise with my thoughts and how I'm moving around the map. Not only do I have to be in positions to kill people, I have to be in positions to support my teammates.

Thinking about new things, that motivates me to play the game more, learn new things. It just makes it way more enjoyable after eleven years.

How do you feel Cxzi is doing so far as the IGL of Marsborne?

Cxzi has impressed me a lot. What's so impressive about him is his hard work. He comes from playing with Complexity with JT and I played with JT on Cloud9. I can see the work ethic and I can see how he thinks about the game, how he wants to counter other teams. It's something I'm familiar with, even though I'm five years separated from it, and it feels comforting.

I'm in a new role, but it feels comfortable because the system he wants to play is something I'm used to.

Do you see some of JT's influence in Cxzi's IGL style or is it something different?

Cxzi is really impressive, he works really hard like JT. I don't think he calls similarly to JT, but you can kinda see how he was inspired by JT. I'd say he's a disciple of JT and he's inspired him to become a great IGL.

Cxzi coming into this team is perfect for him as a new IGL because the whole team works hard. When we lose, we take it personally and he wants to bring a lot of new stuff. He also wants to fix a lot of the mistakes we make and we're on board with that. We wanna change these things, we wanna improve. It's a good recipe.

What are your impressions of Grizz now that you've worked with him for a while?

I am very impressed by Grizz. At the beginning of this team, he didn't know shit. He didn't know anything about Counter-Strike. Our coach is incredible at working with him and I kind of view myself as a mentor for him. I see a lot of my young self in him, but compared to me, he is so much more humble.

He's so intelligent and just a great guy. When you're working with someone like that, you want to do the best for them all the time.

How are you feeling about your upcoming playoff match against NRG?

We should have won Miami, we choked. We have more experience under our wings. I am more familiar with how the team wants to play. Even though I was playing before, it's a completely different team. We're not scared of them. We're happy we're playing instead of M80. We're gonna beat M80 for the first time in the grand final.