Against all odds, GIANTX have reached the playoffs of VALORANT Champions 2025, leaving Sentinels and XLG in their wake. As they prepare to face NRG, the European representatives continue their hot streak while firmly holding onto their underdog status. In an exclusive interview, Daniil "pipsoN" Meshcheryakov, the team’s head coach, sat down with Sheep Esports to discuss expectations, his career path, and the state of the EMEA region.

What are your thoughts on the match against XLG? Westside said it could have been better while on the desk.

Daniil "pipsoN" Meshcheryakov: "To be honest, I agree with Westside. It could have been better. We didn’t play an A-level game. I’m not even talking about an S-level game, but luckily it was enough to win and pull out the comeback. We started super slow. We had to take a pause, we had to adapt, we had to change certain things, and it felt like we weren’t individually there in certain moments, in micro moments, to make the correct play and utilize the possibilities the game gave us. It could have been better.

You've said the worst thing your players you do at Champions was being afraid. Given the stakes of today's match, do you think the pressure of elimination and playoffs caused jitters that influenced the way your team played?

pipsoN: No, I don’t think so. Let’s be honest, XLG is not a name where even as a rookie you’re going to be super afraid. Yes, you have to respect them and all of that, but what I meant was when you’re playing against teams like Sentinels, G2, Paper Rex, who have a lot of achievements and nicknames working for them, then maybe. In that way, I don’t think it was the issue, no.

What are your expectations going into playoffs now?

pipsoN: Every match from now on is a bonus. We came as underdogs—no one expected us to be in playoffs, especially in this group with Sentinels and Paper Rex. The most important is how we feel as players and how we feel inside the team. When we are playing scrims against other teams who are at this event, we are feeling confident to play again. There should be no expectations, and there shouldn’t be any from our side. There can be expectations from other teams, but I don’t think overall having certain expectations helps you—it only makes it worse. So I want us to see playoffs as a bonus.

What were your personal expectations going into Champions, given your difficult 2024 and start to 2025, and your long journey to get back to the top?

pipsoN: To be honest, I expected that we could make playoffs. From watching us play in Stage 2, and because I also knew that Sentinels were not in shape and weren’t showing a good level at the end in the Americas, I knew it could be done. They looked vulnerable, like they could lose, and this is what I was telling the boys too—that even if we don’t have expectations, when you’re going to play someone like Sentinels, I don’t want you to be afraid of them. Yes, they are Sentinels, but they’re not in the shape of Sentinels. That was my goal, especially since in 2023 I was eliminated by EDG, another Chinese team, in a decider game like today. This time we made it further, at least one step. So it’s really, really nice.

This is the furthest you’ve made it in Champions. Was it special for you to qualify, get second place in Split 2, and did it also feel like a relief given the trust GIANTX put in you before the split, when results weren’t there yet?

pipsoN: Yeah, that’s completely true. I felt really, really happy that we finally started to play the way we as a coaching staff want them to play, and that it worked out and we managed to prove that we did make the right choices with our roster. That felt like a relief. Regarding international results, I did get 5-6th at Masters Reykjavík 2022 when I was on G2, so one more win would be a banger so we can match that.

After 12 years in esports, how do you reflect on your career today? Where do you feel you are in your career, what do you still want to achieve?

pipsoN: Obviously, I want to win a trophy—everyone would answer the same, right? But to be honest, I think the state of my career is pretty good. I work in an organization where I'm trusted and which I trust myself, and we’ve been working together for a long time. Even when I switched to VALORANT, my first organization was Giants. I was there as a player, then as a coach, and the only time I left was to G2 before coming back.

I also think that we as a coaching staff, with wayLander (Jan Rahkonen), have the strength of taking rookies or helping certain players play in a certain way. Both times I qualified to Champions, I qualified with an IGL who had never been an IGL before. He joined the team, I asked him to be an IGL, and I helped him. That’s our main strength and what we’re focusing on.

There are certain organizations that will always have a superstar roster, and others who have to play and win without that. These organizations exist and they are having really good results as well. I’m really happy with the state of my career and I just want to continue. But after Champs, I'll need to relax and reset a bit, because the year was really rough in the beginning, then brought a lot of good and positive emotions.

In Toronto, people were saying that EMEA was the worst region in VALORANT. Now, we have three teams in playoffs. Is there anything to make of that in your opinion? How do you feel about the level of our region?

pipsoN: The narratives in Toronto were a bit exaggerated. Heretics had a bad event, which might have suggested something, but Liquid came with a sub, penny (Erik Penny), and Fnatic made the final. So one team played with a sub, one team failed, and another team made the final. You cannot really say it was a complete disaster.

After Stage 1 and the roster changes in EMEA, a lot of teams became much stronger. Na’Vi played much better than in Stage 1, Gentle Mates were always close to winning and weren’t easy for anyone, and BBL played insanely well. Even we improved a lot. Then there’s still Liquid, Fnatic, and Heretics. Overall, it made the region much more competitive, and it also affects practice. When all the teams improve, you face each other more in scrims, and the overall level of the region grows.

After playing scrims and then in Champions, I felt that EMEA is actually a pretty strong region right now. But it also comes down to timing. Sometimes if you repeat the same event two weeks later, you have no clue what’s going to happen.

Should your team still be treated as an underdog going into the bracket?

pipsoN: Yeah, of course, we should be treated as an underdog. There are teams right now like Fnatic, Heretics, NRG—big names. Yes, we made a good run, but the run's finished, and we are still going to be an underdog in every game, trust me. This match against XLG may have been the only one where we were maybe favorites, because in all other matches we would be underdogs, like against Paper Rex.

Do you have a message for the fans?

pipsoN: Thank you for the support, please keep supporting us. We saw you in the arena—I know the players felt it, and they told me about it. They were saying it’s insane to have that support and such nice messages. So keep supporting us, and we’ll try our best."