After
Karmine Corp’s Game Changers Championship run came to an end with a
defeat to KRÜ Esports, the French team answered the questions from the media in a post-match press conference, blending light-hearted moments with reflections on pressure, mentality, and growth. From Şura "
Jiex" Yıldırım’s perspective on leadership and resilience to the players’ thoughts on their first GCC experience, the KC crowd, the future with the
VALORANT Project Blender competition, and more topics.
Question for Şura "Jiex" Yıldırım:
How do you experience this defeat? What are your thoughts on it, and how hard is it for you to keep everyone on the same page? Could you also give us a brief assessment of the tournament and your overall experience?
Jiex: "For me, that is the hardest part, when you are struggling yourself, sacrificing your own feelings, and still trying to lift everyone else up. You almost have to become a robot to do that, and that is the most difficult thing for me. Mental strength, mentality, is a fundamental part of the game, and for me it is the foundation. I always say that even if you are tense, if you don’t have the right mental state, you can’t do anything. You can’t shoot back, you can’t read the opponent. So I try to make some jokes, or do a few silly “monkey moves” around my teammates to put them in a better mindset. I shout for them, I cheer for them, and that is the hardest part of my job as an in-game leader. But overall, they also take care of me. They give me a lot of strength when I share good ideas or good calls. So yes, that’s it.
You really made that whole grind to reach this point. What do you think would be beneficial for Game Changers players, something that orgs, Riot, or anyone in the ecosystem could do to support them?
Jiex: For that, I think
Game Changers needs to grow in every aspect: viewership, tournaments, and, most importantly, respect for women. That has to increase. Every day, we show a lot to people. We are here, we are playing, and we are not different from any other gender. I want us to receive the same respect that male teams get. If I am being watched by 5,000 people on a stream, while a male team is watched by tens of thousands, I ask, why is there such a difference? I want the same treatment. We are working for everything we have, and some of us might even be working harder than many teams, maybe harder than some male teams, and yet we still cannot solve certain problems in our real lives. For example, look at prize pools. Organizations look at the prize money and ask themselves why they should open a Game Changers roster. If I am going to pay each player 2K per month, and I compare that with the prize money, from a business perspective, it looks like nothing, because the prize pool is basically nothing."
Question for Anastasia "Glance" Anisimova
You have attended GCC before, but for your current core, this was their first time. How was this experience compared to how your own first experience went?
Glance: "If you compare G2 Gozen and KC, it’s simply a different experience. I also think that at this Game Changers, the level is much higher overall, and all the teams arrived very prepared. Take KRÜ, for example: they have been competing in every Game Changers event, so for them, this environment is very familiar and normal. For us, I think it is a significant achievement that we qualified, that we were able to show good preparation, and that we played well throughout the entire year. I believe we deserve to be here, and I’m confident that next year will be even better."
Photo by Christina Oh/Riot Games
Question for Dmitry "SmartSeven" Smartselov
It was recently announced that this isn’t the end of your season: you will be playing in Phase 3 of Project BLENDER. What are you most looking forward to in this off-season event? What does participating in it mean to you?
SmartSeven: "The main thing we are looking for in this tournament is to see what it is actually like to play against VCT teams in official matches. In practice, we already know how hard it is, we have scrimmed them multiple times, but it will be very interesting to see how they play on stage in officials, and how we perform against them in that context."
Question for Safia "Safia" Leghzal
Karmine Corp is known at this event for having the loudest crowd we have ever seen at a Game Changers tournament. What does it mean to you and to the team to have that kind of crowd behind you throughout the tournament?
Safia: "To be honest, for a first experience it was insane. There weren’t that many of them, maybe around thirty, but they made a huge amount of noise, and I think that meant a lot to everyone on the team. They went absolutely crazy from start to finish, and they never stopped. It was insane in the best way."
Header Credit Photo: Christina Oh/Riot Games
