saintmxsm : "After the midboss during the third map, I knew that we were going to win"

Following Abrahams extraordinary comeback in the R1 Tourney 02 grand final against Buff Enjoyers, saintmxsm, who put in a very solid Bo5 performance, spoke at length with Anishared and Starboy immediately after the match ended

"It’s incredibly tough to deal with the agony of those first few completely botched maps, coming back from 0-2 like that. What were your initial emotions, especially during the pause right before the final blow on the Buff Enjoyers base ? Did you all realize at that moment that you’d just pulled off an unprecedented victory ?"

They started typing "GG," and I just started jumping up and screaming for joy... I have no idea how something like that is even possible

"To start off, how did the first two maps play out ? It might be hard to recall given the emotions involved, but there was clearly a sense of fear on Abrahams side, despite the well-controlled starts, especially on the second map, where there was a 20k lead"

On the first map, the problem was simply that our coordination was terrible; while some of us were doing one thing, the rest of the team wasn't there, either due to a lack of time or because they were occupied with tasks elsewhere. But our fatal mistake came when they killed Geist and Holliday on the left side and then went for the midboss; after that, the game was effectively lost beyond recovery

On the second map, the gameplay was just really hard, there was a moment during the middle boss fight where I stole Dynamo's ultimate, I used my Warpstone to go up, but I didn't tilt my camera high enough, so I got caught in Dynamo's black hole. That’s just how the game mechanics work: normally, if an upper black hole collides with a lower one, the top one captures the bottom one, but my mistake changed that outcome. And playing against them in the endgame phase is practically impossible

Just like in yesterday's match against them, I knew we were going to win the final the moment we stole the middle boss on the third map while I was playing Viscous. I swear, I knew right then and there that we’d win; I was absolutely certain from that point on that they would start to have doubts

We kept the momentum going after that to win the third and then the fourth map, as for the final map, we were so thrown off by their draft, we didn't know what to think, we couldn't believe it.

"You mentioned Sanya earlier, things were really tough for him and Arzo on the opening maps, but as the final progressed, they seemed more at ease and confident. To what extent did their performance impact the final ?"

Yes, inevitably, the first two maps were really tough for us. You have to understand that in a team game like Deadlock, it’s not just about individual mechanics; there’s the voice aspect, communication. When you’ve already played before the match, you’ve talked a lot, and everyone is ready and comfortable. But when you show up for your first match of the day, not everyone is fully in the mental state yet, and communication suffers.

But ultimately, to be honest, if we hadn't gotten that lucky break with the midboss on the third map, Buff Enjoyers would have won the final 3–0, and we wouldn't have seen a final like this. It’s history repeating itself, just like yesterday’s match; it’s absolutely wild. We’ll remember this for a long time, and I’m sure they will too.