Image: Ubisoft/Joao Ferreira
In what’s been a season of learning for MNM Gaming, the young gunners have started to apply what they have learnt at the Jönköping Major.
Despite infamously not being early birds and struggling with 10AM games, the team quickly got to work with an upset against Soniqs. After a 5-1 defensive half on Chalet, they quickly closed things out in 7-3 fashion. They then rounded out the day with an overtime victory against the highly experienced roster of CYCLOPS athlete gaming, pulling off a superb comeback.
Fatih “Solotov” Türker was unquestionably the star of both games. Against Soniqs, the Turkish player was 10-0 in K-D by round three and finished with a 15-5. He was also crucial against the Japanese team, with a 13-9 K-D and a 5-2 entry record.
This is not new for Solotov, who has been on hot form in the EUL as well. With more than 30 entry kills to his name, his aggression has become a vital hallmark for MNM.
“I don’t care about my KD stat that much but obviously it feels good when you press tab and seeing yourself playing good,” said Solotov in an interview with SiegeGG at the end of the day. “But, my K-D doesn’t affect my gameplay or mood. Only stats matter for me are the entry stats since that's my main job as a first entry of the team.”
In MNM’s first game, Soniqs banned Oregon to pick Chalet, a map that the North Americans had not played a single time throughout the entirety of Stage 3.
“We didn’t know how Soniqs play Chalet,” said Solotov, remarking that his team was surprised at the pick. “We didn’t expect a 5-1 on defense … I’ll be honest, we were aiming at getting three defenses and skip the hard part later since Chalet is pretty much attacker-sided.”
While MNM are still inexperienced at this level, with this Major only their third international appearance, Solotov implied that they got somewhat of a reprieve in the first game, “since Soniqs were playing pretty default and slow [and] some teams play like that in Europe.”
However, that was far from the case in the match against CAG, who MNM had never played before.
After eight rounds, though, CAG had the game under control. The Japanese were on match point and it looked like they would get the three points.
“Cyclops had such a unique play style that we never played against, it was forcing us to adapt and we couldn't adapt on defense,” said Solotov. “We managed to bring it back on attack since I knew we could come back easily with (the) current attack meta and we were playing (an) attacker sided map.”
However, Leon “neLo” Pesic lived up to his words before the Jönköping Major got underway.
“This is one of our biggest strengths, we almost never give up, and we always think that we can win no matter how behind we are, it’s a really good mentality to have,” he had said.
That mentality was on full display against CAG. At one point four rounds behind, MNM eventually not just forced overtime, but also won the game after winning six rounds in a row.
“We had multiple come back like this before, especially on Chalet, so as soon as we made 3-6 I knew we were gonna win this game,” Solotov said.
Now, MNM Gaming are in first place in Group A -- a situation few would have expected just 12 hours ago. Black Dragons will be their first opponent tomorrow, with MNM facing another early test at 10:30AM CET. Soniqs will be the team they close out their day with, as they look to beat the North Americans again.
“For tomorrow it’s just another day on the server, we are aiming for six points and make it out of groups to show people we have the potential to win it all,” concluded Solotov.
MNM Gaming find themselves progressing to a Six Major playoffs for the first time after barely missing out in Berlin in August. Catch them in action, starting with the first game tomorrow morning.