Max Marix Kugener, stand-in of the FAVBET Team CS2 squad, gave a short interview to Players portal. We talked about his career, invitation to the team and goals for this bootcamp.
You have Ukrainian roots. Tell us about your family and how long you have been living in Europe.
Hello! So, my parents met in Ukraine, my mother is Ukrainian, and my father is Luxembourgish. I was born in Kyiv and after that I moved to Luxembourg, and then moved out to the Czech Republic, where I’m currently living.
Tell us about your path in esports. Where did you start your career, how did you end up at Sprout, and last year at Entropiq?
Back then, I was playing a LAN in Germany, and was performing quite well. I played back then with a German team, consisting of tahsiN, PerX, maRky & devraNN. Since tahsiN couldn’t attend the LAN, we played with Denis on the LAN. There I first had contact with BERRY, talked with him and got to know each other. A month later, I got a message from the Sprout manager, if I wanted to trial for them, and I succeeded in the trials, and joined Sprout.
With Entropiq, it was kind of nowhere. I was supposed to join another team, but got a last minute a message from them for a talk because I got suggested by my friend oxygeN, and they liked me, so we discussed and had the same vision, so it was very easy, and I decided to join them since they had tiziaN & enkay J, and I looked up to them.
Who initiated your invitation to join FAVBET Team and how long did you take to make the decision?
The representative of FAVBET Team wrote me a DM on my socials after Entropiq decided to cease operations, that they wanted to have a talk. I had a talk with their management & IGL bondik, and we understood each other very well, so I decided to join them on a bootcamp, since I always wanted to try to speak my native language.
When accepting the invitation to the role of a stand-in, did you consider other options, were there any invitations or interest from other teams?
As Entropiq decided to cease operations out of nowhere, I wasn’t on the lookout for somewhere, so I didn’t have the best options. There was a team which was on a similar level, but I decided to go with my heart.
You have already been a stand-in at Monte instead of sdy last year, tell us how you feel about returning to the Ukrainian esports scene?
I feel great, an interesting adventure ahead.
Your team was disbanded after the news about the changes in the qualifiers for the Major, how did you handle the news then?
As we did a roadmap before we created this team, that the major is our goal, I always had it a little bit in the back of my head, so it wasn’t the biggest surprise. As I thought about it already, it was no surprise, but obviously it was & was sad, since we really had good potential.
What advice would you give to other Ukrainian teams and players who won't be able to qualify for the qualifiers by ranking, as your team was among those who disbanded their roster due to changes in the qualifiers.
You need to do this sport out of passion, you always have step backs, and in the end it’s not about the money, but about the game you love.
What language do you speak? Do you know Ukrainian? Do you expect difficulties in communication due to the language barrier?
Besides the languages you know when being Ukrainian, I speak Luxembourgish, French, German & English. After playing for a little bit, I don’t see any difficulty, I only don’t know the callouts and thats a matter of practice.
Besides, you can check the YouTube channel of FAVBET Team and see me speaking Ukrainian.
What are your expectations from the bootcamp with the FAVBET Team?
That we find out if it’s a right fit, and that we progress and learn from each other.
What are your plans for the next 3 months with the team?
If I end up joining the FAVBET Team, I'd like to be the best version of myself everyday, and progress everyday. Obviously it’s easy to say, I want to be TOP50, TOP30, but that all depends on us, and how much time and effort we put into this.