jkaem on G2 loss: "Main problem today was that we were playing scared"

After the opening day of the Challengers Stage at the Paris Major 2023, Apeks were 2-0 and just a win away from making it to the top 16. In their first best-of-three, they suffered a tough loss to a rampant G2 but that didn't put the mood down in the Apeks camp.

Following their loss the G2, we spoke to Joakim 'jkaem' Myrbostad of Apeks, talking about their incredible day 1 at the Challenger Stage, a tough loss to G2 and much more.

How is the mood in the team camp, given that you are only one win away from making it to the top 16?

It was a tough loss. We definitely had a chance on Anubis to make it a closer series, but we had no chance on Inferno sadly. We are still 2-1 with two more chances, so the mood in the camp is still good, and we just have to forget this one and reset for the next.

What do you think went wrong today ?

Main problem today was that we were playing scared. We could feel it, we even said it. We were outplayed by G2. S**t happens. We knew that this most likely wasn’t the game via which we would go through, so we’ll just have to wait for our next opponent and hope it’s an easier one.

Were there any nerves in the team heading into the Major, given all the noise around the Paris Major as the 'final CS:GO Major' and it also being the organisation's first ever Major?

2-3 months ago, our goal was to qualify for the RMR, then it became qualifying for the Major and now we’re here. Of course now at 2-1, our goal is to make it to the next stage, but overall we’re happy just being here. We believe we can do damage, and that’s why we’re 2-1.

On the first day of the Challengers Stage, Apeks wrote themselves in the history book with a 16-0 win over Grayhound. At what point during the Grayhound game did you think the 16-0 was actually possible? What was the mood like during the game?

I don’t think there was even one instance where we thought it would be 16-0, at least not before the half-time switch. We took it one round at a time and when the game started, we still thought they could come back at 3-0, 5-0, 7-0 and so on, so we told ourselves to not lose focus.
But at 15-0 we were like “Let’s do it, let’s get the 16-0."

Given how inconsistent a lot of Tier 1 teams have been in the recent past (apart from FaZe), with no one able to consistently put up back-to-back strong performances in the big events, is this the best chance for teams such as yourself to cause some big upsets?

I definitely think we can make some upsets. I’m not going to be unrealistic and say we are going to win the Major, but we definitely have our chances, especially in Bo1s. You could see that in our match against Liquid yesterday. We were the better team and we deserved to win. We can fight against anyone in a Bo1 but I’m not quite sure about Bo3’s yet. But I am confident we can do some damage.