casebattles2025-04-20 07:44:3656518

xiaosaGe: "At events in China we don't feel that much pressure, not as we felt here"

We had the opportunity to sit down with 5POWER's Peng "⁠xiaosaGe⁠" Song in Moscow and heard about the team's TYLOO-esque communication issues and their goals for the future.

5POWER, the Asian representative at the EPICENTER Wild Card Qualifier, was eliminated from the tournament with two straight defeats; to Virtus.pro and Swole Patrol. However, the team stuck around and will be bootcamping in Europe for the rest of the week.

5POWER will stay in Moscow for a bootcamp (Credit: Yuki Chen via eXTREMESLAND)

During their downtime, we sat down with xiaosaGe, and with the help of a translator, asked him about the Asia Minor, IEM Shanghai, competing abroad and more.

Before this event you were at eXTREMESLAND, but except that, what has your team been up to recently?

Before this event we were involved in IEM in Shanghai, but besides that, we were playing from our base, online games. That, for us, is quite easier, because it is familiar for us to play from there. It is easier for us to communicate with each other as well. Even at events which are in Shanghai or some other cities in China we don't feel that much pressure, not as we felt here. Here we had almost all international teams so we don't quite know the enemies. Of course, they are known, but we aren't familiar with their playstyle and how they play the game, that makes it a little bit hard for us and it adds a lot of pressure.

What is the main focus for you in terms of tournaments?

In recent times, our biggest goal is to join the qualifier for the Minor. Aside from that, we will try our best to grab every chance which would give us a shot to play with international teams. Then we can use those games to find out what we are lacking, it is good for us to improve our skills and strategies.

Our biggest goal is to join the qualifier for the Minor Peng "⁠xiaosaGe⁠" Song

What do you think are your chances to get to the Minor, with all of these other Asian teams being pretty good as well?

For chances, I don't really know. Before this week our status was very good because we were playing very well. But recently we've got in some struggles, we lost our playstyle. We are going to train a lot, and maybe, if we get our status back to where it was before, we have big chances.

Tell me a bit about your team, what is the main focus of your squad, how do you win matches? What do you rely on?

First and foremost, the most important thing for us is teamwork, if everyone plays the right role in the game we can easily take the game. But there are some communication problems because we have two players from Mongolia, so during the game we should sometime communicate with them in English. And it is a little bit hard for us, CS is a kind of a game in which, if you make some mistakes in communication, you will have big issues. I think that is the main problem we should solve first.

The main communication is English, actually, but sometimes I need to translate for the others Peng "⁠xiaosaGe⁠" Song

You are mostly communicating in Chinese and then a bit in English or how does the communication work?

The main communication is English, actually, but sometimes I need to translate for the other two Chinese guys what the Mongolians are saying and I also need to translate to the Mongolian guys what the Chinese guys are saying. So it sometimes becomes a little bit confusing for the both of them. It is quite hard.

Touching on this tournament, you played against Virtus.pro and you played against them in Shanghai as well. Back then it was a very close match, you almost won, this time not that much. Why do you think Virtus.pro was so much better against you this time?

I think they are not that strong, the problem is with us because we didn't play so well. First of all, we arrived at 5AM, we came to the hotel and went straight to play the game. So we were quite tired, it was very hard for us to concentrate on the game. There is also a thing that we usually don't play that well on Train so they were in an advantage there. But still, the score was something that we cannot accept.

We arrived at 5AM, we came to the hotel and went straight to play the game. So we were quite tired Peng "⁠xiaosaGe⁠" Song

Moving on from here, what is the plan for you guys, what are you focusing on, any tournaments lined up?

We are going to stay in Moscow to train with some European teams, that is the most important thing. After that, when we are back to China, we will have some small tournament which we will attend to stay in shape. And of course, the biggest goal is the qualifier for the Minor.