GL assistant coach: TYLOO’s firepower on Mirage was too strong; we lost every time we tried to take duels / gunfights

After GamerLegion were eliminated from the FISSURE Playground 3 group stage following losses to FURIA and TYLOO, Denis “Grashog” Hristov took some time to speak in an exit interview.

Interviewer: What are your impressions of these two matches?

Grashog: Yeah, the first match was definitely more exciting, because we thought we could beat a top-five team. Especially after that Cache, everyone was thinking, "Alright, if we can go toe-to-toe with one of the best teams, then the second match should be a bit easier."

But the teams that can make this tournament are obviously all strong enough to cause a lot of problems for teams using a stand-in, especially because I also had to call, so the players could focus a bit more on their own roles, like when Snax was still here before. And obviously, I also had some new roles.

I hadn’t played an official match in more than eight months, and there were some maps I hadn’t even practiced once with the team, so I was trying to call while checking my notes to see what I was supposed to do. The result wasn’t too bad, especially on the T side of Cache, which was actually pretty decent. But obviously everyone knew what the situation was, so we weren’t especially disappointed. To be honest, I was just more upset about the Mirage against FURIA.

Interviewer: It must have been pretty crazy to suddenly call against a top-five team. Had you ever imagined something like that would happen before?

Grashog: I know that for every event, I’m the official substitute because it’s the easiest option logistically. We don’t need to fly anyone else in, and I still play the game myself. My individual level isn’t at a professional standard right now, because I’ve been coaching GamerLegion for over—well, close to a year now. I think it’s been eight to nine months.

So I was completely out of form, but I was still playing on FACEIT, at 3500 Elo. Sometimes I could still get one or two kills, and those were the kills we needed to win rounds, like you saw against FURIA. But overall, it was really difficult, especially because I had to stand in without any practice.

So yeah, I’d say we’re just disappointed that, aside from EWC, we haven’t been able to play a proper event with our full lineup at the start of the season, with FL4MUS and our new addition. We ran into some issues earlier on at the beginning of the season. We’re still building synergy. That was still the early stage with Tim [FL4MUS].

Then we ran into the Tauson issue again. By the way, he's still dealing with some health problems, but at least today he was able to travel and play. Last time, we had to use Maden as a stand-in. We also had to forfeit a BO3 because Snax had a very important doctor's appointment that he had to attend.

His passport somehow got damaged, and obviously that was out of our control. It was just a random issue he only found out about at the airport. It's a tough way to start the season, but these are things we can't control, so it shouldn't affect us too much.

Interviewer: I think everyone is curious about how the passport ended up getting damaged. Can you share anything about it?

Grashog: I don't know the details, but as far as I know, he had one of those older passports where the most important page is made of paper. The newer ones seem to be plastic — mine is plastic. So there was a very small tear in his passport, something completely random, and he probably didn't even notice it himself. Someone at the airport spotted it and didn't let him through.

GamerLegion tried everything to get him here, literally everything. Temporary passport, expedited visa, all of that. But it just couldn't be done. I only found out 20 minutes before I had to leave for the airport: “Denis, bring the mousepad you normally use,” because when I travel I usually bring a smaller one. “Bring the big one, because you might have to play.” There's no way to prepare for something like that.

We had hoped... because obviously, if every player was at his best and I was just there to help them, we could have won those matches. I drop an AK-47 every round. I take the MP9. I create space / draw crosshairs for them. I do everything I can to make the game easier for them. But sometimes... for example, TYLOO on Mirage has very sharp aim / hits hard. We lost every time we had to take duels / gunfights. It is just hard to play like that.

Interviewer: Talk a bit about your role as the team's assistant coach.

Grashog: Yes, imd and I usually split a lot of things 50/50. Obviously, he has the main decision-making power. He often looks at the bigger-picture stuff around the team. I tend to focus on the micro details, some of the small positioning setups, the specifics of what we are doing. Also, Snax, Adrian [imd], and I all speak Polish, even though I’m Bulgarian, so it’s easy to work together. We just split the responsibilities, especially at the start of 2026.

In the first half of the year, we already showed that this approach could work well. We were happy with how we were working together. But at the same time, we hope we can get back on track this season, because unfortunately things don't look too good right now.

Interviewer: What plans and strategies do you have to qualify for the Major? What do you think the team will do next?

Grashog: Yeah, we talk about that with management a lot. Which events should we play? How should we schedule things? Our coach Adrian says, "It's simple. We have to win. We have to win matches." [laughs]

Right now, we're planning to only play LAN events. We have two coming up: Logitech G Play Connect in Warsaw, and then an event in Belgrade. Besides that, we also have some plans for October, since the deadline is around then, at the end of October.