Captain MAJ3R gave an interview to the themiSSly YouTube channel! In the interview, he spoke about his career and the team’s trajectory.
MAJ3R discussed his current situation, the pre-Major bootcamp, an evaluation of 2025, his retirement plans, and how he handles criticism.
First of all, thanks for coming to the video, brother. What are you doing, how are you? How are things going these days?
MAJ3R: Hello everyone, we’re good. Right now, I’m in Serbia, we are in Belgrade. We are at Aurora’s house, working in bootcamp. Tomorrow is our last day, and the day after, we fly to the Major. So, we are in preparation mode for the Major.
So, how are the preparations going? are you satisfied? Are there areas where you still see problems? Or, as I saw from the players’ comments after the last tournament, although a championship was won, the players couldn’t rejoice too much due to the “tier” of the tournament. Of course, becoming a champion is a beautiful thing, but everyone wants better. Were there things you thought were mistakes in the last tournament? Did you fix them in this bootcamp? How is the bootcamp phase going generally right now?
MAJ3R: We tried to focus on a few points during this bootcamp. As you said, we became champions in the last tournament, but we all know as players that there were no top 5 teams there. Winning there was something that was supposed to happen for us on paper. We did it, and we are happy about it. Of course, a championship is a championship, but as I told you, as players, we were aware that it wasn’t really a Tier 1 tournament. Also, there were a few points, we were having trouble on a few maps. We are trying to work on these during this bootcamp, trying to fix them. For example; Mirage T side, a bit of Inferno CT side… We changed some things, changed positions. We will see how it goes at the Major accordingly.
Great. When we evaluate the year 2025, how do you see it generally? What were your goals, specifically your personal goals? Looking at where we are now—yes, the Major hasn’t started yet—but how satisfied are you with the rankings and play-offs achieved so far? Where do they stand compared to your goals?
MAJ3R: I’d say 7.5 out of 10. If you look at it, 2025 was a good year after all. Now there is only one tournament left, the Major remains to end the year. But overall, 2025 has been a good season for us. We made back-to-back play-offs, we made a final, two finals in Tier 1 tournaments, S-tier tournaments. Maybe 3, I don’t remember if it was 2 or 3… I think 2. And we have one championship.
Since you mentioned it, you know we made finals in a few tournaments this year. One of them was the EWC. Even though it ended badly for us, the tournament went very well overall. Especially your performance, that “clutch” on Train, what Jotta or Wicadia did, XANTARES’ plays in the Falcons match, Özgür’s AWP, etc… Even though we had a bad ending and put up a poor performance in the final, we had a great tournament. What do you think we did wrong at EWC? What would have given us a perfect ending? Was there anything that remained as a regret inside you? That’s actually what I mean.
MAJ3R: I think we couldn’t start the MongolZ match well and we couldn’t play well. We showed good CS in all other matches. The only point that upsets me is not showing good CS against MongolZ; we weren’t on our day. It was an off day. Also, we returned to the hotel at 12-1 AM the night before after beating Falcons. What time was the match the next morning? Did they schedule it for 12 or 1?
Yes, it was an early match.
MAJ3R: Exactly, we went at 10. We tried to wake up at 6 or 7 to get ready for a BO5 and all, but I think it wasn’t enough. We couldn’t be ready properly because of this. But in the end, they were in the same situation, and honestly, we just couldn’t play the match well. That is my only regret, not playing well.
Brother, you are seriously “grinding” a lot these days. I’ve been following you since the Space Soldiers days. As far as I know, back then you were watching the demos, doing the analysis, etc. Now there is a crew, but I know you still devote a lot of time to the game. does this excessive time commitment cause you any trouble in taking care of your children?
MAJ3R: Of course. After all, I give most of my time to CS. We are at tournaments back-to-back this year. I calculated it; actually, someone on Twitter calculated it and sent it to me, a French guy. He calculated how much time 3DMAX and Vitality spent at tournaments, on planes, and in hotels this entire year. Then I asked him privately, “Can you calculate it for me too, buddy?” and he did. Out of 364 days, we spent 70-75% outside. We are away. Travel, planes, tournaments, bootcamp shifts… It goes up to 80% because the guy didn’t count the bootcamps. And we did about 3-4 bootcamps of 10 days each this year. That makes another month. So think of it like this; I am outside 80% of the time, and at home 20%. Mathematically, what does that make right now? Calculating quickly out of 365… Maybe 250 days away, 100 days at home.
Around 80%. Maybe even more, we could say around 60% too. Around those figures.
MAJ3R: To be exact, out of 365 days, maybe I am home for 80 days, 70 days. All the other days of the year, we are away. I don’t see my children, I don’t see my family. Is it easy? It is not easy. Because the kids are small, they need to grow. I need to be by their side, but I do it for them. I do it for their future. And I tell this to myself constantly. Because sometimes I fall, I get emotional. I try to remind myself of this constantly. Honestly, that’s what keeps me standing. I fight for that.
Honestly, as a viewer and someone who works with you, I can clearly say this: These rating numbers are always temporary. One day you play at a top level, one day you play very low, but one of the reasons you play this game is that you are here for your family, you are fighting for your family. And I think this is much more important than ratings. I seriously appreciate you in this regard. You can’t play well every day anyway. Be sure that many people appreciate you in this regard. Many people love and support you.
MAJ3R: It’s no problem, I am a very open man. Criticism always exists. There are periods I play badly, periods I am good. These are all discussed and calculated. And at the end of the day, if there is a day I harm the team, I will withdraw myself anyway. Do you understand? I don’t see these as bad. We are in a professional environment, I have been in this business for 25 years and I am aware of these things. It’s just that for the last 8 years, my goal has been to grow Turkish teams, for a Turkish team to have a championship in esports, to see great things. Because the story ended unfinished with Space. Everything exploded in a moment; we had risen, then suddenly it blew up and we all scattered. Then I had this chance to do it again. And I want this, I do it for my family and actually for you guys, for the people who love CS… Let’s be happy together. But it’s hard, it’s not easy.
Yes, yes brother, nothing is easy. True.
MAJ3R: But just like in every life.
By the way, I came across it while reviewing vlog files recently. You said you moved to a place like Manisa in France. I am from Manisa too, by the way.
MAJ3R: (Laughs) I didn’t know that.
Yes, I’m from Manisa too.
MAJ3R: How many Turks are there?
Brother, there are some here too. I don’t remember the exact population, but it’s not considered too small. I was going to get to this; after these tournaments, when the esports sector is over for you and you consider retiring, what do you plan to do? Streaming or coaching? And do you plan to return to Turkey or will you try to focus more on the France side?
MAJ3R: No, I probably can’t return to Turkey. Because my children started school now, they were born there in France. They are in school, they entered the system. I can’t leave and return to Turkey for their sake, it would be very hard for the kids. So, I will likely be in France. When they grow up, I will probably return. My natural life… I like naturalness a bit, I like quiet cities, so I would go. I am from Aydın, we have a house in the village in Aydın, I will go there when I get old, that’s how I see myself. But this is much later; I don’t think about it exactly right after CS. I will probably need some rest. I will give myself a 6-month “off”, I don’t want to do anything for 6 months. Then I’ll look ahead at what I want to do, what I can do. Maybe inside esports, maybe not. I don’t know, my whole family is in İzmir or Aydın in the Doner/Kebab business, we have kebab places. So maybe… Maybe I’ll open something for myself in the kebab business. I don’t know, I don’t think about these exactly right now, I focus on myself where I am, day by day. I’ll look at it later.
Are there points you are uncomfortable with regarding the map pool? Specifically, “I really want this map to come back…” For example, as Turks, we are longing for Cobblestone right now. What do you think about the map pool?
MAJ3R: Well, I don’t have favorite maps really. We loved Cobblestone, we loved Cache, we loved Train, we loved Anubis… Unfortunately, none of them are here. But we don’t decide these things…
Seems like there is a structure [lobbying/politics] there brother, what do you say?
MAJ3R: No, not that much… (Laughter). No no, I’m saying that as a joke. I know what we are… But ultimately, I think we need to focus on whatever is there. But were we affected? I think we were affected. Because we were good on those maps, and losing them meant we had to work more, had to do more things. We are trying to recover from this. We put in a lot of effort on some maps. But this is it, unfortunately, this is the situation right now.
You have a very important tournament ahead of you and we really believe in and trust all of you. There will be times you lose, fall to 2-0, fall from 1-0 to 2-1. These can happen, these are things that will always happen. Our belief and trust in you is always full. Never, ever forget this. Go out there and fight. Your losing seriously poses no importance to us. I mean, of course, it’s better for us if you win, but when you lose fighting, we will always continue to support you. The only thing we want is for you to never lose your morale and continue fighting. Thanks again for participating, brother. If there is anything you want to say, let me take those from you as a final note.
MAJ3R: God bless you. You are right. Ultimately, no matter what happens, one needs to fight. I attach great importance to this too. And I express this the most to my teammates. The important thing is to fight and stay there. And God willing, we will write a very beautiful story there. I believe it too. We will see, hope for the best.