chopper: “The first thing karrigan fixed was the morale within the team.”

The first thing karrigan fixed was the mental aspect of the game, especially during tough matches. And more than once during this tournament [PGL Astana 2026. — Ed.], during the match against FURIA, during the match against Team Spirit... Yes, Team Spirit lost, but you could see how the team fought back from tough situations, staged comebacks, and was constantly on the verge of victory. They were very close, especially in the match against FURIA—they pulled off two absolutely incredible comebacks there. And what do we see after all these matches? We see teammates coming out and singing the praises of their captain everywhere. And that’s actually awesome. And when teammates truly see the value of their captain and support him... Here, NiKo talks about how karrigan has become the very element we’ve been missing all along. kyousuke also notes that karrigan is “a crazy guy; I really like his calls in the middle of the round, I trust him 100 percent.” m0NESY points out what a great captain he is and what a great approach to the game he has—a fun, vibe-filled, charismatic guy. “His playstyle suits us really well—the way he calls plays, the way he communicates, the way he presents ideas to the team—he’s a really great captain.” Even TeSeS noted that karrigan’s arrival changed the team’s emotional dynamic. That’s a huge plus.

While watching the games, I saw the very details we discussed on the stream earlier. I answered your question about how karrigan will take on such aggressive roles on many maps and create a lot of space for his young teammates: jumping out, running fast on timing, breaking the timing of the defaults, trying to occupy zones without infas faster, and overplaying many situations, creating chaos on the server. <...> The Falcons weren’t known for that before; they always played more slowly. That’s another plus.

The question is how much and how long Finn Andersen’s energy will last, because this is very taxing. I mean, as long as you’re in the honeymoon phase, as long as everyone’s on the same page, everything’s fine—you’re in a good mood, there are no hard feelings, everyone believes in each other, everyone supports each other, we’re all sweet and cuddly, we play. But if this doesn’t work out within four or five months, I think that could already be a major downside.