Chad "SPUNJ" Burchill talked to HLTV.org after qualifying for ESL One Katowice following their victory over dignitas.

Vox Eminor kicked the day off with a comfortable win versus 3DMAX, before getting to play dignitas for the second spot at the major from group B. There the team got all the way up to twelve rounds as Terrorists and despite some issues closed the map out for a spot.

We caught a very energetic Chad "⁠SPUNJ⁠" Burchill, who gave us his insight on numerous usual topics, such as preparation, matches in Katowice and plans for the upcoming month.

First off, as always, how have you prepared for the qualifier in the last few weeks?

"We just focused on four maps, dust2, inferno, cache and mirage, and we just played lots and lots of hours. That's all we could do. We didn't really prepare for the other teams we were versing, because they were both either new lineups or mixteams, or they had a stand-in, which made it hard. But we just had to come and play our game today, and that's what we did."

So you haven't actually watched any of the other teams from the group?

"We watched games that were close to the lineups that they had, recent matches, some of them had no VODs available, some of them had no demos available, so we couldn't really get a good in-depth view of what we're gonna expect. And the other teams basically got to decide what map we were gonna play, because we had to veto our weak maps."

You named four maps you play, you're not big fans of the new maps then?

"It's not that we're not fans, it's that they updated them again recently and that just makes it really hard. We just started to play them and practice them and they just changed them so much that in a limited time we had, it was easier not to focus on them."

First you were up against 3DMAX, what stood out to you in the match?

"Losing eco rounds? Versus 3DMAX the game should've been 16-7, 16-8, we just lost a lot of ecos, we played solid and made our frags, trades and surprised them on the T side. All they had on the CT side was ecos, otherwise we were beating them on gunrounds, we were making better frags, I just felt we were better players and a team in that game. The second game, it should've been a whitewash, we should've won 16-3 to 16-8, like another blowout scoreline, but we had a really really rough CT inferno side. We didn't play our game initially, we were playing very passive, very scared, which gave them a lot of room and they could rotate around. Dignitas made it so we had to play 3-2, we couldn't stack a site, we didn't have any information. And then, we made the call mid-game that we need to start playing on the mid wall and we had all the information we needed to win the game from there."

Teams from four continents will be seen at the next major

Were you at all scared at 12-12 that you wouldn't be able to get a round to start rolling? Was there a point where you just got down and thought you were going to lose?

"Yeah, about 12-12 was when I was just shattered, I didn't know why we couldn't hold our sites, we couldn't make any decent trades. Then AZR said we need to play around mid and I told the B players that in the late round when they execute on B, you have to be actually in the bombsite, you can't be coils, you have to be in the site, because they were just splitting our defence up and late round you can't do that. You have to make sure you trade out. I got a bit down, but we pulled through in the end there."

Now you have one month to prepare for the major, how will you use that time?

"We have to go home and talk about what the best plan is, but the most likely thing is that we are just going to play as much Counter-Strike as possible. What we managed in two weeks was pretty good, if we can turn that into the next four weeks and do the same thing, we can come back and maybe surprise some teams. We've just shown that we can beat the Euros now, so it's great to pop that cherry so to speak, borderline f*cking tears, I'm so happy. We probably will do a longer campaign when we come back, stay for more tournaments. Now that we've shown that we can compete, we should aim for smaller tournaments, like Copenhagen Games and then Gfinity and other tournaments where we can compete in more games and get more opportunity to show what we have as a team."

What do you think about bootcamp possibilities in Europe before the major?

"I don't think we're gonna bootcamp. I don't know 100%, but personally what I think is the best option for the team is to play at home before the major and then use the major as the reason to be in Europe and then use that as a reason to play more tournaments. So at the major we are versus the best teams in the world, in the other tournaments we are versus teams that are probably lower level, which is going to give us more exposure, more confidence, more games, more chance to better our style."

What do you think about the system here? It's BO1, it favours the surprises, but we still got a lot of close, intense, energetic matches. Then there is the issue with some of the teams playing after hours of waiting, sitting around, while other teams go game after game. 

"I think the qualifier itself is a good idea, the format of games could use work. It's all about money and time, if they had more money and more time, they could run a longer qualifier, where they could do BO3s, round robins, where you actually have to beat a lot of teams and show that you are on top of everybody and not just the team you were drawn against. I think BO3 in the short term is the best fix, but I'd like to see like an International-type qualifier system, where everybody plays everybody over days and days and days and we could actually see who the best team is."

That's it, any shoutouts to fans, sponsors, to Australia?

"Shoutout to all the Vox fans, we love you guys, everybody back home in Australia, we love you! Our sponsors, MSi, BenQ, Mwave, big shoutout to them. Management, Talnoy, GoMeZ, Rogue, Chris from Mwave as well, everybody's been a big help, thank you very much!"

Gabriel "⁠FalleN⁠" Toledo's KaBuM are third to make it through following a confident victory over dignitas, while mousesports and 3DMAX are waiting for the stage to clear up and will soon start the last match of the qualifier.

Chad 'SPUNJ' Burchill Age: 25 Team: Vox Eminor Rating 1.0: 0.70 Maps played: 7 KPR: 0.48 DPR: 0.77 Gabriel 'FalleN' Toledo Age: 23 Team: KaBuM Rating 1.0: 0.99 Maps played: 14 KPR: 0.69 DPR: 0.69