Tengis "rate" Boldbaatar still seems amazed by what his squad accomplished at FISSURE Playground 3. Despite falling short of the playoffs, 5star delivered the tournament's biggest shocks by knocking out both The MongolZ and Astralis during the group stage.
"We didn't expect it," rate confessed in a post-tournament interview. "We played our game against The MongolZ and Astralis, we really surprised them and that's it." The upset victories marked 5star's breakthrough performance at their first S-tier event.
Beating The MongolZ held special significance for the team. "Of course The MongolZ is a huge, huge name and also the Mongolian number one team. And also top 10. It's a really good run for us, it's good for our confidence," rate explained.
The key to their success? Hard work and being underestimated. "We had good practice in our country, that's why. We were working hard. [They thought] 'it's a bad team, 5star is easy for us', but we just smashed them," he revealed.
Looking ahead, rate emphasizes the importance of climbing the VRS rankings for Major qualification. He hopes these results will help secure a European bootcamp, acknowledging the challenges of developing from Mongolia. "We want to bootcamp in Europe because they have really good teams. We are Asian, we cannot play against the European S-tier top teams."
With The MongolZ inspiring a growing CS2 scene in Mongolia, rate is optimistic about finding support for their ambitions when they return home.
