Today the FnaticMSI squad takes off for Kiev, where they will participate in the MSI BEAT IT Russia tournament, which concludes with a grand final in the Kiev Cyberarena.

Last time the team was in Kiev, they clinched the IEM European Championship with a Grand Final victory against mTw. This time around the Danes won't be there, but the rest of the Top 3 will be in place this weekend, as both AGAiN and Natus Vincere will be battling FnaticMSI and several other teams, for the $10,000 first place prize.

Before taking off, we caught up with Faruk 'pita' Pita to talk about the team's abysmal performance at ESWC, how they have coped with that performance and how he likes the city of Kiev.

You are going to MSI Beat It Russia in Kiev, Ukraine in this coming week along with several other top teams - what are your expectations for the event?

- Its going to be a fun tournament for sure. Alot of good teams, Russia and Ukraine have always produced good players so it will be fun to see what they have to offer.

How have you prepared for the event?

- We have practiced for a while now, and we see improvements in the game for sure.

You did well at IEM Guangzhou where you won, but you failed at ESWC. What was the difference between the two events?

- The difference was that there were alot of better teams at ESWC, but in all honesty our groupstage wasn't that tough and I think that we should have qualified for the brackets. I think what went wrong was that we didn't play our normal game.
Mostly in the best of one against Alternate where we played a dreadful game; maybe the worst game in my career.

How do you plan to avoid another ESWC-experience in Kiev?

- We spoke about what might be wrong, and I don't think it had anything to do with our game or tacticts. I think that the bo1 system is not something that suits us, since in bo3 you always have the oppurtunity to get back if you play a bad game - there is less pressure in BO3s. When you lose an early round in a bo1 that can be the deciding factor in that game. So to answer your question we thought about what to do before bo1 games that would get us in that state where we are 110% focused before the game starts. And we have talked about playing aimmaps with each other before the game, have a planned pistol round etc.

Last time you went to Kiev you won a major International victory, how does it feel to go back there?

- Yeah that victory was great, one of the best for me. I like Kiev alot, it's a beautiful city and alot of hot girls [laughs]. Also the atmosphere in Cybersportarena is great and everyone is very friendly, so I'm really looking forward to be back in Kiev.

You have been grouped with Moscow 5 and Selectah in the group stage in Kiev, how do you see the team's chances to progress to the playoffs?

- I think we have good chances to progress, but this type of thinking in ESWC was the one of the things which caused us to fail. We need to remove all the question about, what if, or are you going to etc. We just need to focus every match and take it one at the time.

Lions have recently pulled out of the competition, but there are still Natus Vincere, Anexis, Again and Winfakt in participation - who do you think will be your hardest opponent?

- I think there are good teams here. All of the teams you mention are of course really good and we can't expect anything but a hard match against these teams.

Any last words?

- Thanks to everyone who read this, thank you to the fans of FnaticMSI. Don't forget to check out my facebook site, where you can follow me. Thanks to the sponsors for making this possible; MSI, SteelSeries, Eizo, Gunnar Optiks and RaidCall.
And I want to thank Visar aka Madnisse for lending me Zlatan's book which I will be having the pleasure of reading while travelling to and from Kiev! PiZ AuT