HOTU were underdogs for most of the Major race, but a last-gasp tournament victory at RLG Tesla Cup has propelled the Russian squad into contention.
They now stand at 73.3% as per HLTV's invite predictor and are set to travel to Moscow for GLuck Moscow Cyber Games 2026 — their final tournament before the invite cutoff.
"The main thing is that we finally went to a bootcamp for three months. We sat in the practice room, worked, progressed," David "n0rb3r7" Danielyan told HLTV when asked about the biggest reason for their upturn in form.
"I'm glad I spent those three months with the guys at the bootcamp and went crazy together with them."
Before the first match I heard you say something like "We're not making the Major anyway, so we can relax." Was that a sincere line of thinking and expectation, or was it a way to set yourselves up to relax and play well?
We talked a lot about making the Major and so on, and we came to the conclusion to just not think about it, to let it go. We had a lot of LANs, well, we performed so-so, didn't make it to 1win and Stake events, which basically affected our chances. If we'd at least gotten through one of them, won a couple of games, maybe we'd have better chances now.
But psychologically we kind of let go of the idea that we could make the Major. And of course, we finally lifted the curse. We finally won a tournament. The feeling is cool.
Your roster changed for this season. Tell me what's new in the team, and why you were able to show yourselves at this tournament specifically?
Compared to the previous roster, I'd say we have more firepower. We brought in dwushka who's less experienced than us. But considering how we're developing, I think we're going in the right direction.
But the main thing is that we finally went to a bootcamp for three months. We sat in the practice room, worked, progressed. Yeah, at some point we won, got tired of each other, went a little crazy. But it bears fruit. So I'm glad I spent those three months with the guys at the bootcamp and went crazy together with them.
There was a funny moment. I saw on HLTV that in the first match you missed the veto. How did that happen?
Honestly, our fuck-up, as they say, we forgot about the schedule being "follow-by". We thought our match was at 18:00, so we were sitting around calmly, prepared, and then the admin messages us: "Have you departed?" And we go, "our match is in two hours". Well, I won't go into the details, we fucked up a bit.
There's going to be a tournament in Moscow soon, which is also quite important. Will being warmed up help you?
I think it'll help either way. Because, yeah, there are two Mongolian teams there, and we don't know what individual form they'll come into the tournament in. We'll be warmed up, we feel the tournament vibe.
And I'd also separately like to say thank you to Relog, they helped us resolve an unpleasant situation with the tickets, where we might have had to skip the final. But the guys from Relog met us halfway and helped by buying other tickets. So we make it both to the media day and to play at the tournament in Moscow. So everything's good, thanks to them.
At that tournament the main team is 1win. They showed very good play at the tournament before. Do you think you'll be the underdogs or it will be rather even?
I don't think there'll be a favorite there. It'll just be a battle for a Major slot. Yeah, I have acquaintances playing there and so on. But once you're on the server, that doesn't matter anymore. I hope it'll be a nice match with a good outcome. And what the outcome will be, we'll see on November 1st.
David 'n0rb3r7' DanielyanPast 3 months
HOTU
David 'n0rb3r7' Danielyan
Aidos 'kade0' Khairzhan
Dmitry 'mizu' Kondratev
Aleksandr 'dwushka' Pakhnevich
Kim 'frontales' Argunov
Rustem 'mou' Telepov