ATF on EWC 2026: “You win the group, take first place, and then after one series you’re eliminated”

Team Falcons offlaner Ammar 'ATF' al-Assaf, in an interview after the defeat to Vici Gaming in the quarterfinals of the Esports World Cup 2026, spoke about being eliminated from the tournament, assessed the playoff format without a lower bracket, and also talked about the first map.

I always feel lousy after flights. But it is what it is. Stuff happens. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose.

The tournament format is complete crap. You win the group, take first place, and then after one series you're eliminated. And you still wait for six days, which last forever. For other teams this is a plus, because they continue to play and train at this time. And you don’t even understand what to train.

The opponents just had to press their buttons to win. If you cannot gain an advantage at the start with such heroes, then this is the end. We needed to lead 10 thousand gold at the 20th minute so that the enemies could not do anything. We didn't have that advantage, so the map was very difficult.

I thought it was a useless pick, I'm not sure it made enough impact. He didn't seem like a big problem to me. The main problem was with Beastmaster and Keeper of the Light - they did too much in this draft. The enemies simply took a mid player who would not die. Instead of Slark, you could take Puck or something similar.

Earlier, Guo 'Xm' Hongsheng commented on the victory over Team Falcons, and also talked about his build on Lina and the choice of Slark for the center.