coldzera: "Held our default on Cache"

Luminosity had to travel a rough road today as they first had a three map clash against Virtus.pro in their quarter-final of the MLG Columbus Major and then had to comeback from 15-9 and 15-6 scores against Liquid to win their Major semifinal game.

After the game, HLTV.org talked to Marcelo "⁠coldzera⁠" David, who had a particularly strong performance against Liquid, and we enlisted the help of Wilton "⁠zews⁠" Prado to translate the player's thoughts.

Let's talk about the quarter-final first. Were you surprised by Virtus.pro and did you expect such a strong performance from them?

Virtus.pro definitely surprised us. Earlier they weren't playing as brightly as they had been before and even in practices against us they didn't play like they did today and it's just amazing to see them making this kind of comeback because they're a strong team overall and we feel it's really good because we like those guys so much.

In the map picks, they chose Cache because apparently they noticed that you struggle on it, or so I heard; is that true?

Yeah they probably picked Cache because it's one of our weakest maps but we practice Cache a lot overall and we're still fixing a lot of things but at the same time we've got more things to fix.

There are separate problems on our CT-side and T-side that are still there but we overall feel that our Cache is getting better.

Moving on to the game against Liquid, what is it like playing against a crowd that is so in favour of the American team?

I can only speak for myself but personally I didn't feel the pressure that much because I'm already quite used to playing in front of a crowd that is always cheering against us, in Sweden against NiP, in Poland, etc.

We just have to work on our own psyche and as long as we have that, then crowds shouldn't matter.

Was the crowd drowning out sound though or making communication hard?

The moments the crowd got loud, yeah it was kind of hard and especially in the Liquid game [not the VP game]. When the crowd became really loud, it got in the middle of our communication and it was hard to communicate.

Sometimes even the way the crowd reacted in certain situations that were occurring, it kind of snitched the plays we were doing to the Liquid players so that's a bit of a change from the booth that we're used to playing with.

Was that the craziest shot you've ever hit?

Yeah it was a bit lucky. I killed the first guy and then I was stuck in that really hard position so I was like, "Okay I'll just try it. If I hit it, I hit it." And then I hit it. *laughs*

Some people complained that that sort of mechanic shouldn't exist in CS:GO, what do you think?

I agree that it shouldn't exist that much. There are a lot of maps where, in certain positions, the CT players can jump and hit those shots quite frequently than they should and sometimes a round that was already won is lost because of something like that so yeah it should probably be changed.

You probably knew you could do a comeback on Mirage [9-15] but did you think a comeback was possible on Cache when it was 6-15?

We have a saying actually that no game is ever won or is ever lost. If you can identify the mistake that is making you lose on time, you can always come back. In games like this we proved that this is true and we've also already had it proved against us when we lost many games that we were very close to finishing out but the score came back.

It's just something that the team has to identify and learn with and the faster we identify these mistakes, the faster things get better.

So did you identify the mistake on Cache then?

We came into the game a bit edgy and sometimes we got ahead of ourselves. When the game switched sides we tried two different set-ups than we're used too: we tried some aggro set-ups and that can either go very well or very wrong, like it did.

And we lost the buyrounds and the rounds that come with it and we were left in the 6-15 spot so at that time we just said let's revert to our Cache default, if we hold them once then we will hold them every round after that.

And we didn't change that almost to the end.

What do you think about the grand final against Natus Vincere and how it is sort of a dream scenario for you guys: first Major final and a final against your rivals Na`Vi?

I really enjoy playing Na`Vi, it's always an amazing and fun match. And yes it is a dream come true for us, to be in the finals of a Major is already a dream come true, and against Na`Vi is just a bonus for us and we know we'll be very prepared for them because of that.

Have you been tired out by the travel to events this year or are you still good to go?

I could still travel a bit more! *laughs*

Tomorrow is the final day of the MLG Columbus Major and will feature the grand final: a duel between Natus Vincere and Luminosity. Make sure to tune in!

stich writes for HLTV.org and can be found on Twitter