ELEAGUE Group A final interviews

The ELEAGUE Group A final between Cloud9 and Luminosity delivered many unexpected variables for CS:GO's television premiere: overtime, long dormant players rising, and numerous comeback scenarios.

Although it was 2:30 AM by the time the players got around to answering questions put to them via the media, we have managed to collate some of their most interesting responses below in the interests of the general public. The questions were asked from members of various press organisations.

Cloud9

At what point were Luminosity able to turn the game around on Cobblestone and force overtime?

Andrew "⁠Irukandji⁠" Timmerman: I think it was...it must have been 13-11, it came down to a 2 v. 2, or a 3 v. 2 maybe, but we lost the round and they got it back to 13-12 and our money was kind of shot so...I think they hit B then, we had four guys there and somehow shroud got caught with a smoke out or something so that was unfortunate.

Jordan "⁠n0thing⁠" Gilbert: I'd say we read them pretty well on Cobble but even then we were quite exposed to them. Even if you're ready mentally, you have got to be ready, everyone's got to be tidied up.

Stewie, when you were added to Cloud9 you were a big focal point of criticism. What has the transition been like from people doubting you to being on a star level and having your name chanted?

Jake "⁠Stewie2K⁠" Yip: I try to focus on the people who support me. I get a lot of support off the camera, I feel like that's where a lot of the support comes from. So I try not to focus on criticism a lot and for those who criticise, they know that I can actually compete with these guys now so that's pretty good. So basically I try to focus on positives rather than negatives.

Were the strengths identified in the group final preview, such as being a playmaker for n0thing and being an entryfragger for Stewie2K, present in today's games?

Jordan "⁠n0thing⁠" Gilbert: I saw your write-up on both of us and I think it's true...Stew definitely opens up a lot of rounds when he's able to get out there. And me specifically as a lurker, when I seem to open up rounds I get a high success rate since I'm getting leading kills.

At the same time as you saw on Cobble, Tyler came in with the kills so with the stats it's sometimes hard to say who will open up rounds for the team.

Stewie, on Dust2 the commentators said you seemed frustrated and were making aggressive misplays and getting hasty. How true is that?

Jake "⁠Stewie2K⁠" Yip: I wouldn't say it was hasty. I really didn't pay attention to the scoreline. Luminosity are a hard team to beat and the way they play is so surprising sometimes. I try to help my team set the pace against them so it's in our control.

How proud of your team are you and what's next for Cloud9?

Jordan "⁠n0thing⁠" Gilbert: I'm definitely pretty proud. The amount of preparation we've had, I don't think we can be too upset. Luminosity has developed their team for the past year and I'm definitely looking forward to getting that momentum back for us.

A lot of people that questioned our hunger to win should know that they're wrong now because all we do is sit in a house together playing this game trying to put NA back on the map.

Brazilians are a good representation, it doesn't matter where you live, and I'm happy that they've taken some of that prestige away from us. I think we're all as North Americans, and as Cloud9, ready to take that stigma [of not trying] away from our team because we know we can compete with the best, as was seen tonight. We just have to keep that attitude and stay focused.

Luminosity

How did it feel to lose Mirage?

Gabriel "⁠FalleN⁠" Toledo: They played super well. The thing I'd like to mention is that we made a mistake on the round where it was 5-2, we lost it due to a silly mistake and things fell apart after that. But n0thing had one of the best games of his career in my opinion as well.

Zews, what was it like going up against Irukandji on Cloud9?

Wilton "⁠zews⁠" Prado: I mean against him specifically I can't say. But against the overall team we came into the first map a little weak and they just completely played out of their minds. Their post plants were perfect, they had perfect flash timings to catch us off guard and get the best situations possible.

And on Cobblestone, we had an advantage at times but we weren't able to think clearly and gave away a lot of rounds and they definitely deserved to see the series go to a third map.

What did you guys say going into Dust2 to keep your focus?

Epitacio "⁠TACO⁠" de Melo: We've played many tournaments and it's new for us, this kind of situation where we're down. We just reminded ourselves to keep strong and have a good mentality...

Gabriel "⁠FalleN⁠" Toledo: But what I said was, "we will wreck them." We went to the third map to wreck them. Unfortunately we lost a lot of rounds on CT because we wanted to finish 16-1 and we couldn't. They played so well at the end.

coldzera, did the tattoo affect your play and/or was it a distraction?

Marcelo "⁠coldzera⁠" David: No *laughs*.

It didn't affect my gameplay at all. I underperformed on Mirage but that's not because of the tattoo and I picked it up afterwards.

Was the match against Cloud9 harder than you guys expected?

Fernando "⁠fer⁠" Alvarenga: I didn't expect it to be that hard and they definitely surprised us. On Mirage, we did some mistakes and they exploited connector a lot and props to them since they had a lot of well timed stuff.

One thing I'd like to say is that we haven't had a lot of time to refine our Mirage because of attending tournaments. We didn't practice it all this past week so it's been like three or four weeks since we've been able to go over Mirage.

Is the strongest Luminosity we have seen or are there improvements to be made?

Lincoln "⁠fnx⁠" Lau: We still have a lot to improve and especially there are some mistakes we spotted that we need to correct. And we also need to keep practicing because to keep the number one spot in the world is very difficult.

Are you guys satisfied with Dust2 especially since you've lately been getting better at it?

Gabriel "⁠FalleN⁠" Toledo: We started really playing Dust2 against North American teams and getting better at playing it so that's why we left it for the third map. And it was pretty lucky that we didn't win the knife round because our T-side was super good and we wanted to play as CT if we won the knife round.

Did you guys have a talk about how to stop Stewie at some point in the second half of Dust2?

Gabriel "⁠FalleN⁠" Toledo: No we don't usually have talks about how to stop specific players, the only time we did a talk was after the Mirage game because of the mistakes we had made so I talked to the guys afterwards and told them "Guys we lost this game because of those mistakes" and we focused on playing more disciplined afterwards.

This coming Tuesday kicks off Group B of ELEAGUE Season 1 and although HLTV.org will not be present on-site for the second group, we will still make sure to gather statistics, match summaries, and demos for your pleasure.

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