markeloff: Don't want to face dignitas

FlipSid3 only have a single match left in Katowice, as they are sitting at a 2-2 record and await their last match-up for a spot at the major.

We grabbed Yegor "⁠markeloff⁠" Markelov for an interview right after FlipSid3's narrow victory over Immortals. He talked about the new format and pause rules, as well as the last two Trains they have played in Katowice.

As one of the few teams that had a lot of time prior to the tournament, how did you spend it in terms of practice?

We used the time like always, five days a week, one week before the tournament we had like six days of preparation. Nothing else, it was just hard because of a new player [wayLander], we started from the beginning with all our strats to make him feel comfortable with the new strats, spots, names, everything for him was new. It took a lot of time for him to be a part of the team. 

Obviously there's this new format, what are your thoughts on the Swiss system overall?

Actually, it's pretty good, I like it. It's something new, there are no random groups, it's pretty much a fair system. 

Another new thing, the rules about technical pauses, I know you received a warning in the first match - what do you make of that?

We actually had no idea that we couldn't speak during the technical timeout, it was like "what?". It sounds fair, I mean, you can type, so it's not a big deal overall.

Can you? I don't think you can type during them...

We did, I don't know, no one told us anything about that (laughs).

You played four matches so far and I definitely want to touch on the two Trains you played, the last couple of maps. Against OpTic you couldn't really get into the match at all, what happened?

Oh, man, I have no idea what happened. I just didn't feel good myself, I had a lot of warmup time. Maybe the problem was that I had too much preparation. Before this match, against Immortals, I had like 40 minutes max, deathmatch or with bots, to not overplay. A problem, at least for me, yesterday was that B1ad3 told us 11 tactics that OpTic have and that's just too much information. I was really nervous during the game, when I saw a smoke, I tried to figure out which of their 11 strats fits that smoke. That was pretty confusing. But today it was pretty fine. 

Does it happen often that you overanalyze teams that you face, seeing as B1ad3 is such a strategical leader? 

Actually, this was the first time that we really overthought it. Maybe it's because no other team has 11 strats on T side, come on, why do you need so much? Usually it doesn't happen.

You have one match left, do you have a preference on teams you would or wouldn't like to face?

I don't care what team we're gonna face. Of course I don't really want to face dignitas, not sure about the rest of teams. I just really want to win.

Why dignitas?

It's just a bit of an uncomfortable enemy for us, I guess.

Make sure to check out the other interviews we have conducted during the offline qualifier:

Jake "⁠Stewie2K⁠" Yip: "We didn't expect Mirage vs. mouz"

Chris "GoMeZ" Orfanellis: "Got an option to stay in RNG"

Mathias "⁠MSL⁠" Lauridsen: "We have to stop losing to ecos"

QiFang "⁠Karsa⁠" Su: "We changed our style for Immortals"

William "⁠RUSH⁠" Wierzba: "We choked against Gambit"

Edouard "⁠SmithZz⁠" Dubourdeaux: "Format good for big teams"

Robert "⁠RobbaN⁠" Dahlström: "G2 are our biggest threat"

Aleksandar "⁠kassad⁠" Trifunović: "Nobody will gift us the win"

Martin "⁠STYKO⁠" Styk: "Have a lot up our sleeves"