Magiskb0Y: Playing Kinguin isn't easy

On the first two days in Kiev, Dignitas made it past their group in a comfortable manner. Their quarter-final match-up gave them GODSENT, whom the Danes decimated after starting with a 0-8 deficit on Mirage.

Kinguin then took Emil "⁠Magisk⁠" Reif's team to three narrow maps, but Dignitas eventually came out on top and secured their place in the grand final, where they'll meet the winner of .Russia and Virtus.pro.

Read the interview below to find out what Magisk's thoughts on some of their matches at WESG were, what he expects from either possibility in the final, and whether Casper "⁠ruggah⁠" Due has to shave his beard.

Your journey to semi-finals was quite comfortable, maybe aside from the first half against Epsilon on Overpass. How did that game go from your point of view?

We had a really bad start. We kinda had to get back to the game mentally, because when you get a bad start and it's the first match of the tournament, it's always harder. When we had that, we focused on communicating a lot so we could help each other as much as possible. When you're not warmed up completely, it's difficult to take some battles you would normally win. But when you lose those battles, you have to help each other more as a team.

I'd like to touch on the GODSENT quarter-final, because that was quite one-sided, again aside from the first several rounds. I guess not many people expect much from the Swedes at this point, but then again they defeated Astralis in the relegation match. What did you expect?

We played GODSENT in StarSeries as well, and we lost the first match and had to play them again in the group's decider. And it was kinda the same here, we knew everything they were going to do. When we play against them, they're really predictable, they're doing the same and the same mistakes, so we abused what we knew from the matches at StarSeries. We had a really bad start again, but we somehow managed to turn 8-0 into 8-7. It's never easy to fall behind that early, but we fought our way back and then it was pretty one-sided, we had everything under control.

Kinguin could be considered the surprise of the tournament, a semi-finals finish and a very close series against you. Were you surprised by what they had in store?

They've been playing consistently well at this tournament. They're not making many mistakes and they don't let teams abuse their mistakes, so we knew they were really good, especially on Cobble, so we let them take it. We knew they'd pick it and we don't mind playing Cobble against a team like them, so we knew we'd most likely win it and if not, we knew we were gonna be strong on Mirage and Overpass. Playing against them is not easy, because they play really structured. We got punished on the CT side of Cobble and after that it was kinda back and forth, and sadly they got the momentum back in overtime and won it. It was a close first map, but we felt like we could've won it. 

At the end of Overpass it took you quite a long time to close out the game, from 15-8 on. Before that, you mostly had easy rounds and only lost a few clutches but then you faltered, what happened there?

We had a gunround where we were like 3v2 and we had the bomb on B site and the planter died, so I had to try and pick it up and died as well. So we threw away a round we should've won and that takes the momentum away from every team. You have that feeling when you should've won a round and close the game. When you feel like "Okay, the game is gonna be over" but suddenly it's not, your economy is bad and the momentum swings in their favour. We made some bad decisions in the later rounds and they just punished it and it ended up being a close game.

I imagine you'd rather face .Russia in the final, but then again Virtus.pro isn't such a bad match-up for you either, just going back a few weeks to DreamHack Bucharest, you had a very close semi-final against them. How would you feel about facing each team?

I feel like if we're gonna play .Russia, we would win pretty easily - but you can't underestimate a team, they're good players as well and played with each other back and forth. If we just get the momentum against a team like them, it's just gonna be a stomp. Then again if they get it and you're playing against a mix-team, then you're under a lot of pressure, because you shouldn't be losing to a team like that. 

Playing Virtus.pro, we don't mind, we mostly know what maps we'll play - Cobble, Mirage and Overpass. We played each other on those maps a lot of times now, so we know what they're gonna do and they know what we're gonna do. It's about who will have the better day and who makes fewer mistakes in the final. Last time when we met them in Bucharest, we simply were the team that made too many mistakes, so they simply won because of that.

You have this ongoing bet that ruggah has to shave his beard when you reach a final, and you did. So, will he? 

Oh! We actually haven't talked about this at this tournament, but he said that. That's right, he's been so quiet! (laughs) Okay, I hope so, we're gonna talk to him after this interview.

Will he be able to do it before the final?

Um, no, I don't think so, but I'll get pictures when he does it. (laughs) He'll regret that decision now.