TACO: "fnx is not leaving SK"

SK have joined Virtus.pro in EPICENTER: Moscow semi-finals after a 2-1 victory over their Summer rivals G2 which included a 16-0 bashing on Train.

After the match Epitacio "⁠TACO⁠" de Melo talked to us about the quarter-final and commented on the rumous concerning Lincoln "⁠fnx⁠" Lau in the following interview:

Three months ago you played a lot against G2, two finals against them, how did you feel about the match-up after such a long time? Have your expectations of G2 changed from then?

No, it's always a hard game against G2. At this level of the game when we face top teams it's always hard, we never feel like it will be easy or different. Before the match we felt really ready for the game, we practised this week to fix the problems that we had in the group stage, so I felt confident before the match and we did well.

Talking about the 16-0 on Train, I guess the only thing to be asked is: what the hell happened? 

Train is actually our best map, I think if you look at the stats, I don't remember the last time we lost it. We have a really good Train since we built this team. I remember the first Train that we played was at DreamHack (FACEIT Stage 3 Finals) and we played against fnatic in the grand final. The first map was Train, it was our first time playing this map together and we won. So Train is actually our best map.

Going over to Dust2, how good of a shot did you think you'd have on possibly G2's best map?

We had a good chance on Dust2, but we lost some crucial rounds. One of these rounds was me and FalleN against bodyy I think, it was an eco from G2 and we lost this round, I overpeeked and did bad in that round. Another round that we lost was a forcebuy when they were T side and went B and we lost a 3v2 situation, this round was crucial. We had many chances to win Dust2, break their money, but we didn't. We feel good playing Dust2, but G2 play it well too. 

For the last map you basically chose between Overpass and Cobble, as it was quite obvious G2 would veto Nuke in the second round, what was your thinking behind that choice?

We played G2 on Overpass three times and we lost it three times. We're practising Cobblestone hard, really hard, we have new things, we won against HellRaisers cleanly on it. We feel confident on Cobblestone.

I want to ask about the internal issues FalleN mentioned in our earlier interview, as it's rumoured fnx is leaving SK, do you have any comment on that?

The internal things in our team should stay in our team. fnx is not leaving SK. I can assure you we're focused on winning this event, we'll continue practising and working hard.