FalleN: "No reason to pick Cache"

In the first match of the ELEAGUE Season 2 playoffs SK took down Dignitas after two one-sided maps and a tight decider on Overpass.

To find out more about the win, we talked to the Brazilian mastermind Gabriel "⁠FalleN⁠" Toledo who revealed his thoughts on the veto, Emil "⁠Magisk⁠" Reif's SG and what went wrong on Mirage.

Let's start with the map veto for the best-of-three here. Dignitas banned Train so Cache was open but you decided not to pick it. Can you talk me through the veto process?

The veto was pretty simple, both teams don't really like to play Cache. We don't play Nuke, recently we have had bad results on this map so we made a change for Cache. And Train, people know we are unbeatable on this map right now so they are trying to avoid it. We could've picked Cache but that wouldn't make too much sense because we know that we have other strengths as well, where we are super good, but they are not as good as well. There was no reason to pick a map that both teams are unstable on. So we decided to go this way, they decided to pick Mirage because it's a good map for them and we've been sloppy recently on. For the last map we decided to take out Cobblestone, they had a chance to pick Cache or Overpass, but I don't think they had the balls to pick Cache.

Moving on to the first map, Dust2, how did it go so smooth on the T side?

I think they were a little nervous on the beginning, we got them making rotations, I think first or second gun round we were catching them out. So our strategy was getting people rotating and they were making those mistakes. And when they lose rounds like that, they can have a feeling that everything is going wrong. So we had a great T side, coldzera played good in this half, he had great clutches as well and we played good as a team. We were hitting our shots and we played better.

On the CT side, on the second round you had five UMP's, something you often do but it can be shaky sometimes. You almost lost that round, do you think that's maybe a bit of a risky buy on Dust2 because of the long ranges?

So UMP in my opinion needs a nerf. I think it's too cheap for the damage it can do - you can really kill someone from very far away with an UMP if you are strafing and shooting and hit headshots. That's insane, for a gun that costs $1200 it's too much. I think UMP's are super strong right now. The point is, if your team is building the economy on the second round it's fine to lose the first gun round. You can lose it, if you can take out two or three guns and if you win the following one that can mean three rounds for you.

Then you moved on to Mirage, you probably watched dignitas' matches from DreamHack where they played 42 rounds against Kinguin so I guess you had a good understanding of what they were going to do - but you couldn't stop their T side. Why was that?

We had an off game individually speaking, for some of the players that were playing on the A site. And they didn't take to much attention on taking mid control, they were being more explosive. The first explosion they did we were in a 5v3 but they managed to win it. There were some mistakes, we were a little too fast and they played well as well. There were other ones where we had a chance closed it but we didn't succeed. So it's a combination, losing the clutch rounds and both pistols and having an off map in terms of being picked off, mainly on the A site.

So we saw magiskb0Y using the SG on the T side almost all the time. Did that surprise you and did it change in any way the way you were playing against them?

We were getting pretty frustrated in the start because it isn't not that often people use it. But I remember a match I played back in the day, maybe in the beginning of the year, I bought an AUG by mistake against fnatic and I was killing everyone even though I never play with this gun. So sometimes it can work, it depends. I think he just bought it and was doing great with it so he decided to keep it.

The last map was pretty close, It seemed like they were going to close it out, make the comeback, but you managed to get a double entry on B in one of the last rounds and win it from there. Can you talk me through the last few rounds, what was the struggle on the T side?

So we lost the pistol round that gave them a little advantage. We could've won the first gun round but we made an mistake on the execute and I think k0nfig shut us down. On the other rounds, I think we won one but they broke our economy so it becomes very difficult again. I think they adjust very well and we went for a different approach and different executions and we won it from there.

On the T side you have a very slow approach on Overpass, that cost you a round or two because you just had to YOLO rush in the end. Tell me about the mindset behind the very slow T rounds.

Overpass is a map on which people can get very aggressive, so if you go very fast you can get punished. It depends on what you expect from the other team, we were expecting a little more of a aggression in the beginning so we were waiting. So it looks like we are not using our time correctly but other playstyles could've been used by dignitas - but they weren't using them. It depends on what your opponent is doing, we are trying to be ready for evereything but I agree that we took too much time sometimes. 

But magiskb0Y was pretty aggressive some rounds, sometimes successful, sometimes not…

Yeah but he lost the game because of it as well, it was 13-13, he decided to push mid and gave us the free kill that changed the game as well. Being aggressive is complicated, sometimes it can win you rounds, but it can make your team lose the match as well. 

You made another top four, making it 14/16 with this lineup. How are you feeling about your form, are you satisfied even though you are not winning titles?

I think that we are the most stable team, even if we are not lifting trophies lately, we made a lot of finals and semi-finals. That means a lot already, shows that we are close to winning it. For us it's the same mentality as before we started winning tournaments - we know it's going to happen, we just need to stay calm, work on our mistakes and be on a good day so we can finish of the tournament well.

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