TACO: "We studied Astralis a lot"

At the beginning of the day, SK were at a 2-1 record and faced Astralis for a place in the playoffs. The Brazilians were down 4-8 before each team went on a streak of their own as the game went to overtime. After a nail-biting finish to the overtime, SK came out on top to qualify for playoffs with a 3-1 record.

We grabbed Epitacio "⁠TACO⁠" de Melo for a quick interview to find out what SK's point of view of the match was:

We should begin with the 4-8 at which point you started getting a lot more rounds, talk me through the adaption that you've made over the first half.

We started the game playing really well, the pistol was really good for us. But some details of the game, some mistakes that we did, a flashbang, the small details, made them punish us.

Then we started playing together, doing executes. We knew something about them, we knew device likes to play cat and we did something to punish him there. Actually, we studied Astralis a lot, so we were calm and confident that we could do better on our T side.

At 14-8 they took seven rounds in a row, what do you think they did better? Were there any glaring mistakes you made?

They started playing fast and we didn't expect it. In many rounds they just exploded and we didn't expect it, they exploded mid and fer was on the box, I was B, and they won this round, which was very important for their economy. Yeah, I think the fact that they started playing really fast was bad for us.

Which do you think were the key rounds for you that allowed you to win in the end?

fer's 1v2 on the B site, we were as T, he won the round which was really important for us. We earned confidence to keep winning the rounds.

Going back to Na`Vi, what happened in that Dust2 blowout and what did you learn from it?

The fact is, we didn't expect the way they played. They were gambling a lot, I watched the demo and I think they studied us as well, but it's normal. We just didn't expect it, as T we were getting punished everywhere and we weren't rolling good.

Make sure to check out the other interviews we've conducted so far at the Major:

Day four

Andreas "⁠znajder⁠" Lindberg: "I'd like to beat [...] Pimp"

Joakim "⁠disco doplan⁠" Gidetun: "We can beat everyone"

Kristian "⁠k0nfig⁠" Wienecke: "We didn't expect much vs. G2"

Day three

William "⁠RUSH⁠" Wierzba: "Our preparation was limited"

Finn "⁠karrigan⁠" Andersen: "allu's 1v2 was key"

Ladislav "⁠GuardiaN⁠" Kovács: "We came with only one goal"

Mathias "⁠MSL⁠" Lauridsen: "We had a great bootcamp"

Olof "⁠olofmeister⁠" Kajbjer: "Didn't expect Dust2"

Day two

Jarosław "⁠pashaBiceps⁠" Jarząbkowski: "I hope Gambit will be nervous"

Nicolai "⁠device⁠" Reedtz: "It was important for us to start well"

Dennis "⁠dennis⁠" Edman: "[YOLO teams] will go far"

Spencer "⁠Hiko⁠" Martin: "It doesn't feel like we won"

Gabriel "⁠FalleN⁠" Toledo: "Gonna fight as hard as we can"

Chris "⁠chrisJ⁠" de Jong: "Confident about our map pool"

Day one

Fabien "⁠kioShiMa⁠" Fiey: "Everyone's happy with their roles"

Markus "⁠pronax⁠" Wallsten: "I'm happy it went to Train"

Dan "⁠apEX⁠" Madesclaire: "It was hard after jdm's 1v5"

Oleksandr "⁠s1mple⁠" Kostyliev: "Hope to show beautiful CS"

Janusz "⁠Snax⁠" Pogorzelski: "It's always close vs. OpTic"

Ricardo "⁠fox⁠" Pacheco: "We played 12-14 hours a day"

Richard "⁠shox⁠" Papillon: "FaZe can do pretty well here"

Abay "⁠HObbit⁠" Khassenov: "We prepared for everyone"