coldzera: felps brings us more hunger

After advancing from their group with two quick wins, SK faced Natus Vincere in the quarter-finals earlier today. The Brazilians survived a triple-overtime battle on Mirage and had little trouble closing out the series on their signature map, Train.

We caught up with Marcelo "⁠coldzera⁠" David after the match to find out more about SK's adjustments towards the end of regulation and the overtimes on Mirage, and asked him whether they feel as comfortable on Train with João "⁠felps⁠" Vasconcellos as they used to with the previous lineup:

Let's begin with Mirage, a very back-and-forth match overall, can you run me through the adaption you made towards the end of regulation and during the overtimes?

In the beginning, we had a new, different style of playing against them. We just waited for them to have mid control and after that we could push together to break it. We made a mistake in the 2v1 against flamie and we lost it, and they broke our economy and the game started being hard because they broke our economy all the time. But after this, we just played normal, 3-2, and gave them mid and afterwards flashed in to get some picks. We started winning rounds, won an eco, and started to play better.

When we went into overtime, we played more passive on the T side and use mid more, because in the regulation we used mid a lot and won many rounds there. On the T side we knew they played bad on B and we forced B more.

A couple of times on Mirage on your T side, I noticed you camped everywhere for a while after trading players early, perhaps waiting for Na`Vi to make a mistake?

Yeah, it's because Na`Vi started to play aggressive in overtime, sometimes they pushed somewhere and we lost some of the rounds because we played too fast. So we decided to play more passive and waited a little bit.

Going over to Train, before changing the lineup you were the best team on it, do you feel as comfortable on the map with felps as you used to with fnx?

Yeah, we're comfortable because felps is aggressive and he plays a lot on ladder and he plays well there. fnx tried to do the same in the old team, but felps is more smart and he thinks more fast. He makes plays, fast plays, all the time and helps mid, so he gives us security.

What about felps adjusting to the team overall, do you think you've reached the level you wanted with him or will it take more time?

Right now, our team is better. He's very good, he brings us more hunger, he wants to play a lot. He's really good and he brings us confidence again. Right now, I think at this tournament we can go to the final and win the finals, after the bootcamp we have a better chance.

Facing North in the semi-finals, can you talk to me about the match-up overall and what you'll need to do to beat them?

North is a good team, they have two very good players, Magisk and k0nfig. I don't think we have a secret, we'll just play our game and see what will happen in the game. We have more experience, I think we are more hungry right now. We're more focused, I think that is the solution for winning.

In case you missed some of our previous interviews at DreamHack Masters Las Vegas, here is a list:

Day four

Jarosław "⁠pashaBiceps⁠" Jarząbkowski: "NiKo wants to be Rambo of CS"

Day three

Jacob "⁠pyth⁠" Mourujärvi: "Cache got decided early"

Mathias "⁠MSL⁠" Lauridsen: "Banana needs changing"

Day two

Tomáš "⁠oskar⁠" Šťastný: "I'm here to do some damage"

Andreas "⁠Xyp9x⁠" Højsleth: "I think fnatic will do well"

Björn "⁠THREAT⁠" Pers: "Inferno still plays kinda the same"

Day one

Finn "⁠karrigan⁠" Andersen: "It would be fun to play NiKo"

Gabriel "⁠FalleN⁠" Toledo: "felps has a special skillset"

Dauren "⁠AdreN⁠" Kystaubayev: "We're confident on Inferno"

Spencer "⁠Hiko⁠" Martin: "I've never played this much"