olofmeister: I'd rather play GSL

fnatic are currently 2-2 in the Swiss format group stage in Kiev, Ukraine, and have to win their last match to qualify for the playoffs—which would be the first time this lineup made it past the group stage since reuniting.

We talked to Olof "⁠olofmeister⁠" Kajbjer, who opened up about the tournament so far, hard losses at Katowice and his experiences using the Swiss format.

Let's start with recapping the matches you played up until now, you had one win and two losses coming into today, what were the biggest takeaways from the first three days?

We played good against Gambit, but against Na`Vi we had trouble on the T side, they played well as well but we should've managed to get a few more rounds. We kinda understood how they played in the end but we didn't take advantage of it. Also, on the CT side, we felt like we were making a comeback, but we did some mistakes, we won the second force but we should've won the first one. If we would've won the first one we would have more rounds to work with. Also, they were saving one round, three of their guys, and we were chasing them and three of our guys died in the end. I think we lost the round after that and we had a bad economy, so if we didn't chase we could've had a lot of more rifles.

Mentioning that and looking at your previous playstyle, back in the day, you were always running on confidence, taking aim duels, but now after two bad LAN tournaments, we see you focusing more on the mental approach, working on the details. Has anything changed after the first two LAN's you played, playstyle wise?

I think we need a good LAN before we can get the confidence back, but also, at DreamHack Masters Las Vegas, we played bad, we were just really bad. At Katowice, we felt a lot better, it came to the little details, we had a 15-13 against Astralis and a 3v1, if we would've won that we would have gone on through and they wouldn't. Also, against Immortals, we had 13-3 and lost, that was probably the hardest loss ever for me and if we would've won that we would have gone on to the playoffs as well. That was our fault, we choked, but they played great as well. 

We need to get to the playoffs, we didn't play a BO3 on LAN for forever, maybe in Vegas the last time, I don't know. We need to get good results, get our confidence back and when we get that rolling we will play better. We are talking a lot about small details, if we win the pistol, in the economy rounds, we need to do a lot better. We've done that at this LAN though, we've been a lot better in those rounds.

Let's move on to the match you just played against Virtus.pro. They were coming in as one of the favorites, in the end they are out with some massive losses. What were you thinking coming into this match, how the things were going to break down?

When we got Virtus.pro, personally, I was like: "Fuck". We could've got a lot "easier" matchup on paper, but I don't know, I don't think they were themselves this tournament. I think we played really good on Inferno, but they really weren't themselves. It's random, and we're getting some bad luck, we got Astralis, Virtus.pro and Na`Vi, we could've got easier games, but you need to be there if you wanna go through. The other guys beat us so we can't complain.

In the match itself, it seemed pretty straight forward. Was there anything you especially noted that worked well for you or worked bad for them?

To be honest, almost everything we did worked. We got 13-2 as T, everything worked, when someone wanted to do something he did it and got a kill. It's just one of those games when everyone is hitting their shots.

You mentioned facing very hard opponents, so what are your thoughts on the format? It's still a little bit debated, how good the Swiss is, would you rather play a GSL or the IEM format?

I think I'd rather play GSL, but with seeding though. But it's like, so weird, because we got Na`Vi, Astralis and VP, VP got SK, NiP and us. If you look at some other team, like Immortals for example, they got two Asian teams in the end. You can bend it in all different ways, but I'd rather do it with GSL with seeding.

Lastly, any special shoutouts for pasha maybe, considering the banter and all that?

No, I think no banter. I feel for him.

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