GuardiaN: Ready to face Astralis

Following HellRaisers' victory over North, another home crowd favorite got on the stage of the Palace "Ukraine"—Natus Vincere. The CIS team defeated fnatic with two strong map wins, on Overpass and Mirage, with fnatic taking Inferno.

After the match, Ladislav "⁠GuardiaN⁠" Kovács took some time to answer questions about the veto, his AWPing and potentially facing Astralis once again.

Let's start with the veto coming up to the match, some people were surprised by fnatic not picking Cobblestone, were you surprised by the veto or do you know something we don't know?

I'd say so, it was surprising that they didn't pick Cobble, we thought like everyone that they would pick Cobble and we were ready for that. But they picked Inferno and they beat us. But I would say that we didn't play our game, we were quiet, scared to play against them on Inferno, we let them do everything they wanted, and that happened, they took everything.

About the veto, it's super surprising, me personally I was even expecting they could pick something like Train or Mirage, they are a team with balls, they can pick any map against you, but I was surprised they didn't pick Cobblestone.

The first map was Overpass, in the end it looked pretty simple but you had that 1v3 that probably helped you a lot. In general, you've been playing great, how much did the switch to you being a full dedicated AWP and s1mple almost not AWPing at all help you get back in form in the grand scheme of things?

Let's start with the 1v3, I had in my mind that I wanted to win the round, I didn't think for a second that I was going to save the AWP. I just went for the round, it happened, I hit some shots I didn't even expect. I think that broke their economy and we came back with that, mentally and everything.

About the dedication with the AWP, I was always the dedicated sniper, in the past I had some issues that I had to fix. I could play 24/7 but it wouldn't help, it was some kind of a block in my head. Now that I broke it, now that I feel my frags, I feel my zoom—even though the last map was not so good—I would say I came back, I can play freely. I feel the frags.

You already mentioned Inferno a bit, but it seems like fnatic are the team that have been playing Inferno a lot and picking up the most impressive results. Would you say that they are maybe the best Inferno team at the moment?

I wouldn't say that they are the best team or that they are not. We didn't show our best game on Inferno, we messed up stuff on T side and CT side. I think we were on some kind of 'cursed chair' and we were playing their game. I felt some kind of fear on the CT side and coming back on the T side is always hard.

I don't think either of the teams showed their best on Inferno.

The last map, Mirage, it was going pretty comfortable, but they got a lot of force buy, CZ and Tec 9 round wins. Are they that scary with the pistol?

You know, sometimes it's hard to play against force buys. For example, on Mirage, I was in connector and olof killed me with two bullets. These rounds are lucky breaks I would say, deagles and stuff like that. It's always hard to play against force buys because you are scared to lose the round, that resets your economy and you have to come back. Force buys are probably one of the hardest rounds to counter. I hate them.

In the end there was that round where you were 3v5, you stacked your three players on B and won the round in the end. Just talk me through what you were thinking throughout the round.

Well, seized called to go 3 B and if nothing we will save the weapons. Then they came B, s1mple killed the first two guys, we stayed in a 2v3 and I knew I had a molotov, but I tried to bait them to come on to the site. They helped us with the smoke they threw on the site. I threw the molly on the site so they couldn't plant anywhere, I think it was 8 seconds left. Then Edward threw a molly and we just won the round.

The first idea was, after checking the timer, I can throw the molly and deny the plant, and that happened. It was a chaotic round and we were pretty lucky with the call.

Lastly, you are going to be facing either Astralis or CLG, it is more likely to be Astralis, what is your thinking going into that match?

It's hard to say, Astralis are facing CLG, who are underdogs. You never know with underdogs, when they will have a super day and face you and they win. It's probably a 90 percent chance that it will be Astralis, if we face them it will be the third time in a row I think, with Katowice and the Major.

We will be ready for them, we will show our best game. Maybe today we didn't show our best game, but I'm pretty sure tomorrow we'll be ready to face Astralis and beat them this time.

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