AdreN: "Thanks to my teammates for bringing me to semis, now it's my turn"

Gambit are the first semi-finalists at PGL Major Krakow with their 2-0 win against fnatic, as they came out on top of a tight Train 16-14 and proceeded to win Inferno 16-12, which the two teams played against each other several times recently.

AdreN felt a lot of pressure during the first quarter-final

After the first quarter-final, we reached out to Dauren "⁠AdreN⁠" Kystaubayev to find out more about the veto, in which fnatic surprised by not banning Cobblestone at the beginning, and the match itself:

I found it interesting that fnatic didn't veto Cobblestone as they normally would, but you didn't pick it, talk me through the veto at first and your thinking behind it.

We didn't expect they were going to ban Cache and give us the opportunity to pick Cobblestone. But yesterday, we just prepared for Train, so we decided to go with our plan and picked Train. We'd be ready to play both Cobble or Train, but we prepared Train yesterday, so that's why.

The first map was quite back and forth, especially at the end, but at the beginning, it looked like fnatic were going to run away with the half and you stabilized and made a good half out of it. What went on on your Terrorist side?

First of all, we started to play our normal game, we just played the strats, the nades and stuff that we practiced before. Everything went wrong and it didn't work, so we decided to play simple, with simple nades and just go rush and hit the shots, play the 3v3's and clutch situations. Everything well went from there.

Going over to Inferno, that was a map you played three times against fnatic over the past couple of months, did you make any changes with that in mind?

No, nothing changed, maybe we just got more confidence and experience, so we just played our game, they played their game, so it was similar. We wanted to take revenge on Inferno, actually, so it all went good for us and we got it.

You said yourself that the simpler style worked better for you, are you just comfortable with the match-up, considering fnatic play quite simple as well?

This time, it was a good match-up for us in terms of playstyles. But it was hard for us mentally, it was especially hard for me mentally, because it put a lot of pressure on me. Now it's gone, I can breathe and have nothing to lose, YOLO play!

Why do you think the pressure was on you rather than some of the other players, who don't have as much experience as yourself? Did you feel any jitters from the other guys?

I actually don't know why, but I do feel that pressure, I can't explain that. I didn't feel that from the others, everyone was confident to play. I think everyone knew we were going to pass to semis, but I felt a little bit nervous and pressured, so thanks to my teammates for bringing me to the semis. Now it's my turn.

Speaking of your turn, you have Astralis or SK ahead in the semis, do you have any preference, would any match-up fit you better?

We don't care who we're going to play, because both teams are so strong and both teams will be favorites against us. We will just see who we'll play, we'll have nothing to lose.

What is it going to take for you to pull off that upset?

We will have to play our game and especially make some magic, we need that luck, that magic against these teams, so if that is with us, we're going to win.