Stewie2K: "[Moving to the sides] disrupted my play a little bit"

Cloud9 started things off with a narrow win over Natus Vincere in the initial round before SK sent them down to the elimination match after a quick affair on Train.

Stewie2K discussed switching roles from the middle of the pack to the sides

In the rematch against Danylo "⁠Zeus⁠" Teslenko's team, the American squad picked up two confident wins to their name and advanced to tomorrow's semi-finals, where they'll go up against FaZe.

Let's first talk about the first weeks and events that you played together with the two new players, how are you meshing together and how is the in-game calling working out after the switch from you to tarik?

Picking up tarik and RUSH, they're a good duo and they bring a lot to the team. Since we're switching IGL to tarik, we're basically a brand new team. Instead of them filling into our system, we're filling into his system, and it's going to take a while for us to get on the same page. We've been working really hard for the past month and we've been trying to get into tarik's groove and everyone's trying to help, Tim's been helping him a lot, valens has been helping him a lot, I've been helping him a lot, everyone's giving good feedback and we're just trying to build the team collectively right now.

How does tarik's style compare to yours?

I think tarik's a really smart leader, he has leader traits, he's really down to earth, he can take criticism really well, he never gets out of control with his attitude or anything, he knows how to talk with people.

The in-game style, he's a loose type of player and that kind of fits our style, it fits my style, and he throws a little structure in there so we have some mix, and it's a good mix. Right now, we're lacking a little structure, it's going to take time to do that, I think it's only the beginning for us.

Tim said in one of our interviews that you were switched more to the sides after tarik wanted to be with the pack as a leader, is that in any way disruptive to your own play, do you think you need time to adjust?

It's a little disruptive, because I've always been in the middle of the action and I've always been the first one to entry, and it disrupted my play a little bit, but in order to be a top player, you need to be a versatile player, you need to be able to adjust. If I can't adjust, then I don't belong here, but if I'm willing to take time to adjust and take criticism from others, that's what's going to make me a better player. I think right now I'm playing really well.

Going over to your matches here, I'd like to start with the big loss to SK, what went wrong there?

To be honest, I don't really think we were playing that badly, I think we might have made some little mistakes here and there and let them capitalize, but I think they were all really on point individually, and they were really scary to play against, there were really no weak points that we could see. When there was a weak point, they were always ready for it, so it was really hard to play against them.

I imagine you didn't have that much information on how Na`Vi play, but you ended up beating them on three different maps. What did you expect from them in the group?

When Zeus first left Na`Vi, I always thought that Zeus was the missing link for the team, and since he joined back, it's kind of like our team, a new in-game leader again with different players. It's going to take time to adjust and I don't think they had that much time yet, but I still think they're a good team. But, we were coming in with a lot of confidence against them, because we already beat them the first time, so we just came out with confidence and played our game.

Tomorrow you'll play FaZe in the semis, again, one of the teams that made changes in the off-season, what can we expect for tomorrow?

Well, they have five superstar players, they're all really good individually and they're all smart, they're aware of everything. In order to beat them, it's going to be a collective effort and we have to play together. If we don't play together, then it's hard to win the best-of-three, but individual plays can win you rounds, but I don't think it will win you the game.