gob b: "Now I finally feel like the tournament is starting for us"

BIG started the Major with two straight losses on Inferno, getting only five and one round versus Liquid and Natus Vincere, respectively, to go 0-2 at the tournament on the first two days.

On the third day, the German side met North, switched things up with Cobblestone and managed to clinch their first win, with Johannes "⁠nex⁠" Maget clutching a few big rounds for his team in crucial points.

gob b went in-depth on BIG's struggles at the beginning of the ELEAGUE Major

After the match, we sat down with Fatih "⁠gob b⁠" Dayik to talk to him about BIG's matches and about the trade-off of having a week worth of practice extra as opposed to being able to warm up at the tournament:

What happened in your first two matches here against Liquid and Na`Vi, where you only won five rounds throughout two full Terrorist sides?

What really happened is... we don't know yet. We tried to figure out what happened at least in the first game, I don't know how many key grenades we missed, but we missed so many nades and that's why we also played Inferno in the second game. We knew exactly that it would be Inferno against Na`Vi, it's a really good map for them. We were really prepared and we knew why the first game was bad, because the practice went very well, so we also said "okay, Inferno, we feel really comfortable, we will do it again in our map pool and surprise the teams", which clearly worked in one way but not really for us (laughs).

In the end, the plan was that we have a surprising map, really, really strong, and in the practice it went really well, we had good ideas, new ideas, good stuff, what is really hard to do on Inferno, because the map is so limited. That's why after the first game we said "okay, we had an off game, we missed this grenade, we would have won, he would have been blind there..." After saying that we prepared very hard for exactly just Inferno against Na`Vi and then we just got crushed and we didn't have the flow, we lost confidence, I guess, and we didn't play like we played in practice, even though that was the plan. In the end, I think we played a little bit without confidence and also the stuff we prepared didn't really work out, we don't know why yet, but then we said "let's try another map, we're not out yet, but it will be hard, we know that, but we go game to game and hopefully we will get good opponents in a way that we can beat them."

I heard you really wanted to play North in this round, is that true? Was that a matchup that you were looking forward to?

No, not really, for me it didn't really matter, because I felt like we didn't even we played anything, I couldn't have any aim duel in the first two games, we didn't even arrive in Atlanta, today we arrived and I felt like we had such good preparation for this tournament, we had really structured everything that we needed, we developed as individual players, and that's why I was so confident before.

Now, seeing that we didn't even play like in practice, the first two days took away a little bit of our confidence, and now on the third day, finally I feel like now the tournament starts for us, now we need to go 3-0 if we want to do it. So, the opponent, North, we played a few praccs against them, I thought they would be really strong in this tournament as well, obviously practice is not everything, but I also felt like they were well prepared. I was also impressed by their T side yesterday against Astralis and I felt like they should have won the game. North wasn't an easy opponent or something like that, I feel like 0-2 opponent would be hard, like Virtus.pro is obviously not in form, Cloud9 is not in form, you couldn't say if North is in form or not, and we weren't either. In our two matches, everyone was shaky, that's why it didn't really matter who we were facing next.

Were you happy about Cobblestone coming out considering it is North's best map?

To be honest, we thought they would ban it, because I felt like other maps could be better against us for them, but we knew that it's a really good map for them, but we said that if we play Cobble and we go out with Cobble, then that's how it is, it's one of our best maps, it's one of our maps where we feel comfortable, and we also played a few praccs against them on that map, we had some reads. We were a little bit prepared for Cobble, we took it when it came.

After the first half, 6-9, that's more or less standard on the CT side, but obviously you had a strong T side afterwards. Can you tell me about the key points that allowed you to close out the match in your favor?

Obviously, the key point was that nex was clutching, we won some clutch rounds. Unfortunately for them, they lost the pistol, so they had a really hard game, but I felt like our CT side was really weak, we should have won much more rounds where we had some reads on them that they like to pressure one site and surprise us on the other.

That's what they did in the first gunround and our AWP didn't kill anyone even though they contacted him, so we had some rounds where if the game went well for us, we could have even lost the T pistol and in that case we wouldn't have needed all of nex's clutches. The clutches from nex were the key point to close out the game.

I remember this conversation we had about nex in Romania at either the Minor or the Main Qualifier before the last Major, where you were talking about digging nex out of a hole sometimes. He didn't show up in the first two games, but now he stepped up with those clutches and overall a really good performance...

Yeah, we talked with the whole team about what happened on Inferno and everyone said "I have no idea, I had a bad feeling, I couldn't even have an aim duel" and then we said "okay, try to stay calm, that's what we can do and try to have a good mood going on." The mood was not bad at all, even though we were 0-2 and had six rounds overall, we said "okay, maybe it was the map, we don't know," because we don't know what is going wrong and that's what's normally one of our strengths, that we know what's happening, why we're losing. On these first maps, we didn't know, and that's why the mood was obviously a little bit that it was the first time that we have been in this kind of a situation, that we didn't know what went wrong.

Yeah, nex is obviously sometimes in a hole, but lately we got stronger mentally, he also had a good mood throughout the tournament, obviously we weren't really happy after the two maps, but the mood wasn't bad or we didn't even say like "you played bad" or "I played bad," we didn't even get the chance to play well and I think that was the first time in this tournament that we had the chance to play like we had.

You guys had a rough going in the first rounds, a lot of the Legends that only came in a couple of days ago had a similar route, with North being the biggest example right now. How do you view the trade-off of having a week more of practice versus being able to play and warm up in offical games at the Main Qualifier? Is rustiness a big issue?

I think it's a really big advantage, to be honest if we are Legend teams, we cannot whine it about it, but I think if you say it an honest way, I think it's an advantage for them. They played, they have a good mood, they have a good groove. Even though we know we can watch them for one more week, we can watch the games, that should be an advantage for us, but the flow always overtakes any strategy, flow is the most important thing in Counter-Strike and they obviously have better flows. Vega had a really good flow going on and they started out well at the tournament, or QB Fire.

I think it's an advantage for them and I hope that for the next tournaments it would be different. The offline qualifier shouldn't be at the Major itself, now it looks like they changed the system so the next Major would also be like that, the offline qualifier teams staying and playing the tournament after that.

Does it also come down to the Major being scheduled for after the break, where most teams took a few weeks off?

Yeah, I think it's also really bad for the Legends teams in this state, because after the break, you have only practice, you have no official games, and obviously if you have official games, it's like an online cup maybe, you don't want to show everything, but to be in a competitive mood is really important.

I think that was also one of the biggest parts in the summer for us, we had one month straight competitive mood, two weeks there, competitive, two weeks there... and I think that's a really big advantage. But obviously if you are a Legend team, you need to know how to overcome that, and we're still struggling with that. Hopefully now I feel like "okay, that's how the environment is here" and we feel more comfortable being here for the third day now.