RUSH: "My ultimate goal was Legends status, but I think we can get top four"

Cloud9 began their journey at the ELEAGUE Major with two losses in a row, but with their backs against the wall, the Americans came back from behind to advance to the playoffs following three comfortable matches, eliminating Virtus.pro, Astralis, and Vega Squadron.

RUSH talks Cloud9's journey from 0-2 to 3-2

After their last match, we sat down with William "⁠RUSH⁠" Wierzba and asked him about how the team managed to reset following the early losses. He also went over what Cloud9 will do over the next three days and the team's goals for the playoffs in Boston.

The interview took place before ELEAGUE drew the quarter-final matchups.

You started out 0-2 here and managed to come back with three quick wins, how were you able to reset and keep the pressure away?

Well, the first match versus G2, I think Tim said in the previous interview that we probably did too much prep work and that kind of bit us in the ass. We were expecting them to play differently and they actually countered us and they did well, for example we went A a lot and they were playing truck for retake, which is a good setup versus what we were doing. So they obviously did their homework and they played super well, NBK was playing super well.

And then Space Soldiers, I think that was a lot closer, I think we should have won, because there were a lot of clutches that we lost and people weren't on individually. We lost two antiecos as well, so that compounded into a game that we probably should have won, but credit to Space Soldiers, they played their hearts out and they'll probably make it through, if they beat mousesports.

From then on, we knew that we were still at our peak individually, so we just played our own game from then on, versus VP, Astralis, and Vega Squadron. We didn't necessarily do a ton of homework, we did like minimal homework on what their basic setups where, but we focused more on ourselves overall to make sure we didn't get in our own heads.

You now have a couple of days off, is there anything that you'll focus on specifically, or is it just going to be practice as usual and ironing out mistakes?

We'll practice if we can, if we have time, for sure, scrimming is always very important. But I think like I said before, focusing on our own game is important, maybe adding new strats, because we may have a little bit of time while we're in Boston. But if we find out who we play, obviously we'll also do some homework on them, if we have time.

A big story of your run was Skadoodle finally breaking his streak at Majors, did you get a reaction out of him, at least a smile?

Well, I could tell throughout this entire Major, even the Challengers stage and this stage, that he was really a different player and person, he was into every game, after every kill he was cheering, he was hitting so many shots, he was a completely different player than he normally is. I'm really happy to see that come out of him and after we won I could see like pure joy on his face, I'm really happy more than anything that we did this for him.

Going into the playoffs, what are you aiming for here? Previously you mentioned Legends status being a big goal, how has that changed?

My ultimate goal was to get Legends status, but I think that we can get top four. I don't think it matters who we play, honestly, obviously FaZe and SK are super good, but I still think that our map pool will allow us to have a good game versus them. For me, I think we can get top four, but obviously we could still win it as well, you never know.