gla1ve: "I feel like we are on the right path again"

Astralis picked up two wins and one loss so far at the tournament, with the most recent victory coming at the expense of Gambit (16-13 Cache, 16-8 Overpass).

gla1ve admitted that, in hindsight, the AWPing decision for the Major wasn't the right one

Following the game, we got some insight on how Astralis felt after Markus "⁠Kjaerbye⁠" Kjærbye's departure, their team's role issues and his difficulties leading the team.

After the Major, the player change came in form of North getting kjaerbye. Can you give me your thoughts on that, how it happened and how you were as a team at that moment?

We were feeling pretty good as a team I think, we were, of course, sad about losing at the Major, but we knew that we just changed roles and that we could fix our mistakes, so I think that everybody was really motivated to go back and play with the old playstyle, with device as the AWPer. It came to a big surprise to all of us, I must admit, that kjaerbye decided to go to North. It was nothing that we would ever expect, to be honest.

As the two best Danish teams for the last two years, has this raised the rivalry [between you and North] to a new level?

I guess so, we always had a big rivalry against North because they are the second-best team in Denmark I think, maybe Heroic is up there right now, but they are really close to each other. We just want to be the best in the country. I'm not sure that anything has changed [in terms of the North rivalry] though, I don't think so. We always had that rivalry and we will always have it, I think.

You picked up Magisk and are playing with him now, what are your thoughts on his 2017 and why did you decide to pick him?

Ever since the first day I started playing pugs with Magisk I found out that he is an awesome player. He is really good, he has sick aim, he is really young and hasn't peaked at all yet, so it was the perfect decision. He also fits perfectly into the system that I wanted to have, and he fits in socially as well, so that is really good.

Limited time I guess, but how has the preparation for this event gone?

Preparation has been a bootcamp and some practice days home. I think with Magisk it was 10 days or two weeks in total of preparation for this event and Katowice afterward. I feel that we are pretty well prepared and I think that we are playing really good right now. We didn't play good against G2 yesterday, but both today and against Liquid I was feeling really smooth and I was being a good in-game leader, something I think I've been lacking a bit in the last... half year I think. So I'm really happy that I can still show the guys that I'm a good in-game leader.

Why do you think that was? Is it having standings that influenced it or was it already happening before that?

I'm not sure, I've felt a bit drained of energy and motivation maybe, and I'm not quite sure why, but I'm definitely working on never getting there again. I've been having a lot of talks with zonic about it and he has been helping me a lot. I feel like we are on the right path and I feel that we are not going down that road again.

You mentioned it before, device going back to the AWP. When he came back in for the Major you decided to use dupreeh as the AWPer. We can't judge it that much because you didn't play that many games, but do you think that maybe wasn't the right call, looking back at it?

Yeah, looking back now I must admit that it wasn't the right call, but back then everything just felt so good. When we played with a stand-in and dupreeh was the AWP it felt good. We had role issues with dupreeh and kjaerbye and that is why we did the change, because dupreeh wanted the same role as kjaerbye, and he couldn't have it as kjaerbye also wanted it. So device said that dupreeh can have the AWP and that he can take his role instead. It was a bad decision, but it happens.

Give me your general thoughts on the tournament here, as a full BO3 swiss system, how has it been for you guys?

It is probably the best Swiss system I have ever played. Getting so many BO3s is just an amazing feeling as a player. You don't ever play a team in a BO1, which can be a little bit random. I just like this format a lot.