AdreN: "We're playing the same way we were playing with Zeus, just with seized calling"

Gambit lost the opening match in Marseille to Liquid, but were then able to beat Space Soldiers and take revenge on the American team to qualify to the quarterfinals, where they became the executioners of yet another American team, this time Cloud9.

With a 1.23 rating so far, AdreN is finding his old form again

In the interview, Dauren "⁠AdreN⁠" Kystaubayev runs us through the team's preparation since Denis "⁠seized⁠" Kostin joined, how the team has changed with the addition of a new IGL, the map picks in their last two matches, and the expectations for the CIS derby in tomorrow's semifinals.

Since I haven't had the chance to talk to you guys yet all tournament, can you run me a bit through the preparation you had coming into it?

When we picked seized up we trained a lot, we practiced like ten hours per day, and we discussed a lot of things. We wanted to find our way the play, what works better. After two weeks we decided to make seized the in-game leader so that Hobbit and me could have more firepower, like before, because when we were leading it made it hard for us to show our individual skill. We practiced a lot and I think we just found our way.

Yeah, bringing in seized as an in-game leader, how has that allowed you to go back to be the player we used to see, who had more impact on the game? Did Andi have any impact being able to call in freezetime?

Actually, we're playing the same way we were playing with Zeus, just with seized calling. Everyone on the team can call mid-round, and he's the guy who decides whether we're going to do that or not. We didn't practice with our coach calling in the freezetime, so we didn't experience that much here, but if in the future some tournaments will use the same rules, we'll use that.

Before coming here you guys had been struggling a bit, not getting the best results, and seized was just brought into the team, so what were your goals coming into this event?

First of all we wanted to show up, do our best, and make it to playoffs. Now we want to go all the way to the end.

Going back to yesterday's match on Liquid. You lost to them on Cobblestone in the group stages, and then they decided to not pick it in the decider match, taking Mirage instead. Were you expecting that?

We were kind of surprised that they didn't pick Cobblestone. We didn't prepare for Cobblestone, and we didn't expect they would pick Mirage. But... it happened! It is what it is.

Speaking of Mirage, you played that again against Cloud9. You started well, had a big lead, but then on the terrorist side you really struggled giving up a 14-4 lead...

Yeah, actually, as I said before, everyone can make some mid-round calls and seized makes the final call. That made us struggle a little bit because everyone knew we could win, it was just two more rounds, and everyone started to call during the rounds making it quite chaotic in our TeamSpeak. We made some good decisions, but the way we actually played out the rounds was bad. We started to be quicker and quicker, trying to end it fast. That was our problem.

After Cloud9's comeback you ended up in overtime and they had a big momentum in their favor. What did you do to reset mentally during that pause?

We just played the way we can. It wasn't our map pick so we just played our game and tried to focus. We had an idea on how to play on the second overtime, how to beat them on T-side, so we just needed to close the CT-side with a 3-0.

On Train, were you confident you could close it out 2-0 and move on?

Yeah, of course,we've been confident lately because we have been playing a good CT-side on Train. We just found a great way to use our abilities and we've been so confident, especially knowing they haven't had that much time to prepare on Train.

Looking forward, you're facing Na`Vi. How do you feel going into that match-up, any particular preparation?

Not sure, because the whole tournament we've just been playing our own game and when we start to focus on the opponents' game we always struggle, so we're just going to play our own game It's the derby, Na`Vi vs. Gambit, there's always something. It's going to be a crazy, interesting game. I don't know what will happen, but we'll see!