flusha: "Our playstyle is not the best yet, but we are getting there"

HLTV.org sat down with Cloud9's new in-game leader, Robin "⁠flusha⁠" Rönnquist, to talk about their preparations coming into ELEAGUE, their narrow victory against FaZe and more.

Cloud9 gave a good account of themselves against FaZe in ELEAGUE Invitational's opening match, running out 2-0 victors after two very close maps that went to overtime.

In this interview, the 25-year-old Swede shares his view on the team's preparation coming into the event, replacing Maikil "⁠Golden⁠" Selim as in-game leader, and the goals set for this event and the upcoming Major.

Let's begin with the preparation for this tournament after a lackadaisical weekend in Los Angeles. How is the team's atmosphere at the moment versus a week ago?

Our team atmosphere is a lot better coming into this tournament of course. We thought that we were going to go far at iBUYPOWER, but with the tournament having all of the problems it was pretty demotivating. We didn't really care a lot about that tournament, and I think most other teams didn't. Coming here, we feel like we should win this tournament, considering how the other teams have performed so far. So things look great so far.

What are some things that you could take away from last week? Did you have an ample time of practice before this event?

Yes, we did not really have much practice time, but we did get just two or three days in between. We figured some stuff out on Mirage after losing to fnatic on that map at iBUYPOWER. We played with Zellsis some more and added one more map to our map pool. We got some things done but far from good enough.

Valens was not present here today and instead Rambo was behind the team. How much of an influence has he had on this team thus far?

He has had some influence. He gives us great input every time we take a timeout and he looks at all of the other teams before we play them. He is doing great so far, even though we don't really know each other yet, he's been doing his job very well, I think.

Let's jump into the game. Both first halves went your way, but things began to crumble after reaching map point on Overpass and Mirage. Tell me what began to go wrong during those second halves.

I think FaZe were playing riskier, which is good for their players because they are all really good individually. They also don't have a lot of team chemistry right now. They started playing in a way that we weren't comfortable with, I guess. Once we actually got to overtime we were able to talk about what they were doing and we were able to find solutions quickly. The overtime games seemed pretty easy. I think we just needed a quick break going to figure stuff out.

What did you talk about during the break before those overtime rounds?

We were mainly talking about how they were playing. They started doing some things that we couldn't figure out and that resulted in overtime, but we just talked because they never really changed positions on Mirage. For example, GuardiaN would just sit in CT spawn. So we just found solutions and learned how to deal with it and take map control somewhere else.

FaZe made some adjustments in the off-season with the additions of YNk and AdreN. What kind of identity did this FaZe squad have compared to the old guard?

They pretty much always play all over the place, but when they had karrigan, they had a lot more structure. Now, it's more random, the way they are playing. It does not have a lot of structure... They never really mixed stuff up.

Confidence issues came about last weekend with Zellsis playing his first LAN in a top-level environment. It could have been LAN jitters, but he seemed very comfortable today. Did he find his confidence here?

I am not sure if Zellsis was confident last weekend or not. We just keep telling him to play his game and do what he is comfortable doing. No one is going to say anything to him if he does something wrong, we just try to teach him and give him experience. I think he is really getting into it now, and he showed during this match that he can hang with the best.

RUSH mentioned that he likes your slow playstyle. How are you feeling in this role as the team's in-game leader?

I'm pretty comfortable. In-game leading isn't my main role, and I am someone who doesn't always want to do it. I have always had the ability to do it, and I don't mind leading. If my teammates trust me leading, then I'm fine doing so. Yes, the slow pace playstyle and getting everyone on board are hard when we have had only ten days total with this lineup. It isn't the best playstyle yet, but we are getting there.

I am going to be the in-game leader until at least the Major. Then, we are going to see when Golden gets back, but for now, I will lead.

What are some of the goals you have set for this tournament and for the Major?

First of all, we should feel comfortable on every map that we play. Of course, there will be a lot of mistakes on different maps. Right now our goal is to win, but for the most part, we just need tournament experience on all maps and to play together as much as possible. We need to really get [Zellsis] into the system and to teach him as much as possible leading up to the Major.