Lucky: "I don't struggle with pressure that much; playing with veterans like kennyS and shox helps"

After G2 qualified for the IEM Katowice New Legends Stage with a 2-1 win against TYLOO, we spoke to the youngest member of the team, Lucas "⁠Lucky⁠" Chastang, to see how he has been dealing with the pressure of the event and the criticism the team has faced.

Despite starting off 1-2 on the first two days of the tournament, G2 turned it around with wins against fnatic and TYLOO, in both of which they lost the opening map to come back with two convincing showings, ending the first stage with a 3-2 record to qualify for the second.

After their match against the Chinese, where they lost Mirage due to a poor Terrorist side before dominating Dust2 and Cache, we asked 20-year-old Lucky, one of last year's additions to G2, about his first Major, dealing with the pressure of the tournament and criticism from the fans.

Let's begin with your series against TYLOO, starting with Mirage - you looked strong as CT but struggled to finish it off on T side, what happened?

It felt like we could really close out the game, but we needed something more, something was missing in our game. We were afraid to take duels and things like that. Tactically, we were fine, just missing something. On the other maps, that's what we managed to find and to do.

Speaking of the other maps, both dominant showings on Dust2 and Cache, what was different from the second map on?

On Dust2, we felt really comfortable from the start and in between the two maps we managed to say what was wrong with our Mirage and we managed to fix it. It was a lot better on Dust2 and, on Cache, we were a little bit less confident than on Dust2 because we played it a little bit less, but we went into it with the same mentality and it worked fine.

Tell me about your side of things coming into this tournament - as a rookie in this stage, how have you dealt with the pressure that comes with that?

First, I'm kind of a calm person, so I don't really struggle with pressure that much. Playing with veterans like Kenny and shox, it helps, because they know, they have been to like every Major. You just have to follow the flow with them and it's really easy, to be honest.

What about trying to match the expectations of the fans and dealing with criticism aimed at the team, which has transferred over from the previous lineup to this one?

Yeah, it's a bit hard because people expect us to really perform well, but yeah, I didn't really think about that. When we play, I just play my game and I try to leave the criticism on the side and to just play our game.

What is it like to qualify for the next stage in your first attempt?

That's really great, I'm obviously really happy because we went through a lot of trouble and things like that in the games. I'm happy we managed to step up.

Looking back at G2 in this whole stage and looking ahead into the next one, what will you focus on to improve for the next stage? What do you need to do to perform well?

I think we have to play our game since the beginning, I think we had trouble on the first maps, in the two BO1s we played. That's it, yeah, focus on our map pool and I think we can do great if we are in our comfort zone.