arT: "Our style is really good against Astralis', and we took advantage of that"

After FURIA stunned Astralis in Group A's decider match, we spoke with Andrei "⁠arT⁠" Piovezan, who broke down the team's run at the event and analysed the series against the Danes.

The Brazilian dark horse continued its gallop at the ECS Season 7 Finals, as FURIA successfully bested Astralis yet again, this time eliminating the defending champions from the event in a three-map series.

Following their second triumph over the Danes, we spoke with arT to break down the team's run in London and discussed the reasons behind their struggles against NRG and their semi-final pairing against North.

Take us over the opening match against Astralis - you managed to take down the Danes 16-14 on one of their strongest maps, Nuke.

For us, Nuke has always been a map that we have enjoyed playing, so when we learned that we were going to face Astralis, we immediately imagined that it would be on Nuke. We prepared a lot for it and that is a map where we really feel comfortable. We knew it was going to be tough but we were confident about our chances.

You gave NRG a run for their money in the opening match of Dallas, but here you were unable to recreate a victory in London, falling 0-2, the latter map being Nuke, one that has proven to be one of your strongest. What went wrong in the second series?

I think that is a problem that we tend to have against teams who are a bit more loose. I prefer to face teams like Astralis, who are more tactical, because our style is really effective against a structured team, so when we get a team like NRG, who play loose, our game is not as fluid and we struggle a bit more.

Best-of-ones give the underdog leeway, but a best-of-three requires deep analysis. Before we break down the recent best-of-three against Astralis, take me through the preparation you and guerri had before the match.

To be honest, we almost did not prepare anything for this BO3, because we had little time and our preparation would be about things that we already knew since we had already analysed their maps. With Astralis not having played in a long time, there was nothing to analyse. So our preparation was all about exchanging ideas and talking about our game and what we wanted to do

Inferno didn't quite go your way, in that you struggled on the T side, concluding with a 5-10 deficit. Difficulties persisted on the CT side, meaning a loss. What felt off in the first map?

I think that, at the start of Inferno, we had several rounds that we should have won, I remember the first gun round, in which we lost a 4v3. We could not snowball the game or get some momentum, and that began to weigh on us, so we had a very weak T half.

In my opinion, our CT side was the result of that, we lost the pistol and, since we were really behind, it was hard to come back. I think we played well as CT, but since we had the pressure that we could not lose more rounds, we ended up losing the game.

Mirage, on the contrary, saw a solid T performance at 8-7, followed by a comprehensive CT side that saw the Danes secure as few as three rounds. How did you swing the momentum in your favour?

We created some momentum early on and, since our T side was a little bit better, it was easier to come back as CTs. We won some rounds in a row and we built up an economy. That is a map that we enjoy playing - that is why we picked it -, so we were able to do our game and several rounds worked in our favour, I think we won a 3v5 and a 4v5. We played really well on Mirage.

Nuke was the final map of the series, and you managed to once more beat Astralis. Initially, it was thought that they would hit the books and take you down given a second chance, but the opposite happened. How was this achieved?

To be honest, we thought that they would not expect us to pick Nuke. Since we had defeated them, we got to pick the last map, and, between Overpass and Nuke, we went for Nuke, which I think was a surprise for them. I think our style is really good against theirs, and we really took advantage of that.

As Terrorists we were trying to get as many rounds as we could, just playing our game. We were behind when we began the CT half and we turned it around with good rounds, good defaults, it seemed like Astralis did not have a good response to our defensive setup. We kind of took advantage of that and had a very solid CT side.

In the semi-final you will be facing North, who are a relative unknown due to the recently-adjusted roster. What are your initial thoughts on tomorrow's match-up?

I have not yet stopped to think about North, I do not know them that well, I have never downloaded one of their demos to see how they play, but, from what I have seen from them, they seem to be a very slow team, which, as I said before, is really good for us.

I think we have a great chance to win because of this. It will be a tough game, we cannot afford to make many mistakes, but I believe we have a chance to win.