gla1ve: "We've always had some issues with overtimes"

We interviewed Lukas "⁠gla1ve⁠" Rossander following Astralis' qualification for the StarLadder Major playoffs about the Danes' struggles in overtimes against NRG and CR4ZY.

After going 2-0 in the first two rounds of the New Legends stage, Astralis tied the longest map at a Major with a 28-31 loss to NRG on Train before losing the series 0-2 following a one-sided affair on Nuke.

On the following day, the Danes went up against CR4ZY and once again struggled to close out a grueling encounter on Dust2, which broke the aforementioned record with Astralis losing the map 29-31 before coming out on top of the series on the deciding Vertigo.

After the match, we got a hold of gla1ve to ask him about their overtime-filled run to the playoffs:

First of all, going back to the first massive overtime map on Train up against NRG, why didn't you manage to close it out despite having a 15-11 lead and subsequently several more match points in overtime?

I'm not sure we've actually ever been a really good overtime team, to be honest. I think we've always had some issues with overtimes, maybe not in late 2018, but if you look back I remember myself thinking that we've always been struggling in overtimes and I remember looking at who won a lot of overtimes, I looked up Na`Vi and they won a lot of them. I didn't look at statistics, but I remember them winning a lot of overtimes against us, some other teams, so I was looking at them and wanted to see what they're doing differently, and I think we tried to take their approach in overtimes. It worked out pretty great in 2018, but suddenly it doesn't work anymore and maybe I have to go back, maybe I forgot something, so I need to watch it again.

What happened afterward, when you didn't have much of a say on Nuke?

NRG is a really good team. Yeah, we didn't play the best. Sometimes you have that clear vision of exactly what you want to do on the T side and we didn't have that on Nuke, or I didn't have that on Nuke, and if I don't have that on Nuke and we're playing against a good team that is hitting all their shots then we're going to have a really tough time. We need to play on the rotations of their rotations and I didn't manage to call the right things and I think that's why we lost 16-4. It could have gone closer and we had some rounds in the beginning of the match where we could have broken them and we could have gotten the momentum, but we just lost them and that's just individual skill. That happens.

Next day, playing against CR4ZY you one-up the previous match with the longest map at a Major, again having problems closing out a few advantages. What was it about that Dust2 that it couldn't seem to end?

We had a lot of map points again, I think, and I think we had like a 5v3 and a 5v4 on map point. If we can't close out those rounds, I don't know what we're doing different or what we're doing wrong because in one round I had EspiranTo in the back, it was 5v3, Peter [dupreeh] ran up slope on A and he died, EspiranTo 180d me, it's a 3v3 and we just lose it. It happens if the CT side can do some amazing shots and they did.

Now that you're through to the playoffs, do you think that after the shaky group stage you will be able to grow into the tournament like you've done in the past?

I think it's actually going to depend on who we meet, if we're going to have a tough game or not. I expect us to meet Liquid if I calculated it right, so that's going to be exciting to see. We want revenge against them, of course, so hopefully we'll be ready for that game. If we feel really confident and if we're hitting our shots on that day and I'm having a good day with in-game leading, I think we will win.