kraghen: "We're not meant to get this far, but we're proving that it's possible"

The Dane believes the upsets can keep flowing in the Elimination Stage.

We caught up with Tobias "⁠kraghen⁠" Kragh Jensen, who had a smashing Anubis against Imperial and posted a career-high 2.24 rating on it, to talk about ECSTATIC's 2-1 victory over the Brazilians and what it means to qualify for the next stage of the PGL Major in Copenhagen.

Before securing a spot at the Elimination Stage, ECSTATIC — the only fully Danish squad at the Major — also beat The MongolZ and Lynn Vision in their 3-1 run, which started off with a loss to Cloud9. Up next is nothing less than playing the top 16 Swiss stage with hopes of making it on stage at the Royal Arena in front of the home crowd.

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You just progressed. How are you feeling after that one?

I'm feeling very good. I'm feeling relieved, I would say. It was a really good game. It was a tough game. Anubis was very good from us, but I feel like we didn't play that well on Inferno. I'm very happy that we pulled through in the end, this is really important for us.

Walk me through that clutch, that must have felt pretty good, right?

Which clutch are you talking about?

The Vertigo one, the 1vs3 with the little running spray at the end.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah! That was, uh... I don't know! When I shot the first guy and I heard the guy running over to plant, I was like, 'Okay, he has to be in Ivy' or what you call it in English. So I just swung on that guy and then I don't know, I tried to spray transfer or something and I ended up winning it. I was like, 'Okay, imma feel it right now, let me do something.' The guys were hyping me up and we were just all on point on Vertigo. It was just a matter of time before we closed it out.

You had your highest-ever map rating on Anubis, on LAN at least. What was that like? We heard you're sick, too, so what was it like to hit career-high form under those conditions?

It was just amazing. I felt like everything was going my way and the funny thing is... I want to give a shoutout to Patti. We forced in the second round and we lost, and then he dropped me an AK and said, 'We're gonna eco.' We call it the VP buy, the Virtus.pro buy; maybe we don't win the round, but at least we do some damage so we can buy the next round. I ended up getting an ace with the AK and I just popped off after that. It just felt really nice to have that map.

Did you feel pretty good after the veto? Someone said you weren't prepared for Vertigo, but you had Inferno which you always pick, Anubis which you've got a good record on... Did you feel comfortable after that?

Yeah, we were actually a bit surprised after the veto because out of their three best maps, they didn't get one of them in a best-of-three. We didn't know why they wanted a Vertigo decider, we thought it was going to be Overpass. Maybe it had something to do with them having to start on T side. Either way, we knew before the game started that we had a very good veto coming into this game and after Anubis, I was like... 'Yeah, this is gonna be home.'

As the sole Danish team left at the Major, you've got all of the utility damage as well. That little kobe up the ladder... What's the trick? Is it just being born in Denmark?

I don't know. I think it's random, to be honest. I think we're pretty good at fixing our mistakes in terms of nades, or where we need to use nades better. I don't think it's like, 'Oh, we're Danish, we have good nades.'

I thought it was really funny on the HLTV article with us being the best with utility at the Major because days before, our new coach casle, was saying, 'Oh, we're failing too many nades, if we don't fail nades we're going to be good.' And then they make the article that says that we're the best team at the Major with nades. I found that really funny.

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Visualized: All 24 teams at PGL Major Copenhagen

It's the flash assists, the utility damage... We can't track the smokes. But yeah, on that Danish point as well, but more broadly: You're the flag bearers, is that weighing on you? It seems like you're still playing without pressure, really...

I don't think is weighing on us, actually. Or at least on myself, I can only speak for myself. But I think we handle the pressure well and we know that we made it through the RMR, which was really hard and we know that from here on everything is just a bonus in some way. We're not meant to get this far, but we're proving that it's possible. It's very nice to be this good on Danish ground, but I don't think it's putting much pressure on us, to be honest.

More upsets coming in the next round?

Yeah, I'm pretty sure!