stavn: "We haven't found our top game after the break yet"

Astralis have been eliminated from Cologne after one-sided losses to NAVI and G2.

Nicolai "⁠device⁠" Reedtz's reign as IGL began with a bang as Astralis made four consecutive semi-finals, beginning at IEM Chengdu and ending at YaLLa Compass. Their final pre-summer-break tournament at the BLAST Spring Final didn't go as well, however, as they could only beat underdogs SAW.

Their form after the break isn't one of a world-beating team either, with the team squeezing through the BLAST Groups after a win against Ninjas in Pyjamas and now suffering an early elimination in Cologne, prompting Martin "⁠stavn⁠" Lund to say the team needs to go "back to the drawing board."

After Astralis' elimination against G2, stavn spoke to HLTV about the match against Janusz "⁠Snax⁠" Pogorzelski and company, the team going missing on two of the three maps, and their expectations for the rest of the year.

---

stavn, a 2-1 defeat, and you guys are out of the tournament after a very weird series. How would you describe what happened?

On Dust2, we just got fucked, honestly. It was our map pick, and we thought it was like a punish pick, but to be honest, we lost the pistol, and that's how it is. In the first couple of rounds, I didn't feel like we followed our game plan, and there was just a tense feeling while playing. If you want to play a good series, you need to be able to be calm and enjoy it, and I don't feel like anyone did. Yeah, we just got wrecked.

You lost 19 of the first 21 rounds of the series. Are you happy with your response on Mirage? And how do you think the team managed to find the strength to come back after such a big deficit?

The one good thing to take away from this series is the comeback on Mirage. We had a really good game plan on Mirage, and we followed it there, and we believed that we could come back. We gained some momentum on the T side, and then we just kept rolling because we had a good read on how they would respond to different things. Really happy with the comeback on Mirage.

Do you think that there was maybe some disrespect from G2's players? Because in that first round on Mirage, there was the knife kill. Do you think they got a bit too confident and lost some focus during their game?

Sure, they were playing with full confidence. They are playing really well at the moment, you could also see it in the game against Spirit, they absolutely destroyed them as well. When they are pulling out knives, obviously, it's disrespectful, you know? I've been on teams before when we were destroying a team like that, and it's the easiest thing to do. It's just disrespect.

It was quite a contested start to Ancient. You had some close rounds, but then towards the midway point of the first half, it seemed like you guys stopped believing. What happened there?

Yeah, I agree. On Ancient, midway through, there were a lot of frustrations. On the Ancient CT side, we were usually really good, but we couldn't play our game against them. Malbs was playing really well on Mid and denying our typical Mid control, so it was hard.

device looked very stressed when the camera was on him at times. What can you say about these past few months when things haven't been going your way, and results haven't been what you expected?

It's always hard coming back after a player break. You need to find the groove again, and I would say we have done that in some moments in some games. But I feel like after the break, we haven't really found our top game yet. And when you are losing rounds the way we are, then obviously some frustration comes out. So we just need to fix it.

Your series against NAVI and G2 show that you are still not quite at that level yet. What do you think that the team is still lacking?

This game against G2, and also the NAVI game, are obviously teams that we want to be able to compete with. They are top teams, title contenders, and we want to be there as well, and we haven't shown that we are there yet. I feel like before the player break, we showed it. So we just need to keep working to come to that level.

How confident are you for the rest of the season? You now have Pro League and the BLAST Fall Final, a very important event for you, and also the RMRs and the Major. What goals have you set for the rest of the year?

Right now, it's obviously tough, but we just need to look forward. Cologne is an important tournament, but the most important is obviously the Major. That's the goal for every team and the main goal for us. So now we have some decent time to be able to practice and look at what we need to fix. So we need to just get back on the drawing board, as you say.