cadiaN: "Me, jabbi, and stavn are used to cleaning house at the RMRs, and now we're in a completely different state"

The Dane feels confident in his team's chances to keep on winning at the RMR.

Astralis are alive to play another day at the Perfect World Shanghai Major Europe RMR B after a victory against B8 in the 0-2 elimination pool. It didn't come easy, either, as the Danes were two rounds away from elimination and it took a massive comeback to not fall by the wayside.

"If we manage to qualify from 0-2 down, losing the first map [of the 0-2 game], then being down 11-4 on map two, then it doesn't get much more fairytale than that," Casper "⁠cadiaN⁠" Møller told HLTV after the match. "But there's a long way to go."

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Okay, back to winning ways, how does that feel?

Still a bit tough, definitely not an easy game. They had many good rounds, many good individual plays. We're still in shakey form. With very limited practice with br0, maybe you could expect that, and with higher stakes now, our calmness that we had in practice might not necessarily transfer to official games. But we definitely expected a bit more from the first two games, and a bit today, than what we have shown.

But if we manage to qualify from 0-2 down, losing the first map [of the 0-2 game], then being down 11-4 on map two, then it doesn't get much more fairytale than that but there's a long way to go. Also, with how Buchholz works, we still need to win three best-of-threes. We meet Eternal Fire tomorrow, so... tough.

How late did you find out about the device thing? Were there any warning signs?

We had one day heads up compared to when the news came out. Six, seven, eight days of practice. Not a lot.

With br0 coming back in, how hard has it been to bring him back into the fold? There's been lots of role changes since he left, so what's the process been?

He's playing all of his usual roles, so for him it's plug and play. Staehr changed a lot, and now he's going back to his old roles. And of course I've been AWPing and IGLing for many years, and I was just getting used to rifling in-game leading positions but now I have to change it up. With the broken elbow still healing, I don't have a lot of time to play individually as well.

I would even say I've been a bit embarassed at my individual level so far this tournament. I showed signs of life towards the later stages of this game, but yeah, definitely underwhelming from me so far and I want to step that up. The calling and communication has been pretty good but I need to be able to be both.

We have seen flashes, your ace today changed the game, and you were always more of a high impact than a high quantity AWPer. Are you still feeling able to get the reads in these situations? Is that coming back?

Because of the insecurity I sometimes feel, I feel like I'm putting bandaids in different places rather than putting myself exactly where I would want to be in a specific round. Maybe I'll have to be a little more selfish in the coming days. I definitely still feel like it's possible, like you said with the ace, the shots can connect and I know what to do in certain scenarios. But also shaky scenarios, and shaky moments.

How is the arm? It was probably against doctor's advice you played the last event, so how is it feeling now?

It's getting better, to be honest. I'm not that impacted when I'm playing, it's more the leadup, the amount of individual play that's not possible. Having not played any deathmatch for four weeks, it's hard to expect the same results but that's the standard I'm trying to put myself up to.

Astralis. We all know they've missed three Majors in a row now. Are you feeling that pressure?

Not necessarily. There will always be pressure at RMRs. Me, jabbi, and stavn are used to going to the RMRs and cleaning house so many times in a row, and now we're in a completely different state in terms of team cohesion, teamplay, time together. Of course that can be felt, but there's always pressure at the RMRs. If you can't handle that, you don't deserve to play at the Major.

There's also the media stuff, you're filming a documentary here, how different is it to be at an RMR with Astralis?

Not too different, I would say. Maybe we will see when we reach the bigger stages, there are definitely some Astralis fans cheering outside [the hotel], giving some good support. I wish we could give them a bit more back, so that's kind of the plan. But overall, not too much of a difference.

Eternal Fire tomorrow, it's a tough opponent for a 1-2 game at the RMR, how are you feeling for that?

They are in the same position as us. Since the Pro League run, they have been dropping form and looking rough. We beat them in Rio, and we are looking to do that again. There's some different ways the map veto can go, so that's a little bit exciting. But that's one of the teams where if you put yourself in this situation, you expect to draw a team like them, and you have to beat them. I feel confident we can do so.