ztr: "I believe we can go pretty f**king far"

The Swedish captain talked about the team's resurgence and the 'Zero T Rounds' meme.

GamerLegion are just one victory away from the Shanghai Major's top-16 stage after moving past Brazilian duo FURIA and paiN on the opening day of the event.

It's now six wins in a row for the international team, who have gone from strength to strength since the 0-2 start to Europe RMR A. "It's like a light switched on us," Erik "⁠ztr⁠" Gustafsson told HLTV after beating paiN. "We've been playing lights out, the energy has been good, and I think any team we face we're going to be confident, no matter who, no matter the ranking."

Date	Matches
Perfect World Shanghai Major 2024 Opening Stage
01/12/2024	The MongolZ 09:40 GamerLegion	Match

GamerLegion will need that confidence and more on Sunday, when they face The MongolZ in an advancement series. But even if they fall short against the Mongolian side, ztr believes, now that the pressure is off, that his team will continue to make waves at the Major. "I believe we can go pretty fucking far."

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If you cannot see the SoundCloud embed above, you can listen to the audio for the interview here.

You've made your jokes with Zero T Rounds, but it's been a clinical T side from you against paiN and in the previous one against FURIA as well. Tell me about these two games, it seemed like it was all in your control.

On T side the first four rounds were a bit shaky, we kind of trolled a bit, but after that everyone was playing really well, and, not to glaze myself, but I thought I called pretty well. But on the CT side it started to feel a bit shaky, we were losing a lot of rounds where we had advantages, and to be honest, at least I felt a bit like it was getting out of hand. But we managed to win, I think we won two forcebuy rounds, which was pretty good, and we closed it out, which is all that matters, I guess.

Usually FL4MUS isn't a guy who ends up in a lot of clutches, but he does end up in some late-round scenarios, flanks, and he pulled off a couple of clutches here. How important was that?

It's really important, especially with this guy, if he gets one of those important rounds, the other team, the crowd, all of us are going to hear it. He brings so much vibe, so much joy and excitement, and I think he brings all of our levels up just with his energy.

You have racked up a bit of a streak, it started off all the way from that 0-2 start in the RMR, you came back from that and started off the Major with a good run. Heading into the qualification game against The MongolZ, are you confident?

Ever since our two losses in the RMR we've been really confident. It's like a light switched on us. We've been playing lights out, the energy has been good, and I think any team we face we're going to be confident, no matter who, no matter the ranking. Yeah, I believe everyone's feeling great.

Can you explain to me the Zero T Rounds reference?

As you probably know, on HLTV or all of these games, there are a lot of people commenting, and on Twitter especially. My name doesn't mean that, really, but since I'm the IGL and people like to throw shade, a lot of people were commenting it on my Steam profile, in comments, on Twitter and everything. For me, I just think it's kind of funny. I kind of embraced it and I thought it would be a cool idea for my sticker.

But is it a reference to any game in specific?

No, no... They just write it.

It's just a meme that turned up.

Yeah, exactly.

Okay. How are you guys feeling about the potential of going into the next stage? It's the first Major for you, and you're in a position now where you can take a step further. Is that source of more pressure?

Nah, I don't think we feel that much pressure right now. Most of the pressure, and I heard a lot of people saying it and I believe it as well, all of the pressure was in the RMR. Since we've qualified, it's still stressful but it's a whole different type of vibe playing in the Major than the RMRs. Now we've already made it, you can say, and we're just seeing how far we can go, which I believe we can go pretty fucking far.