Snax: "I feel like we're just not comfortable for FaZe to play against"

A dominant 2-0 over FaZe sent G2 to the playoffs with a 3-1 record in the Elimination Stage.

G2 opened their Major run with a loss to The MongolZ, but have been utterly dominant since. The European combine did not drop another map on their way to the playoffs, capping things off with an absolute thrashing of FaZe to cement their place in the next stage.

Janusz "⁠Snax⁠" Pogorzelski sat down with HLTV after his team's destruction of FaZe to talk about the match, how G2 managed to "not fall apart" after their disappointing opening against The MongolZ, and his thoughts on the team's upcoming playoff campaign.

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Snax, congratulations on making it to the playoffs. A very one-sided game today, did it feel as easy as it looked?

I wouldn't say so, it was a tense game anyway. There were a lot of close rounds, for example on Inferno, we lost to Tec-9s, so it felt like the MongolZ game, losing 2v5 or something. But in the end we just played our game and I felt like we were not angry or mad about any of the rounds we lost, and I think this is what gave us the opportunity to snowball it.

What do you think it then made it so one-sided? It's a matchup you play quite often, so I'm sure there are mindgames about what you can play they know about, what they can play that you know about... Was there a strategic component to this that allowed you to take such a comfortable win?

I feel like we are just not comfortable for them to play against, and I think this mostly the reason. It's... I wouldn't say easy, it's tough matches, but we just had good trades and good comms today. About the maps or whatever, I don't think we played them that much, it was my third match against them and the last one was at the Fall Finals.

I just felt like we have a good map pool against them, we like to play Mirage and they have had some struggles there lately, and Inferno today we showed a good CT side and we mostly had problems with that one. I just feel like maybe we woke up on the right foot.

They didn't spend time in China, they went back to Europe, that might have also affected them. I've been here for three weeks and I was even sick at the start, so here it's easier for us for sure to wake up in the morning — that might be a reason as well, it was just an early game and I remember the first days here were pretty hard.

Apart from the MongolZ game, it seemed like a comfortable run. It was a tough loss to start because of what you were saying earlier, a couple of 2v5s you lost in the first five rounds. Are you happy with how the team recovered from such a loss at the beginning?

We didn't seem so mad after the game against MongolZ. We obviously knew we threw two 2v5s and best-of-one if you lose those it's hard to go back, and even then it was 13-10. Losing those rounds, not winning the ecos after... If we won this round and could get more as CT, we could easily end it, and I felt like it was also the first map we struggled a little bit, we weren't in the full drive mode.

Even the first gunround on T side I called to go on A and I knew they were probably gonna start on B, we were going 4v2 and we couldn't take the site from them. They were playing good, hitting good headshots, but I felt like if we played well against a team that went through 3-0 and they actually smashed every opponent on the way, it wasn't a bad score, even with us not playing at 100%.

I feel like we just did not fall apart after this loss. It felt like if we had played our A game we could have won, so we just kept going and knew sometimes you can make mistakes and lose, especially in BO1, so we didn't care.

Throughout your time with G2, you faced a lot of criticism for individual performances. It seems like you've had a good performance here, and even today on Inferno. Does it feel like vindication, are you feeling good with your individual form?

Actually, after Inferno I said to myself that I fucked up a little bit on CT because I gave away an entry I shouldn't have and stuff like this.

I really don't care about the stats. Let's say the first map I played well statistically, I had some good rounds, but Mirage even if we win 13-5 and I have -10, it's fine for me. If my calls were good and people are feeling okay with that, then whatever, you know?

After quite a confident run through the first stage for you, are you confident heading into the playoffs that this could be another title run?

I wouldn't look at it in that way. I just want to win every match, step by step. If we can win it, of course it would be nice after 10 years to lift that again, but I'm not looking at it.

It's match by match, game after game, quarter-finals then semi, you just need to focus on that. If we can play our A game and focus just on playing and not be distracted from anything outside, we have a good chance. We will see.