‘I don’t think I can beat Astralis so often’

HLTV sat down with Stewie2K after the 16-6 win at Train over Astralis.

Cloud9 kicked off the day with lane team TheMongolz. Then they met the Danish team Astralis. And in both matches, Stewie2K and teammates both won, ending the first day of competition well.

Stewie2K spoke to HLTV.org about the difficulty of adapting to new teammates, the current atmosphere in Cloud9, and the usefulness of the robin format.

You guys beat TheMongolz and Astralis. The next match is completely tilted to one side, do you think you will be able to do that when you enter the match?

I was a bit surprised by the results. It’s hard to say who is the top team. I thought I could have beaten Astralis at ELEAGUE, but they fought back and won. It’s harder to say this time. We won 16-6 and that gave the team the confidence to keep going. Can’t say that Cloud9 is the stronger team today because device is sick so can’t be present to play. Therefore, the Astralis team does not have 100% of the manpower. I don’t know if I can beat them often.

Speaking of confidence, how does winning a few minor tournaments like DreamHack Denver and iBUYPOWER affect the atmosphere in the team?

The atmosphere is very good right now, I feel like people always hear positive feedback during breaks between tournaments. The members are full of energy when practicing at home. We are good friends in real life so we can easily talk to each other. We talk about work together and also share personal stories.

As for DreamHack, it’s a good tournament to win because it tells me where Cloud9 stands, and iBUYPOWER is a test case in North America. And I think we’re in a pretty good position.

As for bigger events like this, do you think Cloud9’s level can go any further, or where do you think the team ranks?

Winning the first two games gave us a lot more morale. Everyone is playing with confidence, hopefully the team can continue to play consistently like that. As for the tournament, I think Cloud9 is generally good and we can make it through the group stage.

RUSH and Tarik have been on the team for a while since the beginning of the season until now. You guys are getting used to everything. How does this progress work?

I feel like when they first joined the team and Tarik wanted to ‘call’, everyone improved very quickly. We entered a few tournaments to test it out, but we didn’t expect Cloud9 to improve so quickly. Our team is always creating new tactics, working to find our system. And after we found that system, things started to get slower than before, so everyone was trying to come up with new, more creative ways and try to work.

You guys struggled to play online in Pro League and couldn’t make it to Odense, so what happened? What is the difference between online competition and LAN?

I think it’s because at the beginning of the season, people spend too much time changing rosters. Cloud9 changing from the beginning of the season was a big mistake because we added 2 players to the team and they never played together, and one of them was IGL. It took a few months to improve and by the time it did, Cloud9 was already ranked very low in the EPL. We were able to bounce back, but it was probably too late.

As for online and onLan, I think if we change the roster earlier and can play ESL Pro League again at the current level of everyone, we will definitely make it to the EPL finals.

Let’s talk about the format of the competition this time, what do you think about the robin group stage playing in a round robin and only having 3 matches?

Round robin is really special to us. We get to meet every opponent in our group. Even if you don’t make it through the group stage, the tournament is still very useful because you can play against all the teams, which means you will have a demo to watch, to learn from, and to know what works. , what not before the top team.

As for the 2 days of competition in the region, I don’t think the players will be happy because they feel like they are in the stands and under pressure from the audience. I think the players were a bit disappointed, but you can’t complain.

Speaking of him personally, the Bay is his home. Is this the impetus to go deep into the league?

Growing up from Bay must have been a big motivator for me because I see a lot of tweets saying they went to the same old school as me and they are always watching over me. That is a big motivator. I hope the crowd will be just as good!

Source: HLTV