It was a long road to the playoffs, you had a stressful game against NAVI. How are you feeling after a night's sleep?
I feel really good. It was hard last night, I just wanted to chill, sleep, and not listen to anyone. But, the morning after feels amazing.

NAVI clutched up to take map one, what did you say between maps to come back from that?
We just spoke about resetting as fast as possible; we'd lost one map but we hadn't lost the game. We'd knew that we'd f-cked up a lot of rounds on Dust2, so we needed to reset mentally and to focus on Inferno, because we knew we'd lose some bad rounds again, and that's what happened. We were always mentally strong and we always stayed in the moment, that's the most important thing.

You've had some issues closing out close maps, especially when it comes to qualification for playoffs, what was different this time around?
I think we had mental resilience. We didn't think about what could happen or what had happened before, it didn't matter, we were always focused on what was in front of us and every round that came.

Do you think part of it is also tied to your own growth as a leader?
Definitely. I'm getting a lot of experience during those games now, especially in events like this. I have a lot of experience as a player, but it's a bit different as an IGL, it's been helping me a lot.

What's your philosophy towards your positions as an IGL? You remained in rotator roles on the CT side for the most part, but people would say that maybe some others in the team are better suited to them, what made you stay in them?
I'm trying to help with mid-round calls on the CT side, and I need to understand what the openers are doing to read the game. I think it's also better to have players like MATYS and HeavyGod on the sites to multi-kill when people are coming to them. I'm good at rotations, and I feel comfortable doing it, too, I think it's good for the team.

Do you find the calling hurts your fragging ability, though?
I've been having a good time on the CT side lately, which I hope isn't a jinx [laughs]. It's easy to focus since NertZ came, because he calls a lot of things around himself. He plays in the prime roles on most maps, so I can just focus on my crosshair.

The T side isn't easy, though. I have to focus on the whole picture, so I'm not having a good time, but it's the same for all IGLs and especially when I want to go first and take space sometimes. I have to not care about killing or dying. It would be better for the team if I can manage to focus on calling and my crosshair, though.

I interviewed HeavyGod after the match and he said the team doesn't feel close to its peak. We saw what that peak can look like back at BLAST Open London, so do you think not being at the peak here is down to how you're playing or still an impact from not being with NertZ for very long?
It's a bit of everything. We need more experience with NertZ, it's only our third or fourth tier one event with him. With me as well, I didn't play at Rio.

We're getting there, we look better after every game. It's hard to say what's wrong, but there aren't so many wrong things anyway. I hope during playoffs we'll be the real G2, even though I'm not unhappy with how we've played so far.

Vitality like to give a percentage of how close they are to their peak, what percentage would you say you're at right now?
70%.

Can you win the Major with 70%?
No, we need 100%.

Do you not think you could benefit from a slip up from anyone else and might not need 100%?
No, especially with the bracket we have. There's Spirit, Falcons, Vitality, all on our side. We need to give it our all.

You play Spirit next, how are you feeling about it?
Spirit are a great team, they had a day off against 9z, but they still won. They're in their best form now and they have donk in the team, playing really good CS, but maybe not having a coach is a positive for us.

When you see a team do what Spirit have done in this tournament where they've blown some teams away but also had struggles against another like 9z, is it important to look at what went well in their blowouts, or look to exploit mistakes that may crop up like they did against 9z?
The most important thing is to focus on ourselves, you can't know how your opponent will wake up that day, how donk, sh1ro, or anyone else might be. It's random if you want to focus on their weaknesses because they can fix them, especially when they have five or six days between their last group game and playoffs. They'll fix their sh-t, 100%.

You've won the trophy before, how are you feeling about your chances to do it again?
People aren't giving us much of a chance, we're definitely an underdog and especially in the bracket we have. We don't care about that, though, our goal was to qualify but now we've made it to playoffs, the pressure will be on the opponents more than it will be on us, so we'll give it our all and enjoy it. Whatever happens will happen.