The Pinnacle Cup Championship was a prime chance for Astralis to play their way into some form, having experienced a shaky year so far at best.
They have taken full advantage of the opportunity, making their way to the grand final via the upper bracket and looking like the team in the best form at the event whilst doing so.
blameF is comfortably the highest rated player at the event
With a convincing 2-0 victory over BIG under their belts, albeit a BIG playing without Karim “Krimbo” Moussa, Astralis star blameF spoke with HLTV about their run at the event and how he feels about the roles within the team.
Congratulations, how does it feel to be in the grand final?
It feels great, after a rough period for us as a team we finally get some results that we can be a little bit proud of. It’s definitely not the biggest of the tournaments that there is of course, but we’re still happy that we can be in the final of any tournament.
Regarding the veto, it seemed brave to let Dust2 through the veto, BIG are considered by many to be the best team in the world on that map, but it paid off. What was the thinking there?
We knew no matter what map we left open, that they would be the favourites coming into it, but Dust2 was the one that had the biggest surprise factor because they beat us a lot on it. I think they beat us three times in a row, so it was just the surprise factor, they might not have prepared as much.
Was there a specific game plan on the T side, because you put up an incredible number of T rounds?
I don’t think there was any “game plan” like that, we just won a lot of the correct rounds. Of course we also played a good T side, but we kept winning those rounds where they were half buying and had to eco afterwards, and when you win those rounds you gain so much momentum and all of sudden we all have 8-10k. We had so much leverage, in the sense we could take so many chances because even if we lost a round, we had money to buy.
Looking to the final itself, against either BIG or Heroic, are you confident?
We have a good chance I think, but with how we have been playing lately… before the tournament obviously the confidence was pretty low, so I don’t want to go out and say we think we are going to win it now.
It’s going to be a tough matchup whoever it is, just because we beat BIG today doesn’t mean we will automatically win it tomorrow if they beat Heroic. We just have to focus on playing good CS, like we are right now.
Talking more generally, recently gla1ve has mentioned that the team has been experiencing role issues, but you seem to be playing well and posting great stats. Have you found the right roles for you?
Both yes and no, I think recently I have, like this tournament for example. After Dallas, we sat down as a team and I said I think we should change around some roles and structure it a little bit differently, we have been doing that this tournament and I think it has been showing a lot. I’ve got some new roles, other people have some different roles, and I think it shows because our T side has been way better in this tournament than other tournaments. What we talked about has really helped us, and I think it’s the right direction moving forwards.
You’ve had some standout games recently where you’ve lost, the 40-bomb on Vertigo from the Major comes to mind; how do you feel after games like that?
I don’t really care about it honestly, because I know there are some games where I get frags because other people drop me weapons and stuff like that. Like yesterday, k0nfig dropped me an M4 and I dropped him a deagle on the last round of Nuke, and I think I got two or three kills on it, but I know that it doesn’t mean I am three times better then him. It just means my team believes in me.
I of course have a lot of the good positions, especially on CT side where I think a lot of my kills come from, so I just try to follow my role in the team and the stuff that gla1ve has called.
