sgares: "Cobblestone isn't ready"

Cloud9 were up against Titan in the inital round of group D in the first and only even match so far, which went into two overtimes. They came out victorious in the end, take a look at what Sean "⁠seang@res⁠" Gares thought about the match and the new maps being played:

Sean "⁠seang@res⁠" Gares: "We started off winning pistol and then we knew the antieco strat because they ran the same setups and everything against iBUYPOWER at G3 in London like two weeks ago. I've been showing the team the demos the whole bootcamp so we knew what they were gonna do. We knew they were gonna rush three long, two cat, that's why I kept on saying in-game that we're gonna play flex, give up long and play in between to use that range against the CZs, Jordan's in-ear fell out of his, so he was hiding in the site and a guy killed him.From there, honestly it was only like mid-B split, mid-B split, mid-B split, they kept pounding our mid B. It was getting kinda frustrating cos NBK was flanking us on cat. It was a really strong mid B they kept running and we couldn't stop it. But going into OT, when we played them again, we had to make some adjustments, which we did obviously.To talk about the second half, I guess I called the pistol round and it was a complete anti-strat of their gfinity, cos they were four A and ScreaM B, and said: We're gonna spot mid and if we see one cross, we're just gonna walk out mid and flank ScreaM B, and we did. From there we just kinda snowballed, we won all the important rounds to break their money. Even when they won a round, they won it with only one guy left and then we'd win the next round - a huge 2v5 B hold on a post-plant. It's like that all games we played against them, really down to the wire and whoever's lucky comes out on top, and today we were lucky."

Sean "⁠seang@res⁠" Gares: "We started off winning pistol and then we knew the antieco strat because they ran the same setups and everything against iBUYPOWER at G3 in London like two weeks ago. I've been showing the team the demos the whole bootcamp so we knew what they were gonna do. We knew they were gonna rush three long, two cat, that's why I kept on saying in-game that we're gonna play flex, give up long and play in between to use that range against the CZs, Jordan's in-ear fell out of his, so he was hiding in the site and a guy killed him.

Sean "⁠seang@res⁠" Gares: "Yes, I did actually, we've been playing in Europe for a while now and I know fnatic has been playing those maps a lot, LDLC has been playing those maps a lot, iBUYPOWER has been looking for scrims on them so I know teams are playing them. I don't know if they like them, but they know that if they're good on them, they control the vetos and if they control the vetos they have a high likelyhood to win the tournament. A lot like how fnatic did in DreamHack and Virtus.pro did in Poland, with being good on mirage and train. Obviously teams know if they're good on those maps and they're gonna be very highly likely to win the tournament, so I'm not surprised at all to see them being played."

Sean "⁠seang@res⁠" Gares: "Cobble I don't think is ready for competitive play, it's just too big. I find when the Ts finally clear the A halls and take control of mid, there's often so little round time left, they're stuck going A at that point. It's such a big map that it hurts the Ts ability to swing between the sites, which is part of the reason why on the classics inferno, dust2, nuke, train before and mirage, you can swing between the sites and middle really well, and cobble doesn't allow that. Overpass is a really quarky map, we haven't played it that much, it's really close corridors so our riflers stand out. I think overpass could use a little work, but it's viable for competitive play."

Sean "⁠seang@res⁠" Gares: "I don't know, actually, I don't think they've been playing the new maps from the interviews and things like that. So I don't expect to play them on a new map, however who knows how things are gonna pan out in the veto. I don't know what they're gonna do, if they have any tricks up their sleeve. I know they're a really strong group of aimers, so if I were to guess they'd eliminate cobble and try to play overpass against us if it came down to that, however I foresee it will probably be played on a normal map."

You just escaped Titan by the skin of your teeth, can you walk us through the match, how did it go?

Sean "⁠seang@res⁠" Gares: "We started off winning pistol and then we knew the anti-eco strat, because they ran the same setups and everything against iBUYPOWER at G3 in London like two weeks ago. I've been showing the team the demos the whole bootcamp, so we knew what they were gonna do. We knew they were gonna rush three long, two cat, that's why I kept on saying in-game that we're gonna play flex, give up long and play in between to use that range against the CZs, but Jordan's in-ear fell out of his ear, so he was hiding in the site and a guy killed him.

From there, honestly it was only like mid-B split, mid-B split, mid-B split, they kept pounding our mid B. It was getting kinda frustrating, cos NBK was flanking us on cat. It was a really strong mid B they kept running and we couldn't stop it. But going into OT, when we played them again, we had to make some adjustments obviously, which we did.

To talk about the second half, I guess I called the pistol round and it was a complete anti-strat of their Gfinity, cos they were four A and ScreaM B, and I said: "We're gonna spot mid and if we see only one cross, we're just gonna walk out mid and flank ScreaM B," and we did. From there we just kinda snowballed, we won all the important rounds to break their money. Even when they won a round, they won it with only one guy left and then we'd win the next round. And then the huge 2v5 B hold on a post-plant. It's like that all games we played against them, really down to the wire and whoever is lucky comes out on top, and today we were lucky."

As you could see, we've already had some of the new maps, we had twice cobblestone and once overpass. What do you think about that? Did you expect to have those matches in the group stage? 

Sean "⁠seang@res⁠" Gares: "Yes, I did, actually, we've been playing in Europe for a while now and I know fnatic has been playing those maps a lot, LDLC has been playing those maps a lot, iBUYPOWER has been looking for scrims on them, so I know teams are playing them. I don't know if they like them, but they know that if they're good on them, they control the vetos and if they control the vetos, they have a high likelihood to win the tournament. A lot like how fnatic did in DreamHack and Virtus.pro did in Poland, with being good on mirage and train. Obviously teams know if they're good on those maps and they're gonna be very highly likely to win the tournament, so I'm not surprised at all to see them being played."

After playing them for a month or so, do you think they're viable for competitive play? Have you noticed any bugs, anything you think should be changed, tweaked?

Sean "⁠seang@res⁠" Gares: "Cobble I don't think is ready for competitive play, it's just too big. I find when the Ts finally clear the A halls and take control of mid, there's often so little round time left, they're stuck going A at that point. It's such a big map that it hurts the Ts ability to swing between the sites, which is part of the reason why on the classics like inferno, dust2, nuke, train before and mirage, you can swing between the sites and middle really well, and cobble doesn't allow that. Overpass is a really quarky map, we haven't played it that much, it's really close corridors so our riflers stand out. I think overpass could use a little work, but it's viable for competitive play."

Next up for you is dignitas, what do you expect from them, do you think you will play one of the new maps?

Sean "⁠seang@res⁠" Gares: "I don't know, actually, I don't think they've been playing the new maps from the interviews and things like that. So I don't expect to play them on a new map, however who knows how things are gonna pan out in the veto. I don't know what they're gonna do, if they have any tricks up their sleeve. I know they're a really strong group of aimers, so if I were to guess they'd eliminate cobble and try to play overpass against us if it came down to that, however I foresee it will probably be played on a normal map."

The last match of today is Vox Eminor up against Titan, after that the play will resume tomorrow with the initial match victors playing against each other and the lower bracket finals.