gla1ve on event schedule: "If this happens again maybe we will say no to a tournament, even if it is the finals"

Following Astralis' victory over Evil Geniuses, we talked to Lukas "⁠gla1ve⁠" Rossander about the end-of-the-year schedule, making the finals, and developing on Nuke.

Astralis displayed good form in Arlington, Texas, at the ECS Season 8 Finals, taking down Sharks, fnatic, and Evil Geniuses to reach the final of the $500,000 event. Following the semi-final match, we caught up with the team's in-game leader to hear his thoughts.

gla1ve revealed that he is happy with the team's Nuke improvements, despite their loss to the North American team, but shared his frustration with the schedule for the end of the year, which sees three Big events played back-to-back.

Starting with the bigger picture, the last couple of events of the year. You are obviously a team that likes to schedule events, prepare for them, and the way they are now is three Big events within a small span of time and you can't really skip anything. How did you approach this to be prepared for all three?

It was really hard for us to schedule because, of course, we want to attend ECS Finals, Pro League Finals, and BLAST Finals. Every tournament has huge prize money and is really prestigious, so of course they all mean a lot to us. But, I mean, it is not really fair to go to three tournaments like this because after this tournament we are going directly to Odense and I'm sure that we are going to be extremely jetlagged. I think it is really sad because it is in our home country, so we want to do good there.

I mean, we have to wait and see how we are going to do, but I think it is pretty sad that it is scheduled like this. We could've said no to one thing, I guess, I'm not sure, but we decided not to. Let's see, if this happens again maybe we will say no to a tournament, even if it is the finals.

With what you said, people will comment that you are already having excuses for the tournament coming up...

(laughs)

...is that frustrating for you guys, considering the schedule we have in CS right now?

Yeah, it is kind of sad that it is like this but I think it is a fair excuse to be jetlagged. You see a team like Evil Geniuses who went to China two times in a row and are now going here, I guess they are pretty jetlagged as well. I mean, it is really individual how you are affected by it, device and especially me, I'm having a really tough time with jet lag, so I think it is really tough. But some of the other guys have an easier time. It is really individual, but it is not the best.

Touching on the EG game, this year they've been kind of a kryptonite for your team, beating you quite a few times. Did you have a different approach to the game going into this match?

Most of time when we lose, I feel like we are losing because we are not playing our A game. I felt like we could be playing our A game today, it felt good before the match. I know Nuke was not that great, but still, it was a really close game, they are a good Nuke team and they picked it yesterday.

I feel like Evil Geniuses have a really high skill ceiling but sometimes their tactics are not the best. It feels like if they are playing against a really tactic-heavy team, like when we play really well, I think they look worse than normal. But I think they have so much individual skill, both Ethan and Brehze, they are amazing players, CeRq as well with the AWP, they have huge potential and I'm sure that we'll see them win some more events.

You mentioned Nuke, it was your home map before, then you went away for it for a while - is it still not where you want it to be?

I think Nuke is somewhat where we want it to be, I mean a lot of teams are so much better on it than they were before. Out of the last 12 Nuke games, — oh, now it is 13. So out of the last 13, we lost one, we drew one, and we won 11. Our Nuke is looking pretty solid so I'm pretty happy with it still. I think that today we should've won, we had a huge lead as well, but sometimes it is tough.

The thing I think is really tough is, when you are playing the same map so many days in a row, you have to figure out what to change in your tactic book. You don't need to make new tactics but you need to change them around. In the beginning of the game you can't do the same as you did yesterday and stuff like that. That's the thing that can be tough because you want to do your best tactics at the beginning of the game, but you can't do that every time.

Moving forward, potentially you play Liquid here, maybe at Pro League, maybe BLAST, because they are at all three events just like you. Would you like to have that rivalry also resolved in your favor, with a couple of wins against them?

No, I want them to win against us. (laughs)

Of course, I want the rivalry, I think the biggest rivalry we have right now in CS:GO is probably between us and Liquid. For the team and me it means a lot if we beat them at this tournament, it would also be nice to have the upper hand going into the last two tournaments. I think they have been looking pretty good when I watched some games from this tournament, they looked very solid, so I'm looking forward to meeting them if they win today.