cadiaN: "We're pretty confident on any map"
With the playoffs of the Americas Minor in London kicking off, our very own Michael "DuckMoriarty" Moriarty caught up with Casper "cadiaN" Møller, who had just beaten eUnited 2-1 with Rogue. The lone Dane on the team discussed his team's performance, his team's emotions during the series, and his expectations in the bracket going forward.
Your team is through to the winners bracket final of the Minor after being eUnited 2-1. What are the general thoughts of you and your team at the moment?
I think we didn't reach our potential in this series to be completely honest. There were some small mistakes and—honestly, I don't know what happened on Overpass. We're going to have to watch it as a team and see what kind of mistakes we did and what we can improve on because we felt very confident picking that map against them. But, at the end of the day, a win is a win and we are one step closer to our goal which is making it to the next stage.
If we go to the first map, I think the word dominant is probably not strong enough for how you won that map. You yourself had a pretty good performance, reaching a 2.22 rating on HLTV right now for it. After that first map, how were you thinking? Were you feeling that you could just go in and smash the second map and go straight through and have a long extended break?
We sometimes have a bad tendency with relaxing a little bit after winning the first map, especially if it's the opponent's pick, which is what happened again in this case. For me individually, I had a strong game. I was hitting my shots and they were lucky running into me a few times. I think the case for most of these teams, other than maybe NRG, is that it doesn't really matter for us what maps we play because we're pretty confident on any map. It's just about how we end up showing up on the day ourselves, which is our main focus. Just focusing on what we can do to improve and play a good game.
You mentioned Overpass and that was your pick that you appear to be too comfortable or too relaxed on. After losing it in the manner you did, how did your team regroup to focus on Inferno and eventually round it out?
Our team is very calm, both when we're winning and when we're losing and that's a huge benefit, especially when you're losing, because you don't have the roller coaster of emotions where you're very high up and you fall very deep.
When we go outside, mostly the rule is we just don't talk about the last map. Whatever happened, we can try to adjust it a different time. But while we're still in the game, we have to focus on the next map that's coming up and what can we do in that one to secure the win. When we go outside, if anyone mentions anything, people are just like "no, not now. It's time to focus on the next map."
We just have a very forward-thinking mentality in terms of that, so losing a map doesn't do that much to us.
With Inferno itself, you managed to take the map without winning the pistol rounds or the eco after them. In fact, you've managed that a couple of times at this event, which isn't necessarily the norm in terms of winning maps. Does that add any sort of pressure or are you guys comfortable in that sort of role in focusing on the actual gun rounds themselves?
We won both versus compLexity and eUnited on Inferno, while losing both pistols in both matchups, which means it's very hard. They have at least six free rounds and they also have all the economical control. It's something we're going to have to look at because that might not be the way the rest of the games are going to end, but it's also a positive sign in some way that even when we are losing all the pistols rounds, we're so strong in the weapon rounds that we'll still grind it back fairly comfortably. We'll have to take a deep look at the pistol rounds and hopefully regain some momentum in those rounds for tomorrow.
Finally, you'll face tomorrow the winner of compLexity and NRG. Who would you most like to face and are you prepared for both teams going into it?
I have this theory that if you want someone to do bad or to lose, it never works. I'll just say whoever we end up meeting tomorrow, we'll be prepared. We have time to watch the game now and we have a few hours later tonight to watch their strategies and what approaches they have. Obviously, NRG is a higher ranked team on the world rankings, so therefore they should be the tougher position, but we'll see how the game pans out.
Since this interview was conducted, Rogue have beaten compLexity 2-0 in the winners bracket final. The team have now qualified for the Major and will take on the winner of compLexity vs eUnited in the grand finals at 4:30 PM EDT.
