CeRq: "We were behind the meta because of everything that happened in the past year"

EG have done what most didn't expect them to, they've made a flawless run in the RMR and taken their throne 3-0 (or at least are sharing it with Liquid). With a 2-1 victory of 9z in the second day of play, EG have confirmed their slot at the Rio Major and even have a shot against Liquid for a direct Legends slot. Following a decent EPL run, this is as good of a result as the North American organization could have asked for.

After their victorious game, Dust2.us' Liam Slevo interviewed EG's Bulgarian AWPer, Tsvetelin "CeRq" Dimitrov to get his take on the state of EG and his performance in particular throughout the year.

After missing out on Antwerp at the RMR last time, you've qualified for the Major in Rio. Tell me, how does that feel, and tell me about your performance in that last series?

It feels amazing. I think we played really well. Actually, it's funny because before the series I said "how come nobody has picked Mirage against us?" They didn't pick it, but they left it for the third map, so we had a lot of new stuff to show, and honestly some stuff that we didn't even use because we didn't think it would work against them. I'm just happy we won.

You guys beat Nouns, FURIA, and 9z to get to the stage. Tell me a bit about that run and what it's been like inside the team.

Pretty much nobody expected that we would go through 3-0. Some people might say it was an easy run because we had to play 9z to qualify, but honestly, I don't think those people really know the game. 9z played pretty well and they've been playing pretty well. I'm just happy we made it through 3-0.

You said an easy run, but you guys have to take on the number one seed FURIA. For you having such a good performance against a team like FURIA, how important is that for your confidence considering your struggle in form lately?

It's really good for me honestly, for confidence like you said. I'm the kind of player that if my confidence gets low, it's kind of difficult to get it back up again. I'm kind of in that state right now, but that game helped me a lot. On that note, people might say it was an easy run just because that FURIA game was a bo1 and it was 16-14, could have gone either way.

In terms of your form there, what can you tell us about that slump that you're experiencing?

Not much honestly. Last year I was in this whole where I kept changing stuff around and I wasn't getting comfortable. I was getting comfortable then changing spots then getting comfortable again and changing spots again. I can't be doing that. Now I'm just sticking to one thing and building confidence. It's been good in practice. I'm not really happy with the last game, the bo3 we played, I could have done more, but my team had me.

I spoke to Brehze yesterday, he had a lot of belief that you can get back to that form since he's played with you for so long, when you have teammates like that supporting you but people in the community calling for you to be replaced, does that affect you at all?

No. I don't even like to comment on that. My team supports me a lot and I support them a lot. We have a nice little family bubble in the team which is very good.

Working with the team at the moment, you have three coaches, Vorborg, valens, and maLeK. Tell me what it's like working with those three different faces.

It's very good. It's very important to see what kind of chemistry they have because maLeK joined the team but we haven't really had that much time with him. I think we've had ten days with him, so he hasn't been introduced fully to the team. There's another face in Nate (madcow). He is our manager, but also today he brought a lot of stuff with Mirage.

Another figure in your team that's been recently introduced is neaLaN. What can you tell me about his calling style and the way he's been setting you guys up?

It's pretty good. It's a new energy in the team. He's very excited to play and I kind of see myself in him, like my first opportunity to play in a tier one team. He's very good, in my opinion, in terms of calling. He's really looking to improve, he's never stubborn in his calling style. He's very humble and he works a lot, so he's been calling very well. He's been helping everyone on the team a lot to improve individually in their spots. We were behind the meta because of everything that happened in the past year, so he's been helping each of us, especially HexT. autimatic and neaLaN have been helping everyone get back into form.

The games are still going at the moment, it's going to be either Complexity or Liquid, two familiar faces, for the Legends game. Which matchup do you think would suit you guys better?

I'm not really sure. I haven't really thought about it because I've been taking it one match at a time. I'm just happy to be 3-0, and whoever we get, we get, that's it.

Now that you guys have been showing a steady bit of improvement and you've qualified for the Major, tell me about your goals for thee end of the year and past that.

Not really sure. I know for a fact that right now, we're just thinking about the Major. We've had a lot of bumps in the road like autimatic had sick leave, and even though we've been a team for two months we've only had like twenty-five days of practice. We've had so many issues, I had to get a visa and all of that. We just want to improve even more because we know we can do way better. We're just going to practice a lot up until the Major and after that, we'll see. Our goal is just to show ourselves at the Major, because I don't think we're ready right now.

EG's first-place decider matchup has been confirmed at this point. They will be facing Liquid in a best-of-3 on Sunday at 10:30AM to determine who skips the Challengers Stage competition in Rio.