zakk: "Our T-side is something special, I think”

Imperial have continued their impressive run at the BLAST Premier Spring Final, claiming a place in the semifinals after a relatively straightforward 2-0 victory over fierce rivals Complexity. With a confident win over Vitality on day one, followed by a narrow loss to G2, Imperial are poised to continue doing damage as they prepare to face off against Heroic tomorrow.

Shortly after the win over Complexity, Imperial coach Rafael "zakk" Fernandes spoke with Dust2.us' Samuel "Draik04" Popkes regarding Gabriel "FalleN" Toledo's calling during the match, Imperial's mentality heading into the stacked event, and how the coach believes the team will match up into Heroic.

Congratulations on the win. Obviously, you guys and Complexity have had a decent rivalry going in the past year; how does it feel to win?

Feels pretty good. It's a really hard tournament, most of the best teams in the world here, like the top six or something like that, so it means a lot. We did not have a good [first] half of the year, so this is a redemption for sure.

Did you anticipate the Vertigo pick from Complexity, considering you haven't played it against them before?

We did expect it. We actually studied Nuke and Vertigo, because they picked it yesterday against Astralis and they won, so I think they were pretty confident. We studied it a little bit.

On Vertigo you had an 11-4 lead in the first half that fell apart later on. How did you manage to close it out in the end?

To be honest, I think we were having a decent T-side, even losing. But we were losing a lot of duels, especially on the yellow part of the A ramp, on the right side. We were losing a lot of battles in that area, and we had a pause to talk about that. We fixed a little bit of the details, and after fixing we did a pop B which was a great call by VINI. It worked pretty well; after that, we kept the dice rolling.

Overpass worked out way better for you guys. What was the secret to success there?

Our T-side is something special, I think. FalleN, I think he has the best understanding of T-side Overpass maybe in the world. I can see that some teams will take a look on our demos; they should because it's pretty insane what he does in the map. He knows how to control, how to sell fakes, and do the right things in the right time.

I spoke to FalleN and boltz earlier and they were both honest about the potential for moves in the team and how that honesty has relieved some pressure. Would you say that you aren't playing with that much pressure this event?

Yes, but I don't think the reason is because there may be changes coming. I think that the mentality of being the last tournament of the year and being with the best teams in the world doesn't create a lot of pressure on us. For example, when we played the RMR, we had the pressure thinking in our heads that, okay, we are one of the best here, we NEED to qualify, we HAVE to. Here, we don't have to do anything, we just need to play, chill, and have fun. I think this mentality took [away] a lot of the pressure,

Now that you have secured a stage appearance, are you worried that the pressure might start to build up?

I think the pressure is always going to be there. It happened yesterday against G2, it happened in the first game against Vitality. It's something that the professional players have to deal with in any scenario. The arena, our players have experience in that, so I don't think that's gonna be a problem.

You're slated to play Heroic in the semifinals. How do you think you guys will fare?

We practiced against them the first day we got here, and it was pretty good. We love to watch them to be honest, we try to copy a lot of things they do on CT, so we know a lot about their games. Let's see if we can put the theory on the server.

Imperial will now be preparing for their semifinal matchup against Heroic, slated to be played out tomorrow at 01:00PM.