After Astralis defeated G2 at FISSURE Playground 3 in Suzhou, AndU spoke with the team’s coach Filip NEO Kubski about the series, the comeback on Mirage, and his first steps after joining Astralis. The Polish coach also compared his current experience with his previous coaching job, discussed whether the organization could ever recreate its legendary era, and assessed the level of competition at the event.
You played three great maps. Congratulations on the win! How did the match go?
Everything definitely went according to our plan. We prepared hard for this match. We had a surprise up our sleeve before the game, and today we also played on different maps. It felt like we could have won Mirage as well — the guys made an insane comeback, and there was a moment when we could have pushed through and taken the whole map. But it was G2’s pick, and playing against them is never easy. We like the map too, but they are one of the best teams in the world on it. Matches against these guys are never easy. But you also have to give them credit: they had just come back from Porto and literally arrived yesterday. Their schedule is incredibly packed, and playing tournament after tournament before having to play a Counter-Strike match at one in the morning is not an easy task.
— NEO
Mirage was very difficult and you ended up losing it. Did you worry that the guys might be exhausted and that the third map would be incredibly hard?
I think it feels a little different when you make such a huge comeback. We were down 3:9 or something like that. Then we started bringing it back, and with every round we won there was more hope and more confidence, which is a good feeling. It was a great opportunity for us to close out the match, but unfortunately we could not finish the map. Still, being able to make that kind of comeback left us with a positive feeling.
