“If it were any other top team, maybe they could have closed that,” the Swede said of the lead MongolZ squandered.
MOUZ became on Thursday the first team to book a spot in the semi-finals of the Shanghai Major after defeating The MongolZ in two maps.
The third time was the charm for the Swedish rifler, who had lost in the quarterfinals of the Majors in Antwerp (with Ninjas in Pyjamas) and Copenhagen [with MOUZ). “I really wanted to take a step further than the quarterfinals, so it feels really good to be top-four and I’m looking forward to the next matches,” he told HLTV after the match.
Ludvig “Brollan” Brolin said the team felt confident in their chances of winning the series and attributed the Elimination Stage loss to the lack of preparation for The MongolZ’s style. “When you’ve faced them once, you know how they are actually playing,”
MOUZ will now turn their attention toward on Saturday’s semifinals, where they will face either Spirit or Liquid. Brollan has no preferred opponent and insisted that MOUZ will be ready to go up against either team. “We feel comfortable going into that game.”
Congrats, a 2-0 over MongolZ, through to the semis of the Major. It’s the deepest you’ve ever made it at a Major, how does that feel?
It feels amazing, I’m really happy. It was a really nervous game, I really wanted to take a step further than the quarter-finals, so it feels really good to be top-four and I’m looking forward to the next matches. The stage was amazing and it was really nice to play.
We wanted to play too perfect, maybe, because we were a little bit afraid of taking duels
Ludvig “Brollan” Brolin on start of Ancient
Not a comfortable game at the start, you were down 3-9 with a lot of advantages lost. Can you tell me about how the series started?
On Ancient we lost a 4v2 in the first pistol. We wanted to play too perfect, maybe, because we were a little bit afraid of taking duels. Maybe a lot of nerves coming into the match. We lost a lot of clutch situations, mzinho maybe one or two times. Just a bad start overall that we didn’t handle that well, but we did it pretty well in the end.
When the series started, siuhy said you were not going to lose to them twice. Talk to me about that mental reset and your approach coming into this series, how confident were you? If you looked at people’s head-to-heads [or odds], this was the most 50-50 match out of the opening rounds, so how did it feel?
To be honest, it felt very weird to come into the quarterfinals. They played really well against us [in the Elimination Stage] and we didn’t have that much preparation going into the game because it was really tight between the first and second maps on the first day.
I had never played them in practice or officials or anything, so it was really weird to actually play them. But when you’ve faced them once, you know how they are actually playing, and coming into this game, we felt really comfortable that we were going to win either 2-0 or 2-1. We played really well in that way, and in that first game [in the Elimination Stage] we didn’t have good preparation, whereas now we knew for four days who we were playing.
You said earlier that the pressure of this stage was getting to you a bit at the start of Ancient, what was it like recovering from that, how did you turn it around?
We just tried to get a little bit of time on stage. We started off pretty badly, and it was maybe because of the stage and these things. Sometimes we are slow starters a little bit, and it’s really hard to come into the game then.
We talked about it a lot as well, that we need to actually be there from the start, but on these two maps especially, we weren’t there in the first half. We try to talk about it pretty often and try to fix this, but it’s really hard for everyone who tries to start out hot. We’re really good at coming back off that as well, but with the pressure of the crowd, maybe we don’t start that hot.
Yeah, I think we can win the Major
Ludvig “Brollan” Brolin
Do you think it benefitted you a little bit that they’re a team that’s inexperienced on stage, and for example, if you played against a more experienced team, then they might have been able to close it out and it could’ve started 0-1 for you?
Yes and no. It feels like The MongolZ don’t care that much [about the stage] so we didn’t think about it that much, that they don’t have experience. Obviously they are going to have the same nerves as us, but maybe even more because they don’t have the experience.
I mean, it’s the same with us; we’re not that experienced on stage compared to other top teams because we’re really young. We know that they’re going to feel pressure when we’re coming close on Ancient, for example. It’s exactly as you said, if it were any other top team, maybe they could have closed that, but we knew that we could grind out the rounds, and it went well in the end, we managed to come back.
As I said earlier, it’s the deepest you’ve made it at a Major. The next step is going to be the winner of Spirit vs. Liquid, how does that feel in terms of the matchup and your prospects to make it to the final? You said on stage you thought you could win it all.
Yeah, I think we can win it. Liquid and Spirit are really good teams. With Liquid, we haven’t played them [in officials], we’ve only played them in practice. They are a really good team but they are also up-and-down, maybe a little inconsistent with how they are playing.
Compared to Spirit, we played them a lot, I think four times this year and we beat them three times, they beat us once. It isn’t easy to play them, but maybe it’s easier to play them than other teams for us. We feel comfortable going into that game, and we’ll see how today how it’ll go today with how they’ll perform as a team.
Confident going into that match, regardless of who you play then?
I’ll play any team to be honest, but Spirit is a better team in my opinion. I want to play both teams. It doesn’t matter, but Spirit is a better team.
Leave a Reply