Astralis have begun to hit a stride as of late. With their semi-finals exit at YaLLa Compass 2024, the Danes extend their 3/4th event placement streak to 4 in a row; positives signs for a team wanting to break into the top 5.
While the recent results have been positive, questions have been asked about the mental fortitude of the team when it comes to getting over the finish line. Astralis AWPer device is all too familiar with this feeling from his early days. While the TSM/Dignitas cores of the mid-2010s are a distant memory, the current roster dawned with the red star hope that those skeletons stay firmly locked in their closets.
After Astralis’ 2-0 loss to NAVI in the opening game of Blast Premier Spring Final 2024, device sat down with Rush B Media’s Liam “Slevo” Slevin to discuss what went wrong versus NAVI, what they expect from SAW, and what preparation looks like for the newly crested IGL.
You guys were up on Nuke and the game slipped away from you. For yourself as a caller, where do you think you lost that battle there?
Obviously the second round was really tough. I actually think they had an eco and hit some crazy deagle shots. That happens sometimes on Nuke, it’s happened a lot of times in history so we should be able to recover from that but I think that the economy got out of hand and the second round we had was an eco. They also played well. I think they had a good gameplan on T-side Nuke and honestly I think if you have a 9-4 lead on CT-side Nuke you should probably win most of the time but today it wasn’t meant to be.
On Dust2 it was a lot closer but it started to slip away on your T-side. It’s a new map coming back into the pool so what has it been like for you trying to figure out how to play Dust2 again?
I think that again we had a good start, I think we were leading 4-1 on the CT-side and we lost economy control and yeah that’s just how it is. On T-side, we had some rounds that we could have done better in of course. I think that we have a decent idea on playing the map, the first weapon round we had the perfect read and the perfect plan but we didn’t execute it as we wanted to and then unfortunately things got a little bit out of hand afterwards. I think that maybe we could have continued to control the pace a little bit more after that. I think we fought all the way even though it was not our best day and we did everything we could to win but yeah it was not our A game today for sure.
You guys will have SAW next. In terms of the teams that are here, SAW isn’t exactly of the same stature compared to the other teams. Is that the match-up that you would have wanted if you had to choose for an elimination game?
Of course, you would rather play SAW than FaZe for sure. I think that they are a good team but to be honest I think that if we play to our usual level, we should be able to beat them. I think it comes down to us, our preparation and which version of ourselves that joins the server tomorrow. We will do our best to be in the arena and that is our goal for sure.
Before the game I saw you have a team talk outside then another one just before joining the server. What’s that been like for you as a leader trying to lift the morale of your players before a game?
It’s not new to me, but it’s definitely something that is necessary in this day and age. You are playing so many games, you have to find the motivation for each and every game that you are playing and to put your players in the right mindset and yourself in the right mindset to perform. A lot of talks, but you also have to carry through on the server.
