Astralis’ captain explained how teams’ rivalries can help you become the best in the world.
Over and over again Astralis is coming through roster changes and shuffles. But even in this turbulence, the Danish team is able to show decent results at big tournaments. ESL Pro League play-off is going to be one more Astralis' attempt to come back to the path of champions. Right before the start of the main stage of ESL we set down with Lukas "gla1ve" Rossander and talked about his Twitter-fight with cadiaN, working with the new coach, and adapting to the new roster.
As the In-game leader, how has it been to manure and work while having these changing rosters and lineups from time to time?
gla1ve: I think it just takes more time. More time to get used to playing with a new guy. We have a lot of tactics that we want to run, but you can't just implement everything at once. So we have to take a step back and just use what we have and then get some more tactics into it later on. But we try to evolve as fast as possible without being hesitant. So yeah, of course, it's tough, but I think we're doing a good job with it. Slowly but surely.
At the beginning of the year, you talked a bit about some communication problems within the roster. How is it going right now?
gla1ve: I think the communication in Astralis is quite better. I mean, there's always room for improvement when you're talking about communication. It goes for almost everybody. But I think it's good. We started to know each other a bit more. It's nice to be at more tournaments with each other. So communication is going well.
gla1ve vs cadiaN: "When you have rivalries it's always pushing you and your opponent to be better"
You and Cadian exchanged some words on Twitter after your match last week. Is that rivalry heating up between Astralis and Heroic?
gla1ve: I guess so. Because we're both from Denmark. And we are the two best teams in the country. Of course, there is a Danish rivalry between us. But it's nothing extraordinary. I think it's been chilled the last few days. And that's good for everyone.
It wasn't chill when you tweet it?
gla1ve: No, just the tweets weren't that chill, I would say. It was pretty back and forward, between me and him. And some of his warriors were helping him. But now it's all good.
And we had a talk together also about how to handle things in the future. Just a little quick conversation between me and him.
These types of rivalries, are they helping you or distracting you from the game?
gla1ve: I think it's helping us both [gla1ve and cadiaN]. When you have rivalries it's always pushing you and your opponent to be better, to try harder. When you have bootcamps you work a bit harder. It's helping us to have rivalries. Of course, we want to be one of the best teams in the world and that's what we're aiming for.
"Zonic and Trace are pretty similar"
You had a huge experience working with Zonic, now you are working with Trace. Can you point out some key differences between them and the stronger sides of Trace as a coach?
gla1ve: Zonic and Trace are pretty similar. They both are really nice people and they know how to handle us all as persons. So that has been really nice.
Remember, when we talked about Zonic in the in past we always described him as a father figure he could be sometimes. I think Trace has some of that vibe as well.
So they're pretty similar and both are lovely people. And it's nice to have Trace with us.
Going into the playoffs are you confident that you're going to be the champion?
gla1ve: I don't think that we expect us to win the whole tournament. Of course, that will be nice. No doubt about that. And, of course, we want to be able to do it in the future. But I think we have shown some promising results against both Heroic and NaVi and we're happy with that. So we know that we're capable of winning against those big teams, but we also know that we're still a new team. So it's probably going to be tough to win a tournament this quickly but we'll do our best.
Stay tuned to esports.gg to see how rivalry between gla1ve and cadiaN will turn out.