Week 4 of Stage 3 took place last week, as all four regions continued to feature battles for the top-four and safety from the relegation zone.
Following most of these games were interviews with the victorious teams, so for those that missed them, we've summarised the best quotes and responses from the players below.
Jump to:
- EU League -- “we didn’t have time left to ban the last map so they banned Kafe for us”
- Brasileirão -- “I’ve never seen this in my entire coaching career”
- APAC Leagues -- “we’ve had a lot of plans for facing them, and this win was a big one”
EU League
Day five in Europe saw a very big win for Rogue, as the struggling team won 7-4 over a very impressive looking cowana Gaming. Leon "LeonGids" Giddens then gave a look inside the map ban phase from their side of the table:
Preparation-wise we didn’t actually expect Kafe. They tried to bait us into going to Villa on the final pick but the boys felt ready for a Kafe game. We’ve never really favoured Kafe because I think we lost it everytime we played it but we felt confident today in our ability to play Kafe. It was just a mood thing, just a spur of the moment.
Team BDS then pulled off a 7-3 win over NAVI, which pushed the UK side outside of a top-four position in the standings. This result came the same day it announced a new coach, Arnaud "BiOs" Billaudel. Bryan "Elemzje" Tebessi said the following about him:
It’s very good to have him on the team right now... he started with us just before the Mexico Major. He was not in TeamSpeak with us (there), but he was giving us advice... he’s bringing new things to not make BDS as predictable.
Yesterday had another upset, as NAVI lost against Virtus.pro on Bank. The victory puts VP in with a shot of making it to the November Major. Pavel "p4sh4" Kosenko said this about the game:
We were aiming for Bank or Oregon but we decided right before the match to play Bank because nobody saw that. We saw NAVI’s Bank and we had a lot of things to show on the map against NAVI. [...] We started well on the attack, 4-2 is a good half. Right after we switched sides we were a bit struggling I guess because sometimes everything just doesn’t work which happened to us on two or three defenses. We almost gave them a comeback, but Rask just finished it with a 1v2 clutch on a good entry on the CEO defense in the last round.
Finally, following G2’s close 8-6 win over Rogue on Coastline, Lucas "Hungry" Reich revealed that his team had accidentally taken too much time deciding which map to ban, and had given the advantage to Rogue:
We couldn’t really decide which map we wanted to play out of [Coastline or Kafe] so we didn’t have time left to ban the last map so they banned Kafe for us.
G2 didn’t pick a map to ban in the three minutes of allotted time, forfeiting its choice to Rogue. This allowed the latter team four total bans, rather than three, which in effect let it decide which map was to be played.
Brasileirão
Over in LATAM, the ever-improving FURIA roster made headlines this week as Diogo "Fntzy" Lima secured 22 kills to just two deaths in a 7-2 win against INTZ.
Twister came into the post-game interview afterwards, lauding the successes of Fntzy and his teammates:
Man, I’ve never seen this in my entire coaching career. Two rounds in a row getting an ace is unbelievable. When we saw that we just said “man, what are you doing in the server”, this man’s really really good. [...] We were in a pretty bad situation this time last year, we were fighting to not go to the relegations in 9-10th place. Everything we were doing in the server and in the scrims was not working, so it’s really good for everyone and everyone’s mindset to see that with hard work and the right way to work as a group it really works. We were trying over that year but some of the pieces were not fitting but these five boys are amazing and make my job and Kizi’s job easier and the results are just the result of all of this.
This was a completely unprecedented performance, which puts FURIA in second place in terms of Stage 3 results.
The two teams flanking FURIA in first and third also met this weekend, as FaZe Clan took down Team oNe with an 8-7 scoreline on Bank to extend its lead at the top.
Following this, Gabriel "cameram4n" Hespanhol said the following about how the team’s new analyst, Cesar "Dxrk" Adriano, helped get him prepared for the game:
Yesterday I came home and (re)watched the series with my girlfriend and when she went to sleep, I just read all the stuff Dxrk did and everything was there for the game. So, it’s a pretty good analysis and if you go to sleep thinking about that analysis it’s easier for the next day, so that’s what happened in my opinion. I had good readings today because of Dxrk.
The next day, Fntzy once again went huge against Liquid with a 14-8 kill-death spread, but even that performance wasn’t enough as Liquid took his team down 7-5 on Kafe.
Afterwards, Luccas "Paluh" Molina talked about how the new-look Liquid has developed:
Everyone’s really happy about the recent result. In the beginning we were having some struggles about adapting to some things but right now I think we are in a great shape. resetz and AsK are doing their job well. AsK is making some plays and is really adding a lot, especially in gun power. [...] LATAM is really difficult because most of the teams are playing at a high level. Even a team at the bottom of the leaderboard a little mistake can cost you the game. It doesn’t matter which team you have to play really carefully and play close with no gaps.
Finally, following a fairly weak Stage 3 so far from the Ninjas in Pyjamas, Julio Giacomelli came on and explained the team’s results as follows:
We are qualified for the Elite Six so we’re trying different maps, different strategies. Now is the time to try new things and that’s what we are doing right now to try to get 100% at the Elite Six.
APAC Leagues
This week was an APAC super-week, meaning that we were treated to four play days and 16 games, with each having a post-game interview.
Following T1’s first regulation-time win of the entire APAC North year -- a 7-4 against GUTS Gaming -- Wonil “iLeven” Cha simply said the following (via a translator):
A lot of work is going into making this teamwork happen… The new teammates who joined, I am very happy they came.
The same play day also saw FAV beat CYCLOPS 8-7, its first win against its Japanese rival in 15 attempts.
Shinji "ShiN" Funai was very happy about this result stating (once again via a translator):
We’ve been losing against CYCLOPS for a long time and we’ve had a lot of plans for facing them, and [this win] was a big one, to be honest.
In APAC South, meanwhile, Stage 2 victor Knights got its second win of Stage 3 with an 8-6 victory over Stage 2’s last-placed team of ORDER.
Following the game, Broden "Juicy" Dean came on the post-game interview and said the following about why the Knights struggled so much that game:
I don’t know whether it was them pushing us, or us just failing a little bit today, because we didn’t do anything we went into that game expecting to do.
And why they chose to go to Chalet:
It was between Oregon or [Chalet]. We versed them a few times on Oregon, we’ve had a fairly good track record… we just y’know, thought, we watched their Chalet the other day, thought we could take advantage of a couple of the things… it just didn’t go quite to plan, but a dub is a dub at the end of the day.
Finally, after ORDER’s 8-7 win over Wildcard the following day in which Wildcard’s Vincere secured 20 kills, Ryan "Speca" Ausden stated the following:
Definitely a tense game… At the end of the day, it should have been a much tighter game from us in regards that we were definitely ahead… They were definitely relying on some individual players.
SiegeGG will be covering all these tournaments as usual so check back for stats, news, and highlights for your favourite teams!