Stanislaw: "We will be underrated until we are consistently good"

Photo Credits: (DreamHack)

You guys made it through the New Challenger stage 3-1. Has that given you extra confidence coming into the top 16?

I think the 3-1 record shows us how our hard work paid off. Looking at the teams we played I don’t think anyone can deny us the accomplishment albeit Space Soldiers playing with their coach so that one you can kind of say something about. BIG and Vega are no pushovers you can see that so its full confidence going forward. 

You said your hard work has paid off. Do you think the opposite can be said for OpTic where your old teammates have not done so well with problems of their work ethic and motivation? 

I don’t really pay attention to anything said about them so only they know what is going on the inside. That’s all on them. 

Do you think you guys are still underrated/underdog especially with a lot of big names out there and do you think you have proved yourself capable of taking out certain top teams? 

We will be underrated until we reach a level which is consistently where we are now. I think beating a few teams in a b01 does not justify us not to be the underdog. Considering our history over the past few months and what we have achieved like I said we will be underdogs for a while until we reach a consistent level because that is what makes teams like Astralis so good is their consistency. 

Any team who goes 0-3 will automatically not be in the challenger stage. Do you think it is a positive or negative change?

 I can see it both ways to be honest. A fluke team can get three easy b01s and perhaps go through but at the same time the new system allows the best teams to get through and if a team goes 0-3 they don’t deserve to get automatically invited to the next major. 

Astralis went through the initial stage, do you think there should be further invites to that system so the best team in the world doesn’t have to go through the “qualifier” bit? 

The only comparison I can make is to football (World Cup, Champions league) is they have amazing seeding systems that organizes teams into groups and they are never stacked or have a group of death in that sense. I think groups and seeding would solve a lot of issues for a team that hasn’t played for like a month. If seeding was in place and you didn’t have open qualifiers it would allow everyone to be on the same page and to have balanced groups. If you aren’t at the tournaments you have a lot of work to do and the way it is now it allows teams at the top to stay there and doesn’t give teams a chance to get there. 

Team Liquid are probably the best team in NA at the moment Cloud9 are shaky. Do you think this roster has the potential to challenge Liquid in the future and claim the number one spot? 

I definitely think our roster is on the right path to challenge Liquid for top NA team. The way the scene is right now Cloud9 is struggling and NRG is up there, but the hard work we are putting in we can definitely reach Liquid’s level. 

You have a UK player in dephh on your team. Does that potential for home crowd advantage in the playoff give you extra motivation to put dephh in front of a home crowd and see how far you can go? 

If we reach the final stage where we do play in front of a crowd I think it's going to be amazing for fans to get behind us. As underrated as it sounds the crowd has a huge impact when you hear everyone cheering for you or if you hear them booing the other team, it's like having a sixth man. I hope we have their support the whole way. 

You are relatively new to the coL lineup, how have the coL fans treated you so far? 

I only have positive things to say so far about my experience. The fans and org have been wonderful, so far. It’s been a great experience.