Cloud9 became the last team to win their opening match of the tournament, defeating Envy on Cache 16-11 after clinching 11 rounds on the defense during the first half.

tarik & co. are set to meet Sprout later today

Tarik "⁠tarik⁠" Celik shed some light on Cloud9's point of view of the match and addressed the criticism towards Tyler "⁠Skadoodle⁠" Latham in light of his impressive flashbang stats, released yesterday.

Let's start with how you prepared, how much time you put in prior to the Major, and whether you did any specific preparation?

We had a very small bootcamp coming into the Major. To be completely honest, we didn't get as much practice, because the break ended and the Major sort of started right away, so I feel like a lot of teams were on a break and then we had about maybe eight days to prepared. I still think we're very prepared for this tournament, I think we're confident, and I think we have what it takes to advance, take it further, go to the next stage and even top eight, hopefully.

What were your expectations going into the match against EnVyUs? It took you a little while to get into the second half, how did it go from your point of view?

Yeah, we prepared for them and we had a good idea of the map we were going to play, we knew that it would come down to Inferno or Cache. We prepared more for Cache and that's the map we ended up playing. We knew what they were going to do and they did exactly what we thought, for the most part, so I feel like knowing that going into the game makes us much more confident when we see them doing the things we prepared for.

And then we also had a really strong start on our CT side, which is really big for us because I feel like usually on Cache our T side is better. The second half got a little shaky, but I think in the end we came together and closed it out, we played better as a team and I'm happy with that.

Skadoodle has been a target of criticism for quite a while now; in the flashbang stats that we released recently it turned out that he has been very effective in that regard, do you feel like that changes the perception that people have of Skadoodle?

People from the outside don't know what he contributes to our team, because it's hard for you to know unless you actually play on our team. If you watched Skadoodle play, he's supporting us a lot of the time, and the crazy part is that he's actually a star player, so for him to be a star player and to support us a lot of the time is hard to do.

He contribues a lot to our team in that sense and, on top of that, he also has his crazy clutches as you saw in this match, he had a big 1v3. I'm sure that crushes other teams' spirits. Those are the rounds that we know he's going to show and pull off, especially at the Major I know we're going to see a lot more of that, so look out for him.

Can you tell me about your next match with Sprout, how much do you know about them?

We know a little bit about Sprout, but I think overall we're confident in playing them. I feel like they're a newer team so we don't know too much, but I think if we play our own game and concentrate on that, it'll be a lot easier for us. So it's just going to come down to us staying focused and working together. I think overall my teammates are pretty confident with this matchup and we're happy with it.