Kenny "⁠kennyS⁠" Schrub was instrumental in the team's victory over Cloud9 during the first of the two quarterfinal matches going to be played today, posting the series' highest rating. He took a few minutes to talk to us about the team's confidence and what the team need to do to regain it.

So the map you chose in the veto was de_mirage, on which your T side seemed a bit off, did you choose it because Cloud9 are weaker there, or were you confident going in?

First of all, we knew Cloud9 was not that good on Mirage, and we’re usually well prepared on it, we play a pretty good T side. This time we just didn’t play it the way we’re used to. We lost a lot of clutch situations, which is the most important part of a game when it’s so tight. I think our biggest problem this LAN is we’re not playing the terrorist clutch situations like we should.

You guys force bought a lot on your T side, several times having a mix of tec9s and AKs, which seemed to play a part on how that part of the match developed...

Well, on Mirage especially we have some fixed strats in which having a tec9 doesn’t really matter, and it might even be a bit better sometimes. A strat we have on A, for example, in which we run into jungle. So I would say Cloud9 were just really strong in their positions and they have great individual skills.

You have had some strong showings this tournament against the American teams, has Nathan "⁠NBK-⁠" Schmitt’s calling changed your role at all?

No, it’s the same as when Happy was calling. The thing is CS is all about confidence. It’s hard to gain confidence, but it’s really easy to lose it. When I’m confident I can play a good game. I just need to be more consistent in how confident I am and I think I can reach the level I should have, maybe.

Speaking about confidence, it seems the team has been struggling a bit since you won the major in Cluj. What’s the atmosphere in the team? You guys brought on Mathieu "⁠Maniac⁠" Quiquerez to work on the psychological part of the game, in what ways is that helping?

It’s pretty normal that when you’re winning everything, the team is fine, and when you start to lose trouble comes your way and hits you in the face. And you have to face it. Basically, we needed an external view of the game, and Maniac does this very well. Maniac is also really good at pulling people together, he’s kind of a like a psychologist, so I think to get that confidence back we just need to at least get through the semifinal, which hasn’t happened since Cluj. We lost in semis two events in a row, so we need to regain confidence as a team. If we win a tournament I think it’s going to get much easier after that.

You’re meeting Astralis in the semifinal, what’s your take on the match-up?

Astralis is a top 5 team in the world. It’s always a tight and tough match between two top 5 teams. We have played Astralis something like five times at events and we beat them every time, so we’re kind of their nemesis. They look in great shape lately, so we just have to forget what happened before [this game]. If we want to win we have to fix the mistakes we made in the matches against CLG, Cloud9, and Dignitas. If we fix them, I think we will beat them.