ODENSE, DENMARK -- Since stepping foot on home soil, Astralis have been marked as favorites to lift the ESL Pro League S8 trophy. They come in as best team in the world, and have Danish ground swelling with support to help them maintain their status.

So far, they've bested Team Liquid and Mousesports easily while also punishing an inexperienced Hellraisers who found themselves pushing the Danes to the edge. They're set to face the winner of Liquid/MIBR in the grand finals -- and both teams present a unique challenge to continue their domination of Counter-Strike: Global Offensive's two marquee rivalries.

ESPN discussed Astralis's matchup against MIBR and Na`Vi, the deployment and evolution of their unique smoke grenades, and weakness on Mirage.

ESPN: It seems as though the matchup between you and MIBR is so closely contested that both sides are forced to elevate to their peak levels in order to compete. Do you put any stock into this narrative?

Xyp9x: I definitely think that the MIBR games are the hardest ones. They are the toughest mentally and you can definitely feel after the games you've used all your energy. So, I feel like they have good strategic approach to the game. The way they can shift the whole game around is sort of similar to us. I feel we have their moves, we know what they're doing -- we have the upper hand. They might be a bit nervous playing us and stuff like that. So I guess that's what's going well for us. It's always been really close against them. We have similar styles, so that's probably the reason why.

When we look at the styles of teams you've beaten so-far -- North, Tyloo, NiP, Hellraisers -- it seems there's a unifying trend where they lean towards a looser approach. Do you find that these scrappier, more explosive teams are the hardest to play against?

Xyp9x: I wouldn't put North in the mix because I think against North it's just like a domestic matchup. It's more mental than stylistic. In fact, for most of the other teams it's mostly mental. It gets to the point where you know they're teams you really should beat and if you get behind you're like, "oh, but what's happening" and you get kind of nervous. What if we lose this game? What is happening to us? So I guess we kind of lose to ourselves in these matches. NiP isn't the same type of game as a Tyloo -- they have a better record than them. But yeah, sometimes it's just us losing to ourselves because we can't figure out how to get back into the right mental state. Of course, this is probably what's happening to the other teams when they're facing us.

This is oddly specific, but could you maybe outline the specific CT-spawn to top mid smoke on Mirage that you guys have been throwing for the last few months? I believe I saw LDLC throw it first with Ex6tenz in the roster, but maybe they stole it from you in scrims or something like this. What's the outline of how that strategy was deployed?

Xyp9x: Yeah, I actually think it was us coming up with it. I can't remember for sure, but at least we were one of the first teams to come up with it. And basically it's like, usually teams want to take middle a bit delayed -- put up the smokes and then see if they push. If you put that smoke up then they can't do anything, really, because you put the molotov behind it and then they can't get out. It's really hard to flash your way through it as well because you have to beat the timing of the CT coming.

For ourselves it's really hard to play against this smoke because sometimes you can throw it and maybe they aren't up there and you walk B and there's two there anyway. So, it's a just a smoke that keeps you guessing -- where are they? What are the CT's doing this round? For us, it's been working great -- we've been using it a lot in practice and seeing what people do when we throw the smoke. We see all the different scenarios and map what is most likely to happen after we throw the smoke.

This is interesting mainly because Mirage seems to be this one map, at least, historically where you've looked the most mortal. Is this true from your perspective as well?

Xyp9x: Hmmm, actually not. At least, not in the last month or so. I think we've been finding our groove again on Mirage. Definitely it was our weak map before this, but I think we've managed to win a lot of Mirage games actually. I don't know if we have bad maps outside of Cache. It's really hard for us to look at what map right now is the weak one. That's also sometimes an issue in vetoes. We don't know what they are going to pick and what we want to pick because there are so many options. So, that definitely makes it hard for us to prepare for games sometimes.

Was there an intense amount of focus on fixing Mirage once you felt it slipping out of your pool?

Xyp9x: Yep. Definitely. It's been our top priority. Sometimes you see this a lot of time with our map pool -- it changes all the time. Like, we put effort into one map and another map gets weak. Right now, we don't have to put a lot of time into Nuke because our record says we don't need to right? And most teams don't even play Nuke so it's hard to find practice. But yeah, it's about putting work into those maps and sometimes that changes and sometimes some teams are good at it and it makes your record looks bad. I don't think we have any bad maps right now.

This matchup between you and Na`Vi is pretty interesting as well right? You guys have such contrasting styles that it's at least novel and fresh to conceptualize. How do you feel about the game against them and Na`Vi in general? Do you prepare differently for a side like them?

Xyp9x: Definitely. It's more or less watching their moves. Sure, they're random but they have tendencies. It's like you always know from FPL what their moves are and what to be prepared for. It's just looking through their demos and looking -- he does 10 different things but you should be expecting this -- and adapting your play style to these 10 scenarios, right? Of course that's a lot of work, but that's what we do.