G2 have made their way to the next stage in Atlanta with a 3-0 record following a close encounter with Vega Squadron, in which the Frenchmen had to fend off a scary comeback attempt after a 12-3 lead on the CT side.

shox discussed the scary Vega Squadron meeting

We then grabbed Richard "⁠shox⁠" Papillon for an interview about the match, as well as the role change he went through ahead of the tournament, and G2's chances in the next stage.

Overpass got a little bit too close for comfort, with the CT side going very well but it took you such a long time to get back into it as Terrorists, tell me about the issues that you faced throughout the second half.

Everything was kind of easy as CT, we could read them perfectly and we were hitting shots, so everything was cool. Coming up to the T side, we knew exactly how they would play, how they would try to push us and stuff like this, so we knew and we said how to counter it. I don't really know, honestly, because it's not in my area, I'm playing at B, I would have to check the demo with SmithZz and see how we took so many kills and stuff like this, because we were waiting for it, but this is definitely something that won't happen twice.

Apparently even if we knew how counter it, we just did it at like 50%, maybe players getting too much confidence because we were already 12-3, maybe the fear to win which sometimes can happen, I don't really know where it comes from, the only thing I know is that we'll make sure it doesn't happen twice.

Can you explain the call you made in the last round of regulation with such little weaponry, was the A attack based on something you saw throughout the game?

The thing is, we knew that when they were playing against pistols, they were playing on the site, really passively. We already had the same situation in practice and we knew if we just did our execute with pistols that it would work, and that's what we did and it worked.

Did you get worried in that 4v1 situation at the end?

Yeah, definitely! You see one dying, you see two, you're going like 'what the f*ck', then he's throwing a smoke, I can't help my teammate, I'm saying 'nooo, please!', but it's okay, we managed to make the overtime. I knew when we were in overtime with a lot of money we could even play with a double AWP setup as T, which can make it easier to control the whole map. I knew it would be way easier since we had the money.

I talked to apEX about your role change, going back to lurking, can you give me your point of view on that decision as well?

I changed the team style like three times during last year because I tried to find a solution where everyone in the team can agree with how we play, with everyone fitting in it. When I look back at what we did, it wasn't the best solution, because in my opinion the best solution before thinking about your teammates is that the captain has to be comfortable with how he will lead and how he will play.

Coming into 2018, I made everything clear for the team, we will play like this, this is how I see CS, this is how I want to play, and if you trust me and agree with that then let's go together. People were okay with that, we had some difficulties at the beginning, because I'm giving way more responsibilites to the players so that I can focus more on myself. We had a great bootcamp, now we are 3-0, everything is going great so far, we'll need to see how it goes now in the group stage.

Tell me about the in-game leading side of it, obviously you don't have as much of an insight into what your teammates on the other side are doing, what are the challenges that come with that?

The thing is that it's apEX and NBK who basically just lead their side and I trust them 100%. During the mid call, if they want to make a mid call, they are totally free to do that, unless I really don't want to do that then I'll say no, because I have another thing.

So I still have the main voice and I'm leading in all the rounds, but how they take an area, if they want to push, if they want to play slow, if I don't give specific directive because of a specific team, they are free to do anything.

Everything now resets, you're through to the next stage, what are you going to do in the next few days that you have off?

Because we only played like one map in three days and we had Christmas holidays, we have been playing CS for only about 10 days, we'll try to find practice for all the off-days to get at least four or five maps per day to make sure we're ready when we come to the group stage.

Based on how you've done so far, how are you guys feeling about your chance of making it to the playoffs? It's been quite a long time...

It feels good, especially if we lost this match, it would have been really hard because there are a lot of big teams at 2-1. So things can go really weird in the Swiss system when it comes to this. We are happy, now I guess the main objective and of course we'd be really happy if we make Legends, something that we haven't had in two or three years in France.