Astralis were the first to advance to the ELEAGUE Major grand final with a 2-0 win over fnatic, as they picked up a tough Cache in overtime before decimating the Swedes 16-5 on Nuke.



Astralis answered a few questions at their press conference

ELEAGUE held a press conference following the match, in which Astralis' players answered several questions, some more serious than others:

Steven Cropley, WWG: I just wanna start off by asking how the banana was...

Peter "⁠dupreeh⁠" Rasmussen: The banana was good. I didn't know if the cameraman was on me or not, but I was like "I'm not gonna stuff this in my mouth if the camera was watching", with like a million people watching, then the crowd started chanting "eat it, eat it", so sure, why not... But it tasted really good, thank you.

Lukas "⁠gla1ve⁠" Rossander: Mine was a little brown, actually, it was pretty bad.

Justin Groot, Glixel: Keeping with the food thing, we were talking to fnatic about what they were eating when they were here, what were you guys eating and did it play into your victory?

Peter "⁠dupreeh⁠" Rasmussen: Bananas.

Lukas "⁠gla1ve⁠" Rossander: We eat different food, it depends on the person, we had some eggs in the morning (chuckles) and then we had some chicken sausage, I think. That's probably it.

No barbecue?

Lukas "⁠gla1ve⁠" Rossander: Fuck barbecue. I don't like barbecue, actually.

Vince Nairn, Slingshot: I know you guys think the job isn't done yet, but what's it like to get to the finals and have a chance to take a Major championship now?

Nicolai "⁠device⁠" Reedtz: Obviously, we have three guys with their tenth time, and it's actually unbelieveable in a way that we actually haven't realized it. Also, as you say, the job isn't done, we all want to focus on the match tomorrow and have no regrets after that match.

Milan Švejda, HLTV.org: device, did you learn from your yesterday's Red Bull mistake? (He had been late for Astralis' previous press conference due to feeling unwell after drinking too much Red Bull)

Nicolai "⁠device⁠" Reedtz: Oh yeah, I actually didn't touch Red Bull today, shoutout to no caffeine. I actually felt pretty off, so tomorrow I don't care, I'll drink two liters if that's what I need to be on my game.

Vince Nairn, Slingshot: What played into your decision to play Nuke?

Andreas "⁠Xyp9x⁠" Højsleth: We knew they were either going to ban Overpass or Nuke, and we would pick either of those maps depending on what they banned. I don't think they've been playing Nuke much, we could see that they didn't really have proper smokes, proper tactics. We know they were praccing it a little bit, but they didn't feel confident on it, so that's why we picked it.

Lukas "⁠gla1ve⁠" Rossander: And we said before the event that we play all seven maps, and we wanted to show that as well, that if you ban one of our strongest maps and we play one you don't ever play, you're going to lose.

Milan Švejda, HLTV.org: Cache was a close affair; dennis likes to call very loosely, let's say, was there anything that caught you off-guard during the match?

Markus "⁠Kjaerbye⁠" Kjærbye: I don't think they caught us off-guard, but it was one of our first real tests on Cache, we've been practicing it and did pretty well. They didn't really catch us off-guard, and I'm really happy that we won it in the end.

Eddie Plaut, Gamurs.com: What were the comms like during the 30th round on Cache where you took the bomb back to B site while device stayed on quad?

Lukas "⁠gla1ve⁠" Rossander: The comms were actually pretty calm, it wasn't that hectic, device made sound on A and I rotated to B. It's a thing we like to do if it's possible, because people don't expect it and people like to stay together when they're on 2-on-2 situation, or even 2-on-1 situations. So, we made a really good decision about that, I should've won the round, I made a stupid plant, it was lucky he had a smoke, if he didn't have it I would've won it.

Milan Švejda, HLTV.org: In that situation you pulled away from the spray and after you lost it, it looked like there were some words exchanged, did someone tell you he was off the bomb...?

Lukas "⁠gla1ve⁠" Rossander: I heard him defusing in the smoke, and then I thought I heard a step. I heard the crowd, and they started to cheer, so you know he's still defusing, you hear it like right when he's done defusing, it's not like you can hear in the beginning. Xyp9x said he is defusing and right after he said that, he was done.

Peter "⁠dupreeh⁠" Rasmussen: I screamed it as well, but I had muted my microphone, so... Well, intentionally, because gla1ve said sometimes you can hear the crowd and stuff when you're playing with voice activation, so he was like "if you can, mute your microphone" so he can get all the sound he can, so I had done it and when I heard him tap the bomb, obviously I said "he's defusing", but all I heard was "microphone muted".

Lukas "⁠gla1ve⁠" Rossander: It's also a good thing that you can't hear it in the beginning, because that would ruin the game, it's only in the end. It was just a chaotic moment, I just didn't think he was defusing.

Bryce Bobula, Esportspedia: As you can see, the other match is on between Virtus.pro and SK, which team would you prefer to play and why?

Nicolai "⁠device⁠" Reedtz: For me, personally, I would like to face SK, because they are my good friends, so I'd like to see them in the final, and I also see them as the weaker team at the moment, because with the map pool they have, they can't play Nuke, while we play it. It will play into our advantage that they have to ban that, and we have a permaban against both of those teams, so the map pool will play into our advantage. Individually as well, I feel like we can outaim them.