Cloud9 passed G2 with ease earlier today, grabbing their pick, Mirage, 16-8 before the series went to the Frenchmen's Overpass, where the American side locked down the defense and won the series at 16-7, 2-0.

Stewie2K gave us his thoughts on the comfortable quarter-final

Jake "⁠Stewie2K⁠" Yip gave us an interview after the match, which was naturally the main topic, and we also asked him about William "⁠RUSH⁠" Wierzba's performance so far at the Major and Tarik "⁠tarik⁠" Celik's remarks in the post-match interview.

valens said earlier that he thought the veto was overthought by G2, what did you expect from it, did you think they were going to pick Cache again, or at least let it through for map three?

Actually, we did expect them to pick Overpass and Cache, we were pretty prepared on both maps. I think valens watched a lot of demos of them. Ever since we got 0-2'd in the group stage, we started changing our game.

Not many of us watch demos anymore, valens started watching demos and tarik started watching demos, the two leaders, so I think that was the big key for us. And I think that they actually would've had a better chance on Cache. Personally, I feel like our Overpass is actually pretty strong right now, we practiced it a lot in our off time, so it's a favorite map for us, I think.

On Mirage, did you expect their aggression to come out throughout their CT side?

I feel like on Mirage, they kind of started pushing because nothing worked for them. They played a little too passive, so we got a lot of space on them. We weren't really caught off by the pushes, I feel like the pushes they did were pretty standard team pushes, so it was pretty expected, but I think they did it in really good rounds, so it kind of caught us off-guard. So I think that brought it back for them for sure.

Did you think Overpass was going to be that comfortable, especially in the first half?

I've actually seen them play Overpass a lot and I think they're pretty strong on it. I personally did not feel it would be this easy. I think on Mirage the technical issue kind of got them a little bit tilted maybe in their head a little bit, so it's pretty hard to reset from there. But I think if they were mentally reset after, it might have been a different game.

You'll be facing one of SK and fnatic tomorrow, would you rather it be fnatic, who isn't really a matchup you're too familiar with, or would SK be more comfortable for you given that you know them better?

It's better for us to play SK, just because we practice against them a lot. They also have a stand-in that they haven't been practicing with for a while now, so it would make life a little bit easier for us. I think they're still a strong team, so it would be a tough game, it's kind of a like a little rivalry between us, so it will be a tough game.

RUSH has been playing particularly well, perhaps not at the Main Qualifier where the other guys took over, but at the Major and clearly in this series he's been more prominent than usual, what do you think this comes down to?

Yeah, I think that's the thing with our team, we have five stars, anyone can show up at any time. I feel like whenever I have a bad game someone else always steps up, whether it's Tim, tarik, Ska, even RUSH - I think RUSH is just more a supportive type of player, he's a little passive at times, he likes to help the team, he doesn't like to make the mistakes too much, so I think that's why he's not shining as much as he does.

But I think now that we're putting in a lot of work he feels a lot more comfortable, so he's willing to make more mistakes, he's willing to make plays, so it kind of shows the other side of him.

tarik said that this is your Major, why do you guys feel that confident, what do you think has changed for this tournament?

I'm pretty sure everyone knows by now that we're a momentum-based team. Even in and outside of the game, I feel like after the 0-2 and we brought it back 3-2, our confidence was really high, especially now beating G2, I think our confidence is definitely through the roof. I think it's a different Cloud9, especially with the crowd behind our backs, so it gives us a lot of energy, it's different for sure.