After Astralis squeezed past mousesports to advance to the playoffs at ECS Season 6 Finals, we sat down with Lukas "⁠gla1ve⁠" Rossander to get his thoughts on the team's shaky start in Arlington, as well as the backlash the team has been facing since day one.

The Danish powerhouse are now through to the semi-finals, but it was a tough road for gla1ve & co., who lost to MIBR in the winners' match after a grueling series before taking down mousesports in another close encounter on day two.

gla1ve commented on day one's "smokegate"

After the series against the Brazilians, Astralis also had to face backlash from the community due to accusations that they have been using settings to improve visibility in smokes, which was one of the topics in our interview with the in-game leader.

Read up on his thoughts about their shaky start and whether the aforementioned drama affected Astralis's mental state below:

Your run at ECS has been quite shaky, so why don't we start with the loss to MIBR and how that happened, as it looked like you were going to pull it off on the second map but it got away from you in the end.

Yeah, MIBR were playing really well, I think us not playing up to our A level and then playing against a really good team, that's just a combination for losing. I think there isn't much to say about it, FalleN had a really good game, fer also stepped up.

He's one of the guys that has been a bit down to earth lately, he hasn't been at his super-impactful level as he was last year. I think it's nice to see him back, I really like him. I think they just played well.

I think us not playing up to our A level and then playing against a really good team, that's just a combination for losing. Lukas "⁠gla1ve⁠" Rossander on MIBR

They are a team that has challenged you the last couple of times, what do you think that's down to?

I think they're preparing better for us than they are doing for any other opponent, to be honest. I think they really want to beat us when they play against us, when I see them play against other teams, it doesn't feel like FalleN is prepared in the same way they are against us.

I'm not even sure if that's the case, but it just feels like that they have been watching a lot of our games. Even though they don't antistrat that much, they still have it in the back of their heads, how we play and how we like to play, and then FalleN is really good at abusing those things. And they just hit a good individual level, as well.

The community backlash started after the match due to Xyp9x's smoke situation, did that in any way affect you mentally?

No, we had a talk about it and we discussed how we should tackle this and I think we tackled it really well. There has never been any point in saying those things against us because we would never do something like that, so I think we have tackled it really well.

But, for me, right now I just don't think I'm the in-game leader that I was two or three months ago. If we go back to the Major, I was a better in-game leader than I am right now, and I'm not really sure why, I think it's just a down period right now. I'm not making the same good calls that I used to, but I'm sure I'll get my level back at some point.

There has never been any point in saying those things against us because we would never do something like that, so I think we have tackled it really well. Lukas "⁠gla1ve⁠" Rossander on "smokegate"

Going over to the mousesports match today, on both maps you had to kick into another gear towards the end, talk me through Nuke especially where they once again got close to ending your streak.

Yeah, the Nuke match was just like last time we played against them. It was 16-13 and they were leading 13-11 and then we got some pretty lucky rounds and we won the game. They were close to ending our winning streak on Nuke, of course it would be sad, but we know that at some point we're going to lose it.

I think we're going to have a talk about just playing against them on Nuke, what we can do differently. We tried to watch the game from the last time and it helped us a bit, but still, our T side, as I said before, I don't make amazing calls right now and have a hard time figuring out where the opponent is always playing and the rotations and such. So I think we are playing a little worse than we used to, but still, we're alright.

In Chicago you also had a shaky start and you ended up having a very good playoffs run, do you feel like you're heading that way as well here at ECS? Are the playoffs going to go a bit more smoothly?

I'm not quite sure if we're going to play better, I can definitely say that we're doing everything in our power to play better than we are right now. We are antistratting, we are trying to focus on sleep, on health, on food, on everything, workouts... We're doing everything we can to play a little bit better than we are right now and if we just keep trying, suddenly it will come.

We are antistratting, we are trying to focus on sleep, on health, on food, on everything, workouts... We're doing everything we can to play a little bit better than we are right now and if we just keep trying, suddenly it will come. Lukas "⁠gla1ve⁠" Rossander

We've seen a bit of a shift from you on Mirage, where dupreeh is AWPing over device, who is instead picking up the AUG, what is the reasoning behind that?

I think there were two reasons. dupreeh liked to have the AWP and when he had it, device was a little confused about where he should go sometimes because then dupreeh took over some of his spots. And then the AUG came in for device and he's really good with that weapon, actually, so he decided that maybe he would play the AUG a bit more and dupreeh can take over the AWP just on that map.

I'm not sure if we're going to see it more on other maps, I don't believe so, because I still believe that device is one of the strongest AWP players in the world, so there would be no reason to ever change that.

Was it then mostly because of your record on Mirage, which has been a little bit shaky?