With a dissapointing showing at the MLG Major qualifier at Columbus, Team Dignitas' CS:GO team has a new challenge on the horizon, Dreamhack Malmö. We talked with Ruben 'RUBINO' Villarroel to catch up on his thoughts about the upcoming and previous event.

RUBINO at Dreamhack Leipzig 2016.

Did you watch the MLG major? Was there something that stood out? What match did you enjoy watching the most?

RUBINO: Yes, I watched nearly all matches of the MLG major. This major was kinda the 'surprise' event for me atleast, where we got two NA teams to top 8 and Luminosity Gaming looked stronger than ever! I would say watching Luminosity was what i enjoyed most.

What are your thoughts on Luminosity Gaming winning the major?

RUBINO: My thoughts about Luminosity winning the major was just the answer to the question: "How long will it take before they win a major tournament?" Both LG and NaVi deserved that win since they have been progressing as team for a while now, so I think it's quite impressive how far LG has gotten within a short period of time!

What do you feel went wrong for you guys at the MLG qualifier?

RUBINO: I honestly feel we never got the 'feeling' of the games, we started poorly and ended poorly. We got maybe the worst random veto maps that we could get, but still thats not a valid reason for losing. I just think we never got our heads up where it should've been from the start, and that was the main reason for not playing well there.

How did you feel about not being able to play at the major? Did it perhaps give you more time to prepare for Malmö?

RUBINO: It was ofcourse a set back for me and my team, since the main focus for us was and would always be to participate in the majors and get within the top eight there, so we would get instantly invited to the next major. It gave us ofcourse more time to prepare for other tournaments. We had more time to bootcamp because of this.

What are you going to take from the loss at the MLG qualifier and change for the Dreamhack Malmö event?

RUBINO: Well its hard to just take alot from the loss since in that time those two maps were the worst maps we actually had in our map pool, but if it was something we just practised those maps more and got more of a plan what to do on them, to avoid this happening later on.

How did the qualification for Dreamhack Malmö go? Any teams you had a lot of trouble playing against?

RUBINO: The qualification was pretty good, but the first one was kinda a disaster since we lost 2-0 versus Lounge Gaming, who we never had lost to before. They did their homework and were simply the better team that day. This qualification went alot better and thats the most important for us, learn about your mistakes, fix it and avoid it happening again.

Did you spot any new talent while qualifying? Any teams we should look forward to in the future?

RUBINO: Not really, I never think about who is the 'talent' from the other team because I'm mainly just focusing on me and my team while playing.

At the moment, who do you feel are your biggest rivals?



RUBINO: I think Astralis would be our biggest rivals right now because of the lack of respect I think, but we always play close matches against them!

You’re in a group with Lounge Gaming, Astralis and NiP. What team out of this group do you fear the most and why?

RUBINO: I really dont fear anyone since I feel we can beat anyone in this group, but of course as I mentioned earlier Astralis is our biggest rival so probably them if it has to be someone!

What are your expectations for Malmö? How far do you expect to get?

RUBINO: As we have not been playing our A-game for a long while I think we have put ourselves up to get out of group stages as our first goal and take everything after that as a bonus, though we have been bootcamping and tried to fix everything so it would be a new test for us to check out how everything works.

What are your thoughts on players like Olofmeister and Guardian not being able to play at Dreamhack because of injuries?

RUBINO: Well of course it is a setback not having two of world best players there. And it also makes it more 'serious' for others to actually check their wrists if they feel it hurts, so it doesnt happen to themselves. So in a positive way, maybe this will prevent more people from getting injured. But in the negative way it may harm the performance of those teams (Fnatic and NaVi), just NaVi for Dreamhack Malmö atleast.

Have you guys taken any extra measures to prevent injuries because of this recent news?

RUBINO: No, not yet. We don't really feel any pain and such so we don't see it as a problem right now, but to be on the secure way we probably will check it out when we are done with the bootcamp and at Dreamhack Malmö.

Any shoutouts?

RUBINO: Shoutout to Team Dignitas for making this bootcamp possible, and helping us whenever it is needed!

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