Despite some matches in the group stage that came down to the wire, SK got through to the playoffs unscathed and put up a dominant performance against OpTic in the semi-final. FaZe awaited in the grand final, but the Brazilians got the win in an exciting four-map series, dropping only one map—Inferno.



coldzera won his second MVP award in a row, after being awarded one at cs_summit

We sat down with Marcelo "⁠coldzera⁠" David, who won the HLTV MVP by ZOWIE award due to his contributions in the SK's win, especially in the grand-final, and heard about SK's system, João "⁠felps⁠" Vasconcellos and the competition.

Coming into the grand final you knew you were going to be playing FaZe. What are your feelings, what did you expect from the match?

FaZe is a team that has a similar map pool to us so I'm not surprised we played these four maps. We like to play against FaZe, because map-wise they are a really good match, we expected a really hard match.

Our focus was to try and play our own game, so we studied them, but didn't do anti-strats. We have a lot of situations prepared and we are better than FaZe in them.

It was a long BO5, four maps played, was there a certain defining situation that you remember? There were a lot of clutches, what is left in your memory?

I think on Inferno, we had two situations when we could've finished the game, we had a 2v2, me and TACO vs rain and NiKo, I think. TACO lost the 1v1 after the trades, after that we broke FaZe's economy, and we had another situation where we had FalleN and TACO against rain. Both situations were crucial for us, because if win we break their economy, but we lost and the game was really close for us, but it was pretty hard to win.

Touching on Inferno, when I talked to TACO in the group stage he told me that you learned a lot from cs_summit, but you didn't manage to overcome FaZe here on Inferno. What do you think about the map, is there a clear favorite or is it still in the air?

I think, for us, Inferno is still in the air. We need to play more, have more situations prepared in the game. On CT side against FaZe it was hard because they played too fast and we are not so good when the team plays too fast. We are practicing, we will fix the mistakes on Inferno. Now we are a little bit more confident on Inferno, but at the next tournament we will be better.

Maybe it wasn't such a big factor in this game, but in general, your play on Train around ivy has been hard to deal with a lot of players, OpTic mentioned that in their interview. Can you tell me a bit about your thinking about it, what do you do, when and why?

When I play on the right side of ivy is when my team is behind the bombsite, so if the Terrorists go ivy they can't flank my team and kill them. When my team plays close to mid, I play close to the green train. It depends on how my team will play.

We tried to do new setups because now teams changed a lot on how to play Train. They are using ivy a lot more. If you die on ivy and they can split A on you, it's impossible to win. So sometimes I give ivy and play close to the five train, looking at ivy from the site. It's better for us because we are compact towards mid, and they need to look at all of the positions on ivy, so I get an easy kill.

One of the things we've seen at cs_summit and especially here is FalleN's form, he's back to his old level it seems, what are your thoughts on his AWPing coming back?

I think the system in the team is better now. felps stopped playing individual and plays inside the setups, giving more space to FalleN. For example on Train, when FalleN is looking at mid, felps is supporting for him. If FalleN is looking at the right side, felps is looking at the left side. So FalleN is relaxed about the other side and he can play his game. Now he is better.

Touching on felps, you said before the interview that he played great, what do you think about his performance at this tournament?

felps played really great, which is a surprise for me because he practiced a lot of new things, and it's hard when you practice a lot of new things to play so good and improve. He did very well in this tournament, I think was is the best player at this event. Now that he changed a lot, he plays for the team and has a different mindset and we've come back for the championships.

This is your fifth MVP award from the start of 2016, second of this year after being the MVP of cs_summit, and you've also been the HLTV.org #1 player of 2016. Where is the limit for coldzera?

I don't have a limit. (laughs)

I just like to play good and consistent, I love playing, so for me… I'll stop when I've won everything. That's my mindset for now.

Is SK back now? How do you see the scene in terms of the rankings with you, FaZe and Astralis seemingly competing?

I think that Astralis are now going down. It's normal, when you're competing, playing and winning a lot of tournaments, it happened with us, fnatic and now Astralis. All the teams study the top one in the world because they are always winning. Now it's hard, but right now I think FaZe is going up, they have good players, they have a good team right now. And I think G2 need to improve a little bit to be at the top, they have a good team and I think this year, CS:GO is the most competitive i has ever been.