During the media day prior to the ELEAGUE Major playoffs, which took place earlier today at the Agganis Arena, ELEAGUE held a press conference with representatives from each playoffs team. Various members of the press asked the players questions about their teams, the tournament, and more.

One player from each playoffs team was brought by ELEAGUE to the Agganis Arena for a media lunch and a press conference earlier today: Jake "⁠Stewie2K⁠" Yip, Nikita "⁠waterfaLLZ⁠" Matveyev, Nathan "⁠NBK-⁠" Schmitt, Gabriel "⁠FalleN⁠" Toledo, Håvard "⁠rain⁠" Nygaard, Aleksandr "⁠s1mple⁠" Kostyliev, Maikil "⁠Golden⁠" Selim, and Chris "⁠chrisJ⁠" de Jong.

The media lunch at Boston's Agganis Arena started off with a press conference with representatives from each playoffs team

Some of the topics of the press conference included Virtus.pro's struggles and roster rules, aside from subjects regarding the teams and the players that took part in the press conference.

Milan Švejda (HLTV): As a Major rookie, also as the only one from your team, how did you manage to deal with the pressure and how was it to advance to the playoffs at your first Major? Golden: Where do I start. I put pressure on myself, because I knew that fnatic as an organization has been to all playoffs at all Majors, so I can't screw it up. After we made it, I felt a lot of relief... feels good. Rob (Betway): How big was the jump from fnatic Academy to fnatic's main team and what were the main struggles you had to begin with? Golden: We had struggles because people didn't take initiative, I could call something, I had to call the next step for them and that was the thing that made it even harder for me, I had to call in such a structured way that I had to control everything. They couldn't do stuff on their own, or they did it but the decisions weren't good enough. It was harder when we played against better teams, because they outplayed us each time. I think now when I call something, the players know what to do and they have been in this situation so many times that it's easier for them. Dustin Steiner (Unikrn): Do you guys worry about your map pool depth now that you're in a best-of-three situation? waterfaLLZ: No, many people think it's really broken for us, but we really have more prepared maps than everyone thinks. Justin: Each Major you guys go further and further, what do you think is the success for Cloud9, is it the strategy, team chemistry...? Stewie2K: It's kind of hard to say, I think we play really well together as a team, the five that we have right now, so I think that's why we pushed ourselves a little further. Last Major we did the same thing, we were down 0-2 and came back 2-2, got knocked out by VP. This time we came back with the stronger lineup, so we did the same thing, came back 2-2 and we were strong enough to pull it back to 3-2. So it kind of shows how much stronger we are as a team.

Stewie2K discussed Cloud9's chances against G2 and securing Legends status for the first time

Milan Švejda (HLTV.org): To chrisJ, the last day was obviously pretty rough for you guys, losing Train to QBF at the start and then finally getting into the playoffs, tell me what the mood of the team was like throughout the day. chrisJ: Well, it was for sure like a rollercoaster of emotions, I would say. We were happy to get QBF, everybody was already writing us that 'yeah, you made it to playoffs for the first time, nice Chris, good job' and we also felt we had to win against them, right, so when we lost that game, the mood was, well, we were totally destroyed, I would say. We didn't know what happened to us. But because we had a long break, everybody just relaxed, we started to realize that we're still in it, we can still beat any team that's left in the pool, so I think everybody got motivated again and when we started the game against Space Soldiers, nobody was thinking about the previous match anymore, it was like it was a new day and we were ready to fight again. Maxime Cuche (VaKarM): How do you feel to play again against G2, because you will lose against them, what's your feeling? Stewie2K: I think we're feeling pretty good, I feel like the first time we played them we were pretty prepared for them, but they played really strong, but we're in a best-of-three now, I feel like our map pool is pretty good against them. It's going to be a good game, it's kind of hard to say who will win, I think we're pretty head-to-head, so I think it will be a good game. Dustin Steiner (Unikrn): You guys have been performing beyond expectations in 2017, what's changed? What's your practice schedule look like after BLAST? NBK-: I think the whole month of December we just tried to lay a plan out for 2018, really finding what our composition would be in-game, how we would share leadership, how each player would approach their role, so that was the main thing we changed in December. Then we had a five-day bootcamp after the winter holidays break and from there, we just focused on playing our game at the best we could, focusing on our maps in best-of-ones, because we really wanted to pass groups and to become Legends again here, because that was very important for us. That was pretty much what we focused on, I took the B bombsites a bit more seriously and SmithZz told me to play with the AWP more for instance, bodyy is still playing in his support role, and we also swapped the attack trio that we have. That's pretty much what we focused on, and shox has been playing to an excellent level the past month and a half and he has yet to show his full potential, he's been playing very good at the qualifier and in groups, but he still has another level that he showed in practice that has yet to be shown. I'm really looking forward to him to grow, still, and be the best player in the world in 2018.

NBK went over in-game changes in G2

Hey, I'm Jasmine, I actually work for public radio, so for people who are not really familiar with ELEAGUE and esports in general, and this question is open to any of you that want to answer this, could you explain the kind of practice and focus that goes into competing in one of these leagues, for somebody who just isn't familiar with ELEAGUE as much, just leave it open. FalleN: Yeah, so basically most people think we're just at a computer and are having fun, but when it comes to competition, it's really harder than that. I know the most fans and people at home, they think you mainly use a computer to have fun, it's totally the opposite for us. While we're trying to have fun, we're playing every single round and every single game very seriously, so even if we win a match but we think we didn't win convincingly or we could have done better, there's pressure on it, so it's not only about winning, it's not only about having fun, but it's about trying to become the best team in the world and staying there. So I think all of us here, we put a lot of pressure on every single day of practice. It's normally a journey of four to six, sometimes eight hours a day, and there are people who play more, people who play a little bit less, but it's very exhausting, so it's harsh, but it's what we like to do. I think we got to this point because in the past we had a lot of fun playing just for fun and while it became a little bit more professional, then starts a transformation where it's not that fun anymore and it's really more serious, but it's still a great profession, it's still a great job, we're able to travel and see a lot of countries in the world and we represent our countries and do our job, so it's a great feeling. Milan Švejda (HLTV): We had the fewest returning Legends, only two teams now retained their Legends status at the Major, what do you think this comes down to, what do you think is the reason? rain: I think that in Krakow there were a lot of upsets and a lot of teams that should have gone through, like us, didn't go through, and I think they came back for revenge and got their spot. The qualifier also had a lot of good teams in it and they just qualified. Ryan Jurado (Unikrn): Most of you guys have been pretty far away from your family and friends and life for quite some time, training for this event. Would anybody like to speak to how you try to live a normal, human life with so much travel, especially being under so much pressure at the Major? s1mple: It's really hard to go to tournaments every time, not a lot of time to spend with your friends and family, but when the tournament finishes, you know that they're waiting for you, so you just come back home, spend like one week together and it's alright, because you know it's your job, it's your dream to become champions and a legendary team, so you're just spending all your time on this beautiful game. Jamie Villanueva (Dot Esports): What are you guys' thoughts on Virtus.pro, seeing as how they went 0-3 this Major and it's the first time they won't be Legends, what do you guys see in the future for them? chrisJ: Well, I think the problem with Virtus.pro is not really any of the individual players, I think they could all still play on a good level, but there's something wrong in the team, they have some issue or people are maybe angry at each other for some reason that makes them not be able to work together anymore. They're not able to perform at their usual level anymore, so I don't know if that means you have to change the lineup, but sometimes it's the only solution. Maybe they can also somehow reconsile and be like a happy family again, and then suddenly they can be back, right, but it's really hard to judge what their problem is from the outside, I think. FalleN: Just to point something out that's funny in esports, because in soccer or football or basketball, you can change a player, you can change a piece and it's easy. It's not working well or he had a fight with someone or he suddenly doesn't want to play for that team anymore, you just change a piece and the team can keep working. In Counter-Strike, if you have a fight with someone, it's very difficult to find another replacement, there are a lot of things to change to really bring him to the team, so when you start thinking about 'should I change the lineup?', there are a lot of things to consider. It's not easy to find a replacement. In the Virtus.pro case, in my opinion they are the team that everyone looks for, because they have been together for five years, which is the longest anyone has been in Counter-Strike in my opinion, and I think it is. I think that's the case, I think they just lost the joy of playing together. Counter-Strike is a very mental game, if you don't have the desire to be at the side of someone, I think it goes to your game as well. You don't want to be playing with someone, so in game you really don't want to be cooperating, communicating too much and stuff like that. That's why I think Virtus.pro is being damaged right now, but that's just an outside opinion, I could be very wrong.

FalleN shared his thoughts on roster rules in CS:GO

John (ELC): If there was a ninth that was up there, what team do you think deserves the ninth spot? s1mple: It's probably Astralis, I guess, because they can show better results in best-of-three, I'm pretty sure. Even if they didn't practice a lot before this tournament with device, they can still show a great result. Kevin Hitt (VPEsport): Gabriel, I think you brought up an interesting point about roster changes. How much do you take into consideration, let's say it's late in the ECS league, or late in ESL, and you have some kind of player conflict, yet you understand that you can't change that one player. How important is it to change roster rules to make it a little bit easier for these teams to get the player that they need in order to compete at the highest level? FalleN: That's one of the issues we have right now in esports, we have a lot of different leagues cooperating at the same time and of course the necessities of a team don't really fit this (inaudible) that they want, so for example when we had to change fnx three Majors ago, there was a simple question, do you want to try to win the Major or do you want to be happy and play with the lineup you want? And no one wanted to play this game, we didn't come here because we are greedy or because we want to really think about the money or something like that, we want to be happy and play the game we like. So the decision was pretty easy, we're going to play with whoever we need to, because we want to play this game for fun, and it wasn't fun with fnx at the time, so that's why we made the change. And with felps recently, it's happening right now at this Major, we couldn't fill in another player, because felps decided to leave the team. There were some things going on and he wasn't finding this happiness of playing for us and he decided to step away, so we added boltz, and boltz is not here today because of one of the rules. So there's definitely a concern and a problem about all these changes. When you go to other sports, if you want to take someone into consideration, there are windows for transfer, right, transfer windows where you can all make those changes, but it's very hard to encounter and find a proper transfer window in Counter-Strike, because, as I said, there are three different leagues and then there are the Majors. Sometimes you don't even know when is going to be the next one, they take a lot of time to release the dates and stuff like that, so it's very hard to find a setting that would try to avoid those problems, so right now we're just trying to deal with it and we do the best we can. Steven (ELEAGUE): FalleN and rain, can you guys talk about the rivalry between SK and FaZe at the moment? FalleN: Is there a rivalry? rain: I think there's a little bit of a rivalry, but we're all good friends outside of the game. I think it's all for fun and... not fun (laughs). FalleN: Yeah, it's great to play against them, they are such good players. I'm going to be honest, I already said it in other interviews, when you are playing Counter-Strike for so many years, you kind of need a new challenge to stay motivated and to stay focused on the game and wanting to become better. And when they created that team, bringing in olofmeister and GuardiaN, I wasn't feeling that motivated to play Counter-Strike again, but then I was at home, watching a movie, I think it was Usain Bolt's movie, and when the movie stopped I was like "I want to be the best team in the world and I'm going to beat those guys, they think they can come here and overcome us, but that's not true," so it was a big motivation for me that they actually created that team. So I think we coexist together, they're going to have a lot of chances this year to beat us and it's going to be interesting to see how long we can hold that, they are a very good team and it's a pleasure to play against them.

The SK-FaZe rivalry is all for fun and... not fun, for rain