All the teams had a chance to play Ancient in an official match at this point of the tournament so it felt fitting to see what the overall opinion was from the playoff teams to the new map.
Before the playoffs we talked to all six teams featured; Astralis, NaVi, Gambit, VirtusPro, G2, and FaZe about which teams surprised them in this tournament. Either performed way better than they were expecting coming into it, or that underperformed and needed to pick up their game.
Ahead of their clash with Team Spirit, we got to talk to cadiaN, TeSeS, refrezh, stavn from Heroic alongside their mental coach Troels Robl and physiotherapist Kasper Straube.
In a brief session, Josh got to talk Bubzkji & Xyp9x from Astralis. They talked about the other Danish teams rising into the top echelon of CSGO teams, and how Bubzkji has adapted into the Astralis style after coming over from MAD Lions.
Coming off a tough tournament, we talked to YEKINDAR, Jame, and dastan from Virtus.Pro about how easy it is to reset mentally coming into IEM Cologne. We also get some insight into AVANGAR's 2019 run compared to their current run.
We talk to s1mple & b1ad3 from Natus Vincere about the other CIS teams that have shown great skill in the online era, the conditions that they have to play in their hotel rooms, and the important of the momentum from their win in the RMR tournament.
There have been some roster changes since Team Liquid was at it's peak and we talk to EliGE about the difference of the variations, we also get adreN's opinion on skipping the play-in stage, and round it out with a talk about the best NA rising talent.
We got a chance to talk to the top team in the world right now, Gambit. nafany gives us some insights on getting to the number one spot versus trying to stay there and then Hobbit chats to us about the differences between 2017 Gambit and this team.
We got the chance to talk to apeX and misutaaa from Team Vitality before they have to play at IEM Cologne. We got to ask about what they need to do to reclaim the number one spot, what they think of Double Poney, and discuss momentum of winning your first games.
We have seen some changes around MIBR and Josh and Grady delve into that with yel, exit, and Apoka to find out the biggest changes of exist joining, their feeling surrounding the RMR reset, and how they view the entire Brazilian scene.