stavn: “KSCERATO is a really sick player”

HLTV.org spoke with Martin “⁠stavn⁠” Lund following the match to get insight on how Heroic withstood FURIA‘s comeback on Ancient and the matchup that awaits them in the grand final against Dzhami “⁠Jame⁠” Ali‘s team.

The 20-year-old said that after giving up the 5-15 lead to the Brazilians on the second map, Heroic found comfort in the fact that they had also denied Astralis a comeback in the grand final of the BLAST Premier Fall Showdown from a similar position.

“When we got to 15-15, we said to each other ‘this happened two weeks ago against Astralis,’ where we were also leading 15-7, went into overtime, and took it there,” stavn said.

The Danish star also spoke about the effect of the crowd and whether he thinks the Brazilian fans will continue to cheer for Heroic despite them taking out the home favorites.

Congratulations, you’ve made it through to the grand final, a step you haven’t made before. Tell me about what it means, first of all.

Unbelievable. I’ve told it before in other interviews now, it’s hard to describe the feeling. It’s something you’ve watched every time the big teams win and now you’re standing in the final for the first time. I can’t explain it. It’s amazing.

Tell me about this game. Ancient was the big story of the series. How did you survive that comeback?

It’s a good question. T Ancient can be really hard. I think what happened is when we got to 15-15, we said to each other ‘this happened two weeks ago against Astralis,’ where we were also leading 15-7, went into overtime, and took it there. That was comforting for us, because also what you see a lot in overtime is the team doing the comeback, once you get into overtime, they suddenly don’t win rounds anymore, and that’s what happened.

You seemed to have a hard time dealing with KSCERATO. Was there some adjustment towards that overtime that you finally pulled through?

Not specifically in overtime. But in general, KSCERATO is a really sick player. He showed this event as well, definitely one of the best right now.

I wanted to ask about the crowd effect. You guys have always been the villains – has that helped you in this case, not really having to go up against that pressure so much?

Yeah, I think if you compare it to NAVI for example, they have not been used to it, while we have been used to it, as you say, a few times before. For us, it’s all about accepting the fact that all these Brazilians want FURIA to win, obviously. For us, it’s just about enjoying that as well, and that’s what we did today, and we played really good.

Do you feel like you’ve won them over enough in the previous series that when you go into that grand final tomorrow, it’s not going to be the same as Cloud9, who beat one of their favorites?

I think they will cheer for us. I hope they will cheer for us, they did in the other games we played. Also, if I were a FURIA fan, I would want the team who beat them to win the tournament, you know? I hope for some love tomorrow.

You played a couple of times against Outsiders lately, but only best-of-ones, it’s not such a familiar opponent – what do you think about how you match up against them?

Yeah, we played against them on the opening game on Overpass, where we won, it also got a bit close. I think they’re a really strong team at the moment. Jame is playing really well and also fame, these new players have shown really good individual skill, and that’s why they’re also in the final right now. It’s gonna be a tough match, I think we’re just going to prepare like we usually do, and we’ll see what happens.