EliGE: "We're just getting started"

Jonathan "EliGE" Jablownowski and FaZe are currently in the 2-1 pool after their victory over Legacy today.

Dust2.us' Jeffrey "Mnmzzz" Moore caught up with EliGE yesterday after FaZe's win over MOUZ to move to 1-1 in Stage 3 of the BLAST.tv Austin Major.

EliGE commented on FaZe's form during their first two best-of-ones, favorites losing in the first round of matches, and format differences between CS2 and CS:GO.

The entire interview is available below in text or video form. The questions and answers have been slightly edited for clarity.

You have a 1-1 record, not great but not awful, at least you got a strong scalp in the form of MOUZ in the best-of-one. How are you feeling coming out of that match?

Overall, feeling really good. That was our goal, go 1-1. 2-0 would be incredible, but 1-1 is really great for a Major first day. There's so many strong teams that we could have faced in the 0-2 bracket. It was really important for us and we showed a really good face in this game.

We played really well in the Aurora game as well, if you don't count how many man-advantages we lost, which obviously is bad. We put ourselves in so many good situations, we just had to hunker down and win the important end-rounds, which I think we did this time.

In Stage 2, you ended up going 2-0 and everything was riding high but you ended up going 3-2, so it took a while to get out to Stage 3. Comparing Stage 3 to Stage 2 have you felt the uptick in level of competition? Or is it still coming for FaZe to face the elite teams you're used to playing at top-tier events.

So far, I think we're just getting started. We've only played two best-of-ones. I think we'll know more after we have our next game tomorrow and then face our first best-of-three. So we'll see if that's the 2-1 best-of-three, hopefully it is. We'll go from there.

So far, I think that everyone is playing really strong. Even Legacy, who we lost to in the best-of-three, you see how strong they've been playing this event. It's not like they're doing random stuff, they're playing really good Counter-Strike and that's why they're having the good results.

On social media, it's been discussed that five out of eight favorites lost their opening best-of-one. Are you one of those people who hates BO1s and that's a reflection of how shit the format is? Or what's your viewpoint on the Major BO1 controversy?

I think best-of-threes should be every match. Especially in CS2 with MR12, I just think there's too much variance in the game. You have one pistol that goes wrong or one lucky shot in a crucial round. You only have so many gun rounds so I think it is important that we have BO3s. I don't hate best-of-ones super hard. In CS:GO, when we had MR15, there was still upsets but there's more rounds to play with whereas now it shows all the variance with the BO1s.

A lot of people have been demanding that Valve transitions from BO1s to BO3s and saying that you can't have a top-tier final without a BO5 at the end. Valve has stuck to their guns for years and had only BO3s, any thoughts on that?

I used to not be a fan of best-of-fives because the finals would always go such a long time and it was super draining. We'd have seven or eight hour BO5s in CS:GO. I think now with MR12, it's a lot more manageable and they've produced a lot of good games that are awesome for spectators. I wish I was in more of them, but I think it's been really good and it hasn't been as draining to watch so I assume it's not as bad playing in these games.

FaZe will play tomorrow in a 2-1 match with playoff qualification on the line.