AlekS: "dephh said I shouldn't be amazed if the people we play at PGL Astana aren't as good as we expect"

Dust2.us Editor-in-Chief Jeffrey "Mnmzzz" Moore spoke with Fisher College IGL Alexander "AlekS" Andersson after his team's defeat in the final to Wildcard at FRAG 20.

AlekS commented on his team's run at FRAG, PGL Astana, the future of their roster, and his career-goals in CS.

Find the video interview below with a full transcription underneath. All questions and answers have been slightly edited for length and clarity.

Not the way you were planning for things to go, I'm sure you were wanting to put on a more competitive showing. How do you think you did in the finals?

I think we did ok in the finals. We had a good Nuke, our Inferno wasn't that good, Mirage was ok. It's hard because we've played so good all event and we can't always show up the way we want. In the grand final now, we didn't play at the level we wanted.

We still played really good. Some rounds are lackluster, but that's what's going to happen in Counter-Strike, you can't always be at the top.

What do you think most affected you? Was it being on stage for the first time in the event, or the pressure of the grand finals? Do you think there's an intangible factor that affected you guys on stage?

Yes, to correct you, we were on stage once. I don't think there's one special factor. When you're on a team like us, you need everyone to show up. As soon as you're missing a small part against an amazing team like Wildcard, that's when you're going to run into issues. I don't think it's about the stage or the pressure. When something goes off a bit against a team like this, it's hard to win.

Of course, even though you didn't win the event, there's still a lot of great things to take away from Fisher's run here. Are you still blown away by what you were able to accomplish?

What I told my teammates is, "I think we can go far, we can do good." In my own mind, top eight would be nice, top four would be super good, top two would be insane, and top one would be impossible. The biggest win was the Passion UA game. I think that gave us a lot of confidence going into Astana. In general, all of us are happy with our performance.

After a game like this, it's going to be hard to get over it for the first couple of hours. Maybe the next day, you're mad. But you're going to look back and understand we did an amazing job, we played a good team in the final. We still put up a good fight, I think we're all happy.

Before you head to Astana, you're going to be going to the collegiate finals in Waco. I'm sure those guys are shitting their pants now, realizing a team that beat Passion UA and Marsborne is going to be at their event. Any thoughts about that event?

No, not that much. The hard part is making sure everyone on the team is motivated, take the game serious. Other people, they respected us from before. Now it's probably going to be even more respect towards us.

We have to respect the fact that we shouldn't go there just to play out the games and be done. We should use that as a time for us to keep up the routines, executes, strategies, and whatnot.

I think in some ways the respect will turn into fear at the collegiate finals. On the other side of the equation, now that you've realized it's possible to beat top-50 teams, are you feeling more confident about being able to do something in Astana?

Absolutely, I spoke with the M80 coach a bit as well. He said I shouldn't be amazed if the people we play aren't as good as we expect. After the Passion UA game, for sure, we have more confidence going into it.

We still don't have any pressure on us, but I think when we're on the stage, we're hard to play. We're not going to go in there and say, "Let's do our best and hope it's ok." We're going to be there to get some maps off people and hopefully matches.

That event will be something of a Last Dance for you guys, as right after, corn is going to be graduating. I assume he will have to leave the roster when he graduates?

That depends on how we approach it. We don't really care about the collegiate LANs as a team as much as the FRAGs, for example. We could probably still go to these college LANs as a four-man team with someone else as a fifth and still play with corn. It's still in the air.

As of right now, we're not even supposed to be a team. I still have an LFT post. We don't want to practice after Astana. We're going to see how we feel after Astana. I've realized after this semester that CS is a thing I love and want to do. Everything is going up for everyone, and if that makes people want to practice, we might stay as a five, or maybe it will be the same as now, and we might not scrim but still play matches. It's hard to tell right now.

It sounds like after you graduate from college, you're looking to keep playing. Do you think you're going to go back to Europe, then, and try to make it happen as an IGL? I know the Swedish scene has been rejuvenated with teams like Johnny Speeds and Alliance gaining considerable ground in VRS.

Is that something you're going to be looking towards, to go back to Europe and say, "Look what I accomplished here, give me a chance to do it with your team."

To comment on the Swedish teams, it's super fun to see how EYEBALLERS, Alliance, Johnny Speeds, and all of these teams are stepping up their game. Sweden has been missing that for a long time. It's so exciting to see.

When I'm done with school, could I imagine myself on a team like that? Yeah, I know those people. Do they still imagine AlekS as someone who is on their skill level? Maybe not, we'll have to see. Right now, there's no other option for me. I want to graduate, and I want to go pro.

If I get an offer before I graduate, and that means I need to postpone my education, that's an option. I'm for sure going to be here and grind Counter-Strike until I don't have any options left. This is the game I love, and I want to keep it up.