Home > Esports > Astralis AoD: “We’ve already identified our strengths and weaknesses”

Astralis AoD: “We’ve already identified our strengths and weaknesses”

Updated:

After a near-perfect start to the Split, Astralis ended the Summer Split 2021 super week with a loss to MAD Lions. As a team, they have incredibly grown and despite Zanzarah’s injury they managed to come up with two truly incredible wins. We had the pleasure to talk to Astralis AoD, head coach of the team about the change in the team and what we should expect from them in the coming weeks.

Written below the video is the transcript of Astralis AoD’s interview. Bold font goes for our questions and standard font signals AoD’s answers.

Talking about Summer Split in general, you had a 2-1 start but how does it feel to be one of the top teams on the leaderboard?

I mean considering the week we’ve just had I think we’ve also got a little bit lucky because Zanzarah fell and injured himself, we lost a week of scrims things could have escalated as well like we didn’t know if he’s gonna be able to play or not, so I think overall we got a pretty good deal getting 2-1, so we’re very very happy in that regard. Not really happy about the loss of course I think we could have done something differently in the draft as well, so it is what it is but at the end of the day, we’re happy.

So regarding today what went wrong in day 3, do you think MAD Lions were just better or you think due to the overall week you weren’t at your best?

I think they were better as well, I don’t wanna take anything away from them, they just played better than us and deserve it. I don’t like making excuses normally, even though we had a rough week we can always beat them later, right? When we’re on our feet.

As you mentioned previously unfortunately Zanzarah injured himself before the beginning of this week, so what was your first thought when you were informed of the situation and how did you, as a team, handled the situation?

I mean, the first day we found out that this happened and we’re like “ok, what’s the time frame we have to work with” and we just waited for an answer and luckily it was a positive one and we hat high chances he would have been able to play so I think we had a pretty positive mindset I guess in the first day of that.

Second-day sadness got us because we were kinda missing his voice basically in the games and we felt it, so we tried to scrim with someone else and of course, we worked on our draft and everything as much as we could but everyone felt the lack of Zanzarah, he’s a very important part of our team for us.

Talking about your team, what changed from spring split to now aside from MagiFelix starting as your main mid-laner? You ended Spring Split with an unfortunate 3-0 week and now you have a really good start in your hand, what changed in your team in general?

I think team culture, we were kinda growing the last split and I think right now it’s kinda blooming basically, we’re all better friends as well outside the game and inside the game, people talk about more about the game, it’s just the internal relationship overall I think it gives us a strong boost of confidence as well going into the games. Everyone kinda knows what to expect from each other and how people react to each other in every situation and it’s just like having the same roster together for more than one split I think it just begins to shine true now.

And you think that with this confidence you can perform well in the next week? You have a hard matchup having to play against MSF and G2, how confident are you about the fact that you could take a win over these teams despite how strong they played so far?

I think on our best days we’re not really afraid of anyone honestly, it’s just a matter of catching on the way we lost and see how we stabilize now that the meta is kind of shifting like this is only week one we see how our region plays and we just have to look at that and to ourselves about it.

About the meta you’ve just mentioned, we finally have Viego and Gwen available in the LEC, what do you think of their performance so far? Do you think they’ll be the key champions of this split or that will change suddenly, maybe next week?

I think it depends on who you ask, it seems like Viego is a hit-or-miss honestly, it’s a very dangerous champion for sure, I kinda don’t want it in my games, but Gwen on top-lane I think everyone agrees is just a very strong champion and she has been banned a lot of times or just first picked. But Viego really works for some teams who like to skirmish and are bloody but it really doesn’t work for the slower teams.

What does it take to be consistent?

I think this comes down already to the offseason: we’ve already identified our strengths and weaknesses, basically form a plan for the weaknesses: how do we approach them, how long does that take, how we implement it, all the steps. It’s all structured, we already know what to do regarding that but it’s gonna take more weeks in order to solve the champion pool or more weeks to solve our mid which kinda showcased.

Our early game has definitely improved a lot from what we’ve started and it showed a lot this weekend, we’re very happy with it, especially game 2 and identifying windows, abusing summoners and all that stuff. So in terms of the long term we just have to continue on this track, for example, our mid-game is probably gonna be the next thing in line and solve our champion pool issues, so that’s gonna take a lot.. maybe one month total to fix.

Photo of author

AUTHOR

MOBA, Open World, FPS, RPG and so much more! I appreciate any game with a good story behind it! Nowdays I write articles about games and competition but also organize and manage Esport tournaments. "Aha, 42, I knew it! Now - er, what was the question again?"