What are the teams’ goals ahead of ECS season 7 finals?

Eight teams will begin play at ECS season seven finals tomorrow at London, a tournament that has a $500,000 prize pool.

Before the teams collide, though, we caught up with one player from each team during ECS media day to discuss their respective teams’ goals.

Astralis

The Danes have to bounce back from their previous campaigns at BLAST Pro Series events, where they finished fourth at Miami and second at Madrid. Meanwhile, Team Liquid won IEM Sydney in May and DreamHack Masters Dallas last weekend, two big events that Astralis chose to skip. And because of Astralis’ absence, Liquid also became the number one team in the world in the HLTV rankings.

Peter “dupreeh” Rasmussen said Astralis is in London to defend their ECS season six title.

“We are definitely here to win. We came to defend our title,” Dupreeh said. “We recognized Liquid as the best team in the world now. They have been playing great in 2019, but we also want to show what we are capable of.”

The Astralis’ star also said who he thinks will be a solid contender for the ECS season seven title.

“MIBR is playing a lot better, they definitely improved themselves in the last months, and apart from them, Vitality are having a great season, they won cs_summit four and I think they should have got further at DreamHack Masters Dallas, maybe they got a little surprised [Vitality lost on the quarterfinals to FURIA].”

Vitality

The French team have won three LAN tournaments: DreamHack Open Atlanta in November 2018, Charleroi Esports in April 2019 and cs_summit four in May. But despite the good results, they still lack a big tournament trophy.

Nathan “NBK-” Schmitt, Vitality’s in-game leader, said the goal is to reach the finals.

“Realistically speaking, we are getting a little tired after three weeks on the road,” NBK- said. “If we get to the finals would be a decent result and if we win, it would be great.”

MIBR

The core of MIBR hasn’t lifted a major trophy since their SK Gaming days, in December 2017 at ESL Pro League season six finals. The Brazilians struggled earlier this year at BLAST Pro Series São Paulo in March and at StarSeries i-League season seven in April, where they finished at the bottom.

João “felps” Vasconcellos, the player who returned to the team in January, said that MIBR know that they have to be on the top again.

“It is not like we feel pressured, but we more than anybody know that we have to be the best team in the world again,” Felps said. “We are here to win, but more than winning, we want to play well. If we don’t win, we won’t let our heads down, because there are more tournaments to come.”

NRG

NRG opted for a roster change after they played poorly at the IEM Katowice Major in February. Tarik Celic was brought in to replace Jacob “FugLy” Medina and so far the team haven’t gone beyond the semifinals in the four tournaments they played. NRG arrive in London after being knocked out in the early stages of DreamHack Masters Dallas.

Tarik said the team is looking confident no matter what happened in Dallas.

“We have to put what happened in the past and play good Counter-Strike,” Tarik said. “We have to go to our matches prepared and show we are still a good team. Our goal is to reach the top four, but I’m always playing to win it all.”

Ninjas in Pyjamas

NiP already had their share of problems this year. Dennis Edman stepped out in March for personal reason and the Ninjas had to play with William “draken” Sundin on two LAN tournaments. NiP’s best campaign this year was at Blast Pro Series Madrid one month ago and they finished off the bottom at DreamHack Masters Dallas a week ago.

Patrik “f0rest” Lindberg, one of the legendary players of NiP, said that they come to ECS season seven finals with good chances.

“The goal is to show what we believe we can do as a team—to win it all—we feel we are able to beat the best teams,” f0rest said. “On a good day, we can beat anybody, so hopefully that comes together and we lift the trophy.”

Although f0rest hopes to win at London, he doesn’t remember what teams they are going to play against.

“FURIA has definitely shown some potential and to be honest [laughs] I’m not a 100 percent certain of what teams are here. This is just me being a player, but our coach and in-game leader have a better understanding about the teams we are going to play [laughs].”

FURIA

The Brazilians did well at DreamHack Masters Dallas, their first tier-one event. They defeated fnatic, took a map from ENCE, and beat Vitality before losing to Liquid in the semifinals.

Andrei “arT” Piovezan, FURIA’s in-game leader said the team wants to continue their strong form of play.

“I don’t think we have a goal here at ECS, we are not worried about which position we will be at the end of the tournament,” arT said. “We want to play good, stick to what we have prepared and to give our best. We don’t have any pressure whatsoever.”

North

The Danes will play just their third LAN since Valdemar “Valde” Bjørn took the in-game leader role and they brought in Jakob “JuGi” Hansen to be their new AWPer. They would have reached the playoffs of DreamHack Masters Dallas if it featured the traditional format of eight teams going forward, instead of six.

Nicklas Gade said the team has changed everything since Valde became the captain.

“We just want to make out of the groups and reach the playoffs,” Gade said. “That’s our goal for every tournament and it would be awesome if we play good Counter-Strike—we felt unlucky at DreamHack Masters Dallas, because we had some matches in our hands. But we want to play better here.”

Complexity

Complexity haven’t done much this year, and they have also had their fair share of problems. Ricardo “Rickeh” Mulholland was ruled out of ESL Pro League season nine due to visa issues and it has kept the team behind. They made an important roster change ahead of ECS, with Peter “stanislaw” Jarguz being benched and Owen ‘oBo’ Schlatter, a 15-year-old talent, replacing him.

Rickeh said although oBo doesn’t have the experience, he has the hunger to become one of the best players.

“I won’t say we are exactly prepared for the event, but we made the most we could,” Ricked said. “When I was in oBo position, I wanted to prove myself to the rest of the world. I would say that we expect to at least make out of the groups, anything less than that would be kind of a disappointment.”

ECS season seven finals are set to start tomorrow, Thursday at 4am CT with Astralis facing FURIA.