Tarik "tarik" Celik discussed cs_summit 2, the team's expectations for this event and their upcoming schedule after picking up a win in the opening series against Heroic.

Cloud9 picked up their first win in Kiev, defeating HEROIC on Overpass and Inferno. The first map was a straightforward one, finishing 16-1, while the Danish side put up a stronger fight on the second map, which ended 16-14.

tarik stressed the need to utilize practice rooms at events

In our post-match interview, we asked Tarik "⁠tarik⁠" Celik about dealing with the pressure of being one of the favorites, their limited practice time and more.

Before starting with this event, I wanted to wrap up cs_summit 2 with your thoughts on that tournament. You finished second in the end, what were your thoughts as a team after that?

I think we kinda... definitely threw in the finals, in a sense that we screwed up, we had a big advantage going into it and maybe, I don't want to say it was overconfidence, it was more of a fact that we played really sloppy, we made a lot of mistakes, and as individuals and as teammates we could've done much better.

I think it's also good that we got the chance to look at it as a "we need to make sure we don't get complacent" kind of thing. I think moving forward it will be beneficial for us. It does suck, as it would be a nice addition to our run, but it's ok, I give props to Liquid - at least it was an American team winning it.

With the Major win and cs_summit, where you placed second and played pretty well overall, you are coming here as one of the favorites for the tournament, I think that's fair to say. How does that affect the team and what are your expectations here?

I think that right now our confidence and our motivation is still at a peak, I think that we are still really hot right now and we are still playing really well. Going into this tournament I'm very confident how we will do and how we will place. My expectations are top4, I want to get at least top4 for sure. But my goal is to definitely win the tournament and take the title.

After this, you also have IEM Katowice and then WESG coming up shortly after that. Does that play into how you approach this tournament? You have a lot of things to play, a lot of travel, a lot of events?

Yeah, we don't have a lot of time to practice, which kind of sucks, but going into these tournaments it's really important for us to make sure we utilize the practice rooms, so for example here at StarSeries we have a 24/7 practice room and we have to make sure that during these events we are practicing.

Because we have been on the road for an extremely long time now, the Major was three weeks straight and then we had a couple of days back at home and then right back into it. We have StarSeries and Katowice back-to-back so it will be really important that we are fixing stuff that isn't going correctly and adding new stuff into our stratbook.

I wanted to touch on this match that you just played as well. The first map, Overpass, was their pick, but they played pretty slow, and even though they were getting picks you were still winning all the rounds. What are your thoughts on how that went?

On Overpass I think we did a good job not giving them a lot of room to work with. I think that at A and at B we were taking a lot of map control and it makes it really hard for the other team to go into any of their executes or get a rhythm for the game and I think that we basically put a stop to that for the entire first half. It was a 14-1 and at that point, we won pistol so it was pretty easy to close it out.

On Inferno it was quite different, I think that their A apps push was something you were struggling with a bit. Can you tell me about that dynamic?

Usually, we are really prepared for an A halls explode, I think we got caught out a couple of times, we were in the wrong setup and they did it at the right rounds, which sucked. But I think that in that first half, we made a couple of mistakes here and there which cost us a few rounds, I think that overall it could've been a lot better for us, but it's ok.

They had a really good start on their CT side, it was really hard for us to get back into the game, but eventually, we got a couple of rounds and took it back into our favor.