On the 10th of October (KST), Cloud9 defeated Gambit Esports 3:2 and qualified to the 2018 Group Stage. Although the players seemed a bit shaky at times, Cloud9 mostly succeeded to earn the early-game laning advantage.  After the series, we met their jungler, Blaber who played for games 1 and 2 against Gambit.

The following is the interview with Cloud9 Blaber.

lolesports Flickr

It was a highly competitive series. What is your overall thought on the team’s performance?

Blaber: I think today, we individually underperformed. We might have been nervous. It was definitely a competitive series. I’m super happy that we’ve won.

Like you’ve stated, the team did rather underperform. Did Reapered say anything about the players’ individual performance?

I don’t remember him talking too much about our individual plays. On-stage, it’s kind of hard for him to say that we’ve been performing poorly. We mainly focused on the draft. After we lost game 2, Svenskeren was subbed in. We shared feedback on our team plays as well.

How do you feel about getting to the Group Stage?

I don’t really feel pressured. Everyone was super happy that we’ve won this series. On game 5, we were nervous about not getting to the Groups which would have been terrible. I think that all the 4 major regions are going to make it so we’ll probably be in group B against RNG, Gen.G, and Vitality; I’m looking forward to going against them. Since they are the favorites, it’d be nice for the underdogs to pull it off.

You’ll face some solid junglers in the groups against Gen.G and RNG. Which jungler do you personally want to face?

Gen.G has Haru and Ambition. RNG has Mlxg and Karsa. With his storyline as a player, Ambition is a really popular jungler. It’d be exciting to play against him. I think my jungle style is similar to Chinese junglers; I like to play more aggressive. So, it might be really interesting to face junglers like Mlxg.

Would the team do anything special to celebrate this victory?

I don’t know since everyone is busy doing interviews at the moment. Actually, after our victory, Reapered told us that we underperformed individually. We were happy that we’ve won, but we knew that our performance wasn’t good.

Going into the Groups, what kind of improvements would the team make?

We had struggles on defending our vision. Still, we’ve been having pretty good scrim results lately. That's why I thought it was a bit weird that we underperformed today. We definitely have a lot to work on. But, I know that we’ll be ready.

Did the veteran players give you any advice about performing in Worlds?

Sneaky and Jensen performed in Worlds before. Sneaky has been here for probably 6 times in a row now. He said, “Don’t look down on your opponent.”. He also told me that they’re here for a reason since they were the best teams in their regions. Reapered told me that, “They have 90% win rates.”.

Do you have anything to say to your fans?

Thank you for supporting C9… Sorry that we’ve given you a heart attack in the Knockouts.

lolesports Flickr