This article is part of our Game Side series.
After OpTic Gaming's 2-0 win over Team EnVyUs in the semifinals of the ECS Season 2 Finals, Rotowire caught up with Will "RUSH" Wierzba to get his thoughts on the win and how the team feels going into the Grand Finals.
How are you guys feeling after the big win over EnVyUs?
"We're feeling good. I think we're going to win this, honestly. We're all very confident right now. We just got off a win at ELEAGUE, so it feels nice that people see that we can win consistently against top European talent."
Speaking of winning consistently, how do you guys feel about being able to get these wins for NA on a consistent basis? Do you feel that the balance has shifted completely towards NA or do you think you and teams like Cloud9 are just finally coming up to that level?
"I'd say we're coming up to that level, but in a lot of ways, we're also going above and beyond some of the European teams. Us and Cloud9 are both beating these European teams on a consistent basis, so I'd say NA is definitely moving in the right direction."
Looking at that last match, yesterday you guys played on Nuke against FaZe Clan and kind of faltered a bit there in the second half and you were on that same map again today against EnVyUs. Did you make a point to change your strats up a bit in this match today?
"We definitely changed a lot because against FaZe we tried to go upper a lot. I think we went upper almost every round, but it wasn't working and we don't have a set execute because we don't play Nuke that often, if at all really. But this time we tried to mid-game more. We made up things as we played, which is hard to do, but we made strats and they all pretty much worked for us. So what we kept saying was 'Keep doing what's working.'"
Do you guys feel that your aggressive style seems to kind of catch some teams off guard?
"I think we can catch teams off guard, but I think by this point, teams know we do it. But we have such high individual skill that we get away with it, so we do it still and are basically are brute-forcing everyone right now."
Going into the Grand Ginal, is there a team you'd rather face or are you guys comfortable with either team?
"Personally, even though SK has a stand-in, I'd rather play Astralis. We beat Astralis at ELEAGUE and they didn't feel too strong. They beat us here on Dust 2, but we're not really a Dust 2 team and that was a best-of-one. On a best-of-three, I think we can beat them. SK is historically pretty strong against us, so they're a scary team for sure."
