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Following Astralis' win over SK Gaming in the semi-final of the ELEAGUE Season 2 playoffs, HLTV.org had the opportunity to talk to Lukas "gla1ve" Rossander and find out his thoughts on the match.

After a long wait, Astralis made it to a grand final of an event by beating SK 2-0, getting map wins on Overpass and Train.

To learn about their map veto, breaking SK's train streak and their current state, we had a chat with the team's in-game leader Lukas "⁠gla1ve⁠" Rossander.

Let's start with the veto process, because a lot of people were surprised with how it went. Can you tell me a bit about your thinking behind it?

We were thinking if we should pick some of their weaker maps or if we should just play our good maps. We came to the conclusion that we are just going to play our own good maps because we feel so confident at the moment. Everybody is hitting their shots and all of our strategies are working really well. We are adapting really quick when we are playing our good maps so that's what we went for.

On Overpass you were shaky in the start, then Xyp9x had that clutch, how much did that influence the rest of the Terrorist half?

I think we were a bit shaky in the beginning, it's just how it is when you are going into a semi-final. That clutch of course helped us a lot to get in the game, but I think that we would get there anyway.

Switching to the CT side it seemed like you understood what they were going to do as you shut them down pretty well, how was it like playing against FalleN's tactics?

I try to do my homework and anti-strat FalleN - not too much, but just a little, just to know what kind of style he likes to play - I did it for the ELEAGUE group stage and we won on Overpass back then as well. It worked out and for now it's a good style for us to do a bit of anti-strat and play our own game as well.

The next map was Train, on the CT side you shut down their fast A where they push out fer to the sandwich area, one of the things they are pretty strong with. How did you do that and have a strong CT side?

We took some different positions that we didn't use last time, other than that we are just confident in playing the standard setup on CT Train, it just works for us almost every time. We tried to shut down fer because we knew he was going in first and we knew if we shut down him we have a pretty good chance of winning the round - and that's what happened.

gla1ve tried to mix in a bit of anti-strats in to their normal game

Towards the end of the half and on the beginning of the second half you had some shaky rounds, was there anything going on with the team in those moments?

I think it was just things that could happen, there was nothing special going on, I think we should've just been a little more offensive and not too pushed back. Sometimes you have one player going offensive and the other staying defensive - and that's how you lose games or rounds. I think that's what happened - you need to either go both offensive or both defensive.

SK's CT side on Train was the hardest part for any team to counter. How did you do it in the end and what's the hardest part to shut down when they are on the CT side?

I think FalleN is the main reason why they are soo good on their CT side. They have good players everywhere but I think they were also playing four people outside almost every round, on the begining of the half at least. It didn't surprise me, I was just a bit confused about it, I managed to figure out what we could do about it and in the end we won.

After getting this win, you are going to the finals - the tournament is not yet over but how do you feel as a team, where do you think you stand at the moment?

We feel really, really, really good and confident. Right now we are just looking forward to playing the final. We need to be happy about our win over SK, who are the best team in the world right now. I believe we can win the final as well if we play as good as today and maybe we can show some good results at ECS as well.

Professeur writes for HLTV.org and can be found on Twitter.

Astralis #8 Andreas 'Xyp9x' HøjslethPeter 'dupreeh' RasmussenLukas 'gla1ve' RossanderNicolai 'device' ReedtzMarkus 'Kjaerbye' Kjærbye Lukas 'gla1ve' Rossander Age: 21 Team: Astralis Rating 1.0: 1.02 Maps played: 634 KPR: 0.70 DPR: 0.67 SK #1 Lincoln 'fnx' LauGabriel 'FalleN' ToledoFernando 'fer' AlvarengaMarcelo 'coldzera' DavidEpitacio 'TACO' de Melo