Formally being a player for FURIA Nicholas “guerri” Nogueira would shift into the coaching position during February 2018. Since then the Brazilians have only made a single roster move and steadily showed improvement before making considerable strides in recent months as FURIA cemented themselves as a dangerous side.
In attendance of the ECS Season 7 finals guerri’s squad would meet Astralis in the group decider match and despite scoring the first punch earlier in the group stage, few would have taken FURIA over the Danish elites. Shockingly, the Brazilians would emerge victorious in a nail biting series and make a powerful statement on the international stage. Following this impassioned victory we spoke with guerri about his team’s development and the factors behind their win over Astralis.
Allan: On the Terrorist side FURIA are willing to take risks whilst making aggressive plays. How do you build a playstyle around this tendency and what is your role in defining FURIA’s approach to the Terrorist side?
guerri: The beginning was tough because we are always playing 4v5’s, these situations are difficult to play but now we are more used to playing 4v5’s. These situations happen because we are trying to make space but this is our approach and this is arT’s way.
I am always trying to keep things balanced. I am the opposite of arT [in the sense that guerri prefers more structured play], I am a little bit more like him right now and he is a little more like me, we are trying to find a balance. I am really happy with this style and I am always trying to improve our play.
We could react better whilst playing T. We are trying to get better with our reactions because although this style is working, if we react better it could be amazing and because of this we struggle against other teams who play aggressive.
When making aggressive plays on the Terrorist side are these calls from arT or do the players have space to take their own intuitive?
[Playing aggressive] is the mind set, we have the mindset to make plays, all the guys make plays and it is not always a call [from arT]. Sometimes it is a call from the player who wants to make a play that he is comfortable and confident in making. It is a mixture but we have been practicing things like these for so long and we are getting better and better.
Whilst watching FURIA in some situations it appears that you have great communication, whereas at times the communication seems to break down. How is the communication within the team?
We are always working on communication because I think this is the main thing in CS. [As a team] we need to be observing the communication and making the right calls off the information. We also need to have the right communication and sometimes mentality problems outside of the game affect our communication. We are too emotional sometimes and need to calm down and try to breathe because we need to think clearly.
On the CT side FURIA is willing to take risks with playing aggressive and stacking areas of the map. It is important for the team to take risks like these?
We like to put pressure on the other team, we are not the team who on Inferno for example will only play two on B and three on A, or on Nuke, 2 A, 1 ramp, 1 outer and 1 rotate. We are always trying to think about what the other team is doing and making the right decisions with stacking the right bombsite, sometimes we are wrong and that is the risk, but if we are right we will likely win the round.
During ECS and in Dallas I have been surprised by how well FURIA has played under pressure despite being such a young squad. Has it always been this way within the team?
Although it might seem like we are a new team, we have been together for more than a year with ableJ arriving in October. We have been practicing a lot, maybe 5-6 maps per day and we have just one day off per week. We are young but we have been practicing for a while and we are always trying to get better in these types of situations, when we went to Dallas and coming into here [ECS S7 Finals] we always talked about how there is no pressure on us, we don’t have to beat Astralis, we don’t have to beat Vitality or Fnatic but we need to do our best.
Moving on the series you guys just played against Astralis, after losing Inferno the second map was Mirage where FURIA picked up 8 T rounds in the first half. Talk through this half, what was going right for you guys?
It is pretty tough to play against Astralis, our T sides are always better and we are trying to improve on the CT side. We had some good trade kills onto mid which gave us a lot of space. Whenever we have the first kill we are very likely to win the round but after losing the first kill we had a lot of struggles. The guys are pretty on point, we did the same a couple of days ago getting 8 T rounds against Astralis on Nuke, I think we are playing the right way and we need to keep going.
In the beginning of the round if we trade onto the CT’s we have the advantage, and we don’t waste much time in making the next call, sometimes we are a little bit slower because we want to make the right call. We have a mixture, we can play slowly after getting the trade kills or be aggressive after getting the trades. We are reading perfectly the teams we are against, this started with arT and is now spreading to all of the guys.
The CT side of Mirage saw you losing only 3 rounds, where all of those came as a result of getting reset following the pistol round. Did FURIA have a great read on Astralis during this half?
On CT Mirage we knew if they are playing slowly we need to save utility and try to read them. If they threw some fakes we knew they were fakes and were always on the right bomb site. Sometimes we lost a kill because the players can get entried, but we read them pretty well and it is not a tough half. We got reset after the pistol and still won something like five rounds in a row and this brought a lot of confidence with things like pushing mid, taking B apps control, I think CS it is a lot about confidence and making the right plays.
Was it preparation before the game that helped FURIA make the correct stakes or was it calls from arT for example during the rounds?
I think it was the mindset to play like that and not rotate, because we are a team that can over-rotate and we need to balance the things. In the second to last round on the CT side we told VINI to not go B and play on the A site because we were fairly sure Astralis was going A. It is hard to play against us because of this since our opponents are always thinking if we are stacking or not. We are trying to balance all of these things, like the aggressive playstyle and the slow playstyle, trying to stack during the round or not stack and not rotate, I think finding the balance is the key.
The final map the series was Nuke and the Terrorist half for FURIA was a brawl and was on a knife edge economically. What was going right for Astralis, wrong for FURIA and vice versa?
I think on two rounds we had poor communication and did not react at the right time. At the beginning of the half I think we went towards the A bombsite too much and we needed to balance a little bit with applying some pressure to Xyp9x [In ramp] and towards B. When trading rounds I think it is better for the T side and we took advantage of this. Our T side on nuke is pretty awesome and still getting 6 rounds against Astralis on T side is good. We don't have to get 8 or more rounds every time and what I told the guys because even if we lost the pistol [on CT] we are pretty confident in our CT side.
The start of the T half had the two teams trading rounds to try and solidify economic control. Is buying aggressively in these scenarios a strength of FURIA?
When arT is in the zone he knows what to do and if it is simple then it is not a problem. Sometimes we have the right read, for example we might just smoke in main, molly CT vent and run out squeaky on some flashes. We are very decisive on these rounds, not having second thoughts and this is our strength.
Finally you moved onto the CT side of Nuke where you put up a fantastic defence. During this half I think FURIA looked unusually passive compared to previous times you have played Nuke. What was the overall approach to this CT half?
We had a plan to fight more towards outside and then later in the game we decided to not fight towards outside and fight on the bombsites. I think this type of balance of things is our strength on CT side and especially on Nuke. For example in the last round in the game we had two on the B bomb site because yuurih said “I am going to play on B because I know it is going to be B” this is his call and nobody else's call.
In retrospect, many will downplay the scale of FURIA’s series win over Astralis due to the lack of Danish titles in recent months. During the closing moments of this series I stood only a few meters from the Brazilian side that was on the verge of making history and I can assure you that wins like these mean everything to the squad. The vivid emotions displayed by guerri embodies the fire within the team and that fire is starting to engulf thousands of viewers from across the globe.
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Photo credit: StarLadder
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