zonic on Anubis success: "We have barely lost any practice matches on that map"

GOAT IGL, GOAT Coach, best Major run, Donk’s track record in playoffs, all of them have had massive paragraphs added to their stories. One of those cases concerns zonic. The Danish coach was undisputedly the greatest to ever stand behind a team, but in recent times, calls that his methods are outdated have grown louder.

Now, he’s back in the Major final after years away from Counter-Strike’s zenith. We were lucky enough to talk to him about Falcons' run and their game against Spirit right after it happened. Here’s what he had to say:

First of all, congratulations. How does it feel to be in this Major final versus the other ones in your past?

Hah! I think it's a bit too long ago since I was in my last Major final. I can't really remember them!

No, I mean it's always special of course. Nothing will ever top the first one in Atlanta in 2017, Paris one was also special, but this is the biggest stage in Counter-Strike, it's Cologne. So, hopefully we can play our game tomorrow again. Maybe put it like that, I don't want to jinx anything.

Something I think all of us will have noticed from this game is that donk struggled, and I'm curious, how much did your game plan affect him in this?

I mean, of course, we always look at Donk, it's just important that even when it comes to the small details, that [when] we have eco and stuff like that, we don't give him confidence. Him getting an ace in an eco shouldn't mean anything, but it can.

We want to try and avoid him, and try to have good protocols every time we go, and then, of course, we can always use some direct prep on him. Where can we use our utility? Just not giving him easy fights. We can also answer back by putting Ilya [m0NESY] in his crosshairs.

I think that's the overall strategy in general when we play against them.

In the past, when you've thrown away rounds like that retake, sometimes it can seem like you would maybe go down. In this game, you recovered and came back. What is it about this team that's different than previous iterations of Falcons?

A lot of hard work, I would say. A lot of discussions, a lot of fights as well, I would say.

This is something we have put a lot of effort in throughout the entire season, to be honest. I think we have improved steadily throughout the season.

But weirdly enough, more when karrigan also joined. I think it's just maybe the atmosphere, maybe not being too scared of playing these situations by just making sure the communication is on point, and not being scared to take fights. Even though we have advantage.

We have, you know, this, "1, 2, 3", then we all swing to peek, this is something we have been putting a lot of focus on lately.

I wanted to ask about Anubis. You've now beaten NAVI, you've now beaten Vitality, and you've now beaten Spirit on it. Before that, you literally did not play it except for at one tournament. Where did that come from?

I mean, actually, ever since that map came out, we have barely lost any practice matches on that map.

I think the players were a little scared or hesitant to actually go for it. They were more on: "Yeah, but our Ancient is normally that good. Nuke we know have a strong CT-side." but they didn't really dare to go out on Anubis, and I started talking a bit with Finn [karrigan] coming in to when we were evaluating our bootcamp, and just talked with him and showed him that hey our Anubis is actually good.

So, we didn't want to push it. If there was another option, we would go for it, but we were definitely ready to play Anubis.

And I think it was against NAVI. We wanted to take them out there on the third map, and at least agree that we were not going to ban it this time around. And then we could see, because practice is not the same as officials, of course, but we could see that hey, there is something here.

Now the issue is just how deep is our playbook on that map? Now, having played it three times in a row, it's also tough to keep renewing yourself, especially when you are at a tournament. Who better than karrigan to figure that out as well?

My final question for you: If you had to give us a preview for what's to come tomorrow in the final. What would you say?

Uhm, I expect that we stay true to all the hard work that we put in. I don't want to talk about results, maps, the opponent as well. I just want to focus on ourselves. If we can stay true to all the things that we've been doing and dare to play in the crucial moments, then I am satisfied, regardless of the result.