To play like arT, you really have to not give a shit.

Pardon our French. But we are in Paris, after all.

That's a sentiment echoed by the leader, who bemoans a judgment made on FURIA by people who "see [them] as a stereotype instead of what [they're] actually doing in the server".

Aggression, with purpose

arT is keen to dispel any ideas of his aggression being 'mindless' or borne out of anything other than design.

"I am generally the guy in the entry roles and sometimes I do the aggro plays, and those are very different. If I do aggro plays to get kills that is different from being the entry to take space and be traded, that's half of my job whilst the other half is just playing normal CS."

That differentiation between aggro and entry is an important one - the idea being that aggro plays are supposed to work, but entry plays are supposed to make space - but with arT that nuance appears to get lost in translation.

Stephanie Lindgren

"Whenever I do something aggro of course the expectation is for me to get an entry, if I get an intro that basically means we've won the round because entries are that big a difference maker".

"Usually I'm just entrying for information or to get traded, that's of course what usually happens to an entry so for me I just try to do my best, it's hard to say how important I'll be or how well I will do because it depends on the map and the opponents".

We've already seen an up-and-down version of arT - the good and the bad - but one thing that doesn't change is his principles.

Stephanie Lindgren

"I'm never gonna be letting others go out in front because it's now how I've structured the team and it isn't how I position myself".

That, in truth, isn't too different to what the old school Danish IGLs preach. HooXi is always the first man in for G2, for example.

It's especially easy when you have a player like KSCERATO, whom arT referred to as "a very fundamentally important part of the team" and "very solid and consistent", which is still underselling how good he can be, and has been for a little while.

They're hoping that the evolution of their playstyle ("we are playing a bit more slow") will help him - though arT did mention that they might have teething problems.

"It's not too much of a difference, that has good parts and bad parts that we're trying to accommodate in the playstyle. It's hard to say, we're not finished with the way we're playing and we have a lot of bad spots and we're trying to fix those".

arT appeared to be more relaxed than usual yesterday - though one imagines that might change tomorrow - and spoke of the fact there's "less pressure" due it being outside of Brazil.

Stephanie Lindgren

Although perhaps he shouldn't have willed the slow start into existence quite as much as he did.

"For this I don't think we need a really good start, I think we have less pressure than the last tournaments. We just need to focus on our game and not overthink stuff. We just need to be prepared and play as we have in the last tournaments, a good start isn't entirely necessary compared to the last Majors where we felt we really needed some confidence".

You never tempt fate, arT.

Now sitting at 0-2 following a disappointing collapse against NIP, arT finds himself in the zone that he didn't appear to dread, but perhaps subconsciously expected with that answer.

Stephanie Lindgren

He did also, however, mention that "the expectation for every team at this stage is probably winning the tournament, for me personally I go match by match, we will see", which if this spell of future-predicting continues, could be quite useful.

The Major is always full of surprises - and we've seen two 0-2 > 3-2 reverse sweeps already.

Don't count FURIA out just yet.