Following on from his playing career, Pimp has become one of the faces of Counter-Strike analyst desks.
As we've seen from BLAST Premier Spring Groups, he is a great host as well; his insight is invaluable, especially when it comes to Danish CS.
With that in mind, seeing as there have been some pretty significant changes to Danish CS in recent months, we though it would be a good idea to sit down with Pimp to get his thoughts on them:
From the new Astralis team to Heroic stepping away from Danish CS, to cadiaN's hopes of replicating his success on Liquid.
Let's start by talking about yourself, what was the highlight of your 2023?
I think what we did in the Royal Arena at Fall Final was super, super cool. It was a new way of innovating the broadcast and we were moving around a lot. Obviously, me being in Denmark on my home turf, it meant a lot to me. I think in terms of what I did work-wise, that would have been the highlight of my year.
Do you have any goals or hopes for 2024?
Yeah, I would love to do more events, of course. I've been doing this for seven or eight years now, and I've done a lot of cool events but there are still a few I've never done, Sydney being one of them, that would be cool to go and experience.
I want to just continue to get better and to innovate the broadcasts, make sure that every year we come up with something new and that it's refreshing to see for people. I'm still very motivated for the job and I hope to keep doing it for many years.
Astralis have made some significant changes. How do you feel about the new lineup?
I think Astralis have finally bought in 100% to achieve something.
It's always been a case of them making one cool signing and the others are a bit more meh, but this time they broke the bank and got two of the best players in Denmark to join alongside two of the other best players in Denmark, device and blameF.
From the standpoint of the roster and looking at it on paper, it should be successful, yes. I can't see a world where they won't be competitive at a top-eight level in the world. Whether or not they win trophies and be a contender for Majors and things like that I'm a little more worrisome in terms of the fact it's been a team that hasn't won much for many years so building that culture again takes time.
Maybe six months from now we'll look at them and say 'Yeah, that's a top three team' but, at the very least, I think they'll remain top-five, top-eight where they will contend for playoff places every single time.
Do you think there are worries about role clashes?
Not really, to be honest. I think the idea of role clashes in Counter-Strike is slightly overrated. Certain cases, of course, it has been an issue, but most players are able to move around a lot and step in on another player's role even in the middle of a round, so I think if you're too static and you can't do that change when you're as good as these players, you're probably not as good as we thought you were.
It's a bit overrated, of course there will be challenges, I'm not saying there won't be, but I'm not worried about it.
Heroic also made changes, a move into the international scene, was it possible for them to build a second, title-contending Danish team?
No, I don't think so. I think letting go of stavn and jabbi and with cadiaN going to Liquid, I think they lost too much of the talent pool in Denmark.
There is great talent in Denmark, but no one able to do, or replicate, what Heroic have done before. I don't think it was a bad decision for Heroic to look on an international scale and see what they could build, but it does feel like a cheap and easy way to do it.
It's a quick fix, something that's probably cost them a lot of money, and in contrast to teams like ENCE who have built from the ground up and given people time to perform, Heroic probably wanted to buy instant success and I'm not a big fan of that.
From the Danish CS perspective, is it a shame that it's gone that way and that there will be only one true Danish team at the top?
A little bit. It's been a fun couple of years where we had the rivalry between Heroic and Astralis, however, I do want to say that for the vast majority of that time, Astralis have been so bad that it wasn't even really a rivalry.
I don't think we're going to feel the change that much. It would have been more fun had it been back-to-back two teams that were constantly battling it out and facing each other in finals, but, that hasn't really been the case.
I think there are other Danish teams who maybe won't take Heroic's spot, but they will fight to be in the top-ten, top-15, and play at the same tournaments as Astralis in the future.
I don't think much will change, however, I would love to have two Danish teams in the top-five. As of right now, I just don't see it being realistic.
cadiaN said in an interview that he 'didn't want to create Heroic 2.0', but how do you think he's adapting to an international team again?
The big question is whether cadiaN will be able to be as efficient as an in-game leader in an international team as he was leading a team like Heroic. I think if anyone can though, it would be him.
He's a fantastic IGL, a great personality, he's severely underrated by many fans in terms of what he did for Heroic and how hard it is to lead a team like that. I like his mentality saying that he knows he doesn't have the same player types to work with, that there's more style potential in people like YEKINDAR and Twistzz and that they're more free-flowing than the likes of TeSeS and sjuush, so it's going to be a different task for him.
He's done it before in MOUZ and Rogue, in-game leading in English I mean, so that aspect is not new to him, so I'm not worried on his behalf but it is one of those things that if he can do it as well, he really does showcase to the rest of the world and me for that matter that he really is one of the best IGLs we have to offer.
Who do you think will be the top three teams in the early stages of 2024?
As of right now, FaZe and Vitality would be my two top picks. They have everything they need in order to be dominating.
The thing is, when we say 'dominating', we're not looking at an Astralis era or NAVI winning everything in 2021, we're looking at teams who consistently make it to the semi-finals.
FaZe in particular, with frozen, I think they're very interesting, and if the rest of the lineup maintains their motivation he could even be an upgrade on Twistzz in some ways.
Vitality are just a well-structured, they only missed one playoffs in 2023 and that was in Sydney when they were going through the roster change. Apart from that they were incredibly consistent in 2023 winning the Major and other tournaments so I can't see a world where they aren't one of the top two teams.
For the third one, that's up in the air. Cloud9 with no AWP are struggling a lot, Astralis we don't know enough still, G2 we don't know either, MOUZ losing frozen took them out of the equation, so I feel like there will be five or six teams that will be contesting rounding out that top three.
The only two teams who, right now, I feel confident to say will be in the playoffs of the Major are Vitality and FaZe.
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