LNZ on recent reports: "You just have to understand that your career still goes on"
After rising up the rankings with Sangal in 2024, LNZ was signed by HEROIC alongside yxngstxr, xfl0ud, SunPayus, nilo, and tN1R as they rebuilt their team ahead of the 2025.
The team made an impressive debut, finishing in the top eight of BLAST Bounty, but suffered a bit of a dip in the events that followed. Months later, the team has shone in their recent events, qualifying from the European MRQ with a 3-0 record and winning both CCT Global Finals 2025 and MESA Nomadic Masters Spring 2025.
With HEROIC now set for a huge month in which they will play both IEM Dallas and the BLAST.tv Austin Major, we caught up with LNZ to discuss the growth of the team, what happened to nilo, and how the team can avoid the distraction of a recent report about the future of their team.
"There's obviously a reason why [nilo's] name is in HEROIC's mouth"
You've been on HEROIC for around five months now, how have you been finding it?
I think it's been a really fun and good ride, I really enjoy being with the team because we have a lot of funny characters and that truly makes your time better. Also, with the staff around us, we're improving a lot, so it's been really great.
You've had some success recently, but going back to your first event at BLAST Bounty you finished in the top eight, did you expect to kick on from there or did you expect the slight dip that you had before this recent success?
I think it's hard to say, we weren't sure who would be our fifth player at the start, it was between nilo and tN1R and that made it so we couldn't practice with the new lineup.
Going into Bounty, we didn't expect too much, but we all knew that sooner or later we would get better results and improve a lot because we believe in ourselves and the project.
Photo: Stephanie LindgrenYou mentioned nilo there and people ask about his situation frequently, is there any update you can give?
I can't really comment too much about it, but there's obviously a reason why his name is in HEROIC's mouth. There was just something that happened along the way that made it go the way it did.
Yourself, yxngstxr, and xfl0ud all joined from Sangal, how much of a boost was it going into HEROIC that you already had that established core? How much of the foundations could you take over?
It wasn't much, actually. But, what we did take was our chemistry together and a bit of how I like to call rounds. The more we played, though, the more the structure we took from Sangal went away.
What expectations were placed on you at the start? Did you feel extra pressure because of the size of the organisation?
I think the pressure came a bit from the org that, at one point in the project, we want to be a tier one team and not the tier two team we were in Sangal. We didn't put any exact ranking expectation, but we're expected to keep progressing and evolving as both a team and as players.
For me, I didn't really feel the pressure, I just enjoyed it because I always have done whatever I can to improve.
You've been working with sAw for a while now, what's he added to your game?
I think he just made me understand more about tier one CS and his way of thinking. Not even telling me how to do it, but guiding me there. That's why I think he's always been good with players, he guides you when you need it. The more you work with someone like that, the more you pick up without them even saying anything.
Photo: Stephanie LindgrenWhen it comes to stars, you've had SunPayus on your team on HEROIC. As a young IGL, how has it developed you to have this high-profile star on your team for the first time?
I think that it's been really nice having him because he's a player that likes to be really involved in the style of CS you play, the pistol rounds and eco rounds, and that type of thing.
Also, he gives his opinion a lot about things, like my calling and what people do in-game, I think you see the way that he thinks and you pick it all up.
Obviously, as an IGL, you have to learn how much freedom you can give a player like that. When you have someone who takes a lot of responsibility and is as good as he is, you can let go a bit of how much you control things, which has been nice because he thrives in an environment where he has that responsibility.
There has been reports about whether or not they'll be on the team after the Major, how do you avoid things like that from becoming a distraction?
Obviously, I can't comment about the situation, but when you see leaks like this you just have to understand that your career still goes on. No matter what happens, if it goes through or not, you still have to focus on the team to get as good results as you can in the tournaments you're playing.
You also have to stay in the right place individually. You still have to play, and you need to perform. Nothing changes in that sense.
Your road to the Major begins at IEM Dallas, where you will play Aurora first, how are you feeling about that game and getting back into a tier one LAN setting?
It's really exciting to be back, the last tier one event we played was at EPL, and we had a really bad result there but it was also still really early in the team. Since then, we've had a lot of time to develop and these recent events have allowed us to slowly take steps in terms of the size of events we've been playing, so now we're getting our groove back. It'll be interesting to play tier one teams again and see how we do.
You enter the Major in Stage 1 and play Chinggis Warriors first, are you happy with having them as your opponent?
Yeah, I think in some way we're expected to go through to the next stage and we've played Chinggis Warriors two times already in Mongolia. We know their style and how they like to play, which is good because some of the teams outside of EU can be really annoying to play and really hard to adapt to.
Photo: Stephanie LindgrenWhat are the hopes for the Major?
It's a tricky one, we haven't really talked about it. But, I think that we want to go as far as possible, obviously. Making playoffs would be amazing, but we also know that it's going to be really hard and really tough to do so.
A lot of people maybe don't see us making it far in the Major, so we're a little bit of underdogs, but we're just not really focusing on that. We're doing our thing and we'll see how it goes.
As you said earlier, you've had some success at smaller events recently, how important was it to go on those runs ahead of IEM Dallas and the Major?
It gives us a lot of confidence, around EPL we didn't have a good performance and then we had a month of no officials before the MRQ and that time has really paid off. It was really good to see, so now we can see that we can do damage in Dallas and at the Major.
