NiKo: "We have a better chance to take Vitality in a BO3"

The results have been good, we won an event, we made some grand finals as well, we feel good int he team right now and now we're having an important bootcamp that could help us boost our game and maybe be enough to beat Vitality.

When you get a player of a calibre like that, it's a great boost of confidence for every player in the team.
I knew it wouldn't be hard to implement him into our system, just by knowing how well-rounded of a player he is. I'm not surprised that we're off to such a good start every since he joined. Maybe the others didn't expect it to go this way, this fast, but I had high hopes because I knew what we were getting.
Ever since he joined our goals have shifted, we really want to be a title contender team and we think we have the team for that now, we've shown that across the past couple of events.

It's very hard to point at one thing, but we're trying to add a lot of small details when it comes to the game, having more set rounds, removing some of the ones we had before.
We're just trying to go more in depth with our playbook with m0NESY, because even when we had degster we still didn't get to go through everything because it was still such a new team. There's still a lot of work to do.

I can only speak for myself, but when it comes to the Major, you don't care about what's happening outside of the game. Everyone's highest priority is the Major.
We can't control what will happen afterwards, it's not really in our hands, so everyone is fully focused on this Major and trying to make sure we're as ready as we can be.
I can't tell any difference in the team now compared to two months ago before the reports, nothing has really changed especially because the Major is the final event of the season. It doesn't matter what's going to happen for the next season or whatever, you just have to go out there and give it your all because the Major's are two times a year and you work towards it all season.
We just want to go out there and make sure we have no regrets, we may still be behind Vitality, but we want to go and control the things we can control and that's the preparation we're doing right now.

Yeah, I've been impressed ever since we first teamed up together, I was really surprised by the way and he plays, his attitude and his work ethic. There's a lot of good things I learned about him when we got onto the team, so I'm not surprised he's playing at this level.
I think that he had a sloppy period from February to April, we tried to put him into some unnatural roles, but when we put him back on the anchor and entry roles he stepped his game up.
I'm positively surprised by him, and what he does for the team is really good. He's a super good player and I think everyone has now seen what he can do.

Yeah, I'm definitely also impressed by him, he's shown some really good moments in important games. He really steps up in playoffs, and I knew from practice that he's a good IGL, but I didn't know how he'd react to those important games, so I'm really happy.
For me, I think he's the best mechanical IGL out there, when I watch him play it's sometimes hard to say that he is an IGL.
Obviously, there's still some experience he needs to gain and work to be done, but I think he's on a good path. He has a very good coach behind him as well, which can help him become an even better IGL, he's very open-minded and he's always trying to acknowledge all the help, he's always open to discussion and learning.
I was very happy when we got this core from HEROIC, and although I didn't know what to expect at first, I'm really happy we did it because I think we created something very strong.

I think it works this way for a lot of teams with IGLs who are playing anchor roles, it's hard for them to have a proper picture of the map and what you want to do, so they're not really in control.
When it comes to myself, I wouldn't call myself an IGL, but I do kind of have the final say on the CT side. Everyone can chime in with things they want to do, if someone wants to make a specific set up on Inferno or something, people are free to call what they want to do in the freeze time, but if it's something more set or we want to gamble, then it will be me saying it.
The CT side IGL isn't me calling all the time, I want everyone to chime in and feel comfortable with playing individually. I think this is what the CT side comes down to, people making their own moves, getting their kills and moving based on the information we get.
It doesn't really overlap with kyxsan too much, I think it worked similarly in HEROIC and Apeks, too.

I haven't won a Major yet, obviously, so right now we're working on the approach we're going to have for the Major. Our ultimate goal will obviously be to try to lift the trophy, we've been close now a couple of times.
I think it doesn't matter how good or bad you've been before, when you go to the Major you only have one goal, and that's to win it. But when it comes to myself, I just want to focus on being a better player. I need to improve on some things I've been doing badly recently, I've had some bad maps that I had to look into and change things.
I don't want to focus too much on lifting a trophy, I want to do everything I can to get ready for the event. All the work I do right now is to get the Major, so I just want to focus on that, not on the end result. The goal is to win, but I need to do all the practice that could be enough for us to lift the Major.

I'm not so sure, to be honest. Usually those maps are pretty strong for me, such as Nuke and Inferno, and it's not acceptable for me to play this way one those maps.
I don't know the reason behind it, maybe they just countered the way that I play, for example against GamerLegion they put three guys Outside every round to try and kill me. When people use that much resources to do so, it's hard to have much impact.
It's something that I've looked into, I know it will get better for the Major, but when it comes to the bad games in general, I know that if I played better that we could've lifted a trophy or two.
But again, you play against the best team in the world and it's tough. It's been tough playing against Vitality for me because they have a system that punishes a lot of the plays I like to make, I think I played better against them in Dallas, but I need to be more consistent in these games.
I don't try to put too much thought into playing bad in the final, I don't believe in that. For me, every playoff game is the same. It's an elimination game and you play in front of the same crowd every day, so I don't really believe that I play bad, I just lack some of the resources against a team like Vitality and that's what I'm trying to fix now.

No, for me, I don't think it's anything like that, when I go on the stage I approach every game the same way.
I just know that I wasn't in the best shape during the past couple of events, so that's something I want to improve on and if it keeps happening, something is definitely wrong, but I'm still not too concerned about it.

I definitely think we had a higher chance to take them in Dallas in a BO3, we still haven't put enough work in on certain maps that we could play in a BO5.
But I don't really believe in that, because I think if we're a better team on that day, we can beat them in both a BO3 or BO5. Is the chance higher in a BO3? Maybe, but as I said, if they're to play better CS on that day, they'll beat us. We can also play better CS than them, and we've been close when we've played them, so I don't want to say the next time we play them we will beat them, but I know that we're close.
I know that they feel the biggest danger from us when it comes to all the teams, and that gives us some respect when we play against them which is good for us, so I would say that beating them in the Major playoffs could make up for all the losses we've had before.