Hugo “TheSwedishJoker” Nilsson Meier, BLIX.GG: How are you feeling about the Paris Major?
Mathieu ‘ZywOo’ Herbaut: I mean, this is the Paris Major. So I think apEX and I are really excited, but we also have a bit more pressure. I don’t think we will feel the pressure right now, but whenever we’re gonna play the first matches or in the RMR, we’re gonna feel it. And of course, we are excited, I think we want to be in the future, in like four months once we’ve played the Paris Major already. Because maybe this will be my first and last LAN in Paris, or maybe even in France since we don’t know if there’s going to be more, so I’m gonna give it my all.
BLIX: What do you feel is the minimum acceptable goal for you at the Paris Major?
ZywOo: I think for any team the goal is going to be winning the Major, of course. Because if you don’t want to win the Major, why did you come? But I think for me the minimum is gonna be to play in front of the crowd, to play in front of France. So, for me it’s going to be the minimum here, to be on stage to play in front of the crowd.
BLIX: Last year, they played some exhibition games. I don’t know if you know, a French team in League, they had this huge crowd in the Louvre. Do you think we can expect a similar crowd at the Major, you know, French fans being loud and everything?
ZywOo: I think we can have huge crowds in Paris, yeah, because I remember in Antwerp, when unfortunately we didn’t play on stage, there were like 200 to 300 Vitality fans there. And I think they were making more noise than 5000 people. So I think if you have this, if you have 5000 people screaming like them, it can be huge. So I have no doubt’¦ Paris can be huge, with huge crowds. Because we have a good community in France, and of course they are going to come to see the Major.
BLIX: Last year, you guys added Spinx to the roster; before that, it was majority French; yourself, apEX, misutaaa. How has it been for you to switch from it being a bit more French to more international and English speaking?
ZywOo: In the beginning it was hard because, of course, I didn’t have the best English. So the first six months were hard in English, because I have to take some lessons. It felt like my head was bigger and bigger because I had a headache from listening to English since I was not used to it. Also, in-game it was kind of hard because in French it would take me zero and half a second to understand something, but in English it’s gonna be one second and a half. So yeah, the change in language was hard at the beginning. But right now I’m used to it because when you speak it eight hours a day, then it becomes quite normal and I have no problem with that now.
BLIX: So you guys won Pro League last year with Spinx after he came in. Then it was kind of a little bit so-so, maybe. How would you say that the last season went? Are you satisfied with how it went, or do you think that you can become even better this year?
ZywOo: No, I don’t think we are satisfied with our performances last year because, okay, we won EPL, but we didn’t manage to go to the playoffs at the Majors. So for us the main goal is gonna be the Major again. So whenever we win one or two tournaments, we don’t care. Our first goal is going to be the Major. So, of course, we’re not satisfied with last year; we want to do better.
BLIX: How has the practice looked like coming into play BLAST Spring Groups for you guys?
ZywOo: It was good. I mean, it’s practice, so we cannot say, ‘Well okay I destroyed everyone’ or ‘I got destroyed’ because this is practice, you’re training new stuff. I want to see our first official because practice is practice. I don’t like to think about ‘Okay, we have good practice, we’re going to destroy everyone’. We have to think about the first official because you don’t know what’s going to work. So I want to see the first official to say we’re on our way to winning the first tournament or first Major, or if there’s a lot of things to work on.
BLIX: What would you say are your expectations for the whole year, not just the Major?
ZywOo: I think we have more expectations for this year, because the last year was up and down. We don’t want to have ups and downs. We just want to go up up up. Even if we start slowly, we want to go up, not down. So it is going to be the goal for this year to give everything in four months and try as hard as we can.
BLIX: At the end of last year, Valve came out with an update reducing the AWP to five bullets. Now that you’ve had time to play on it, what do you think of the new AWP?
ZywOo: Actually it’s funny because whenever I shoot two or three times I’m always like ‘F*ck I have to reload’. You sort of have to change your mindset to stop shooting through smoke or stop spamming with the AWP because people know you only have bullets, they might wait and try to catch you. You have to think in a different way. But I’m always laughing whenever I have to reload the AWP because I’m not used to it.
BLIX: Do you think you will change the way you play compared to last season when you have ten bullets?
ZywOo: No, I don’t think I or any AWPer is gonna change their gameplay. I don’t think it’s gonna change anything.
BLIX: Do you think that it was a good update? Or could you maybe have done something else with the AWP? If there was one change needed, let’s say. Would you have done something else instead of reducing the bullets?
ZywOo: Actually, I don’t know. I don’t know what more they can do. Because I think the AWP since the beginning of Counter-Strike was like a kinda OP weapon.But otherwise what can they do? Reduce the damage? I mean, I don’t know what more they can do. But I also, think the the M4A1-S update was good since people are using both depending on the map.
Cover image credit: Copyright ESL | Helena Kristiansson
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