Author: TheSwedishJoker

Hugo “TheSwedishJoker” Nilsson Meier, BLIX.GG: Congratulations on the win! You guys won over complexity pretty convincingly, 2-0. What was the preparation like going into the game?broky: We didn’t really have any preparation. We just practiced three maps yesterday with es3tag, and that was it. Since we got kind of fucked with konfig, so we had to get him in fast and practiced three maps, and that was it.BLIX: You had a similar situation last year in Katowice with Jks kinda, and I remember that you guys said that you guys just played a lot of retakes together. Do you think…

Hugo “TheSwedishJoker” Nilsson Meier, BLIX.GG: You’ve been in G2 for a little bit more than 2 years now. And you finally managed to win a trophy after being close many, many times in the past. Has it sunk in yet that you have finally managed to get that long-sought trophy after so many tries?Nemanja ” huNter- ” Kovač: I mean 3 and a half years it will be in G2. So yeah, I won the first tier one trophy at the beginning when I joined the team. After a couple months, I already won one trophy, but it was not…

huNter- chats with us about the new update at the BLAST Premier Spring Groups. Be sure to check out part one of our interview to here more from G2’s rifler.Hugo “TheSwedishJoker” Nilsson Meier, BLIX.GG: Last year CS came out with a new update from Valve. Nerfing the M4. Are you disappointed or do you feel like it was a good update from valve?huNter- : I mean I was disappointed with the map changes that they were doing. Not because of the change but because they brought new maps again and not the old ones. So, we have a lot of…

Hugo “TheSwedishJoker” Nilsson Meier, BLIX.GG: There were a lot of uncertainties for you guys before the event started. What has the preparation been like?Robin “ropz” Kool: The preparation is basically nonexistent. We practiced before the tournament with rain, but we knew he was not going to be here. But the main point is you want to practice with rain. He’s going to come back and step in for Katowice. So, Katowice is the main goal which is why we want to be ready for that and for this tournament. We knew we were going to use k0nfig but then things…

Hugo “TheSwedishJoker” Nilsson Meier, BLIX.GG: NiP is your first Tier 1 team, and first team outside of NAVI Junior/Youth. How has it been so far for you?Daniil “headtr1ck” Valitov: I’m excited to play, it’s a good experience for me to play with an international team and a legendary tag like NiP. I wanted to play for an international team even before NiP, because it’s a great experience and it improves your English language, so it’s good for me. And I’m feeling great, because every member of our team is trying to help me to play, in a lot of aspects…

Hugo “TheSwedishJoker” Nilsson Meier, BLIX.GG: Congratulations on the win! 2-0 against BIG. Did the veto come out as you guys expected?Rasmus “HooXi” Nielsen: Yes. We were actually not surprised at all by the veto, so I think they were surprised that we were not surprised, and that was quite fun.BLIX: What did the preparations look like coming into the event? Like, we have Anubis now in the map pool.HooXi: Yeah, it’s a tough event to prepare for because all our enemies in the group change the lineups and also there’s a huge change to play Ancient, and then there’s a…

Hugo “TheSwedishJoker” Nilsson Meier, BLIX.GG: Congratulations on your first win here at BLAST. 2-0 over Team Liquid. Can you talk to me a little bit about Ancient and what helped you guys win on that map so comfortably?Adam “NEOFRAG” Zouhar: I think we are pretty confident on this map. We practiced it, and I think we know the meta. We have had good preparation; basically every round, we know what we should do and the reactions we know. So, I think in Ancient we knew what we were doing.BLIX: The second map was Nuke; it was a very close affair…

This is a continuation of TheSwedishJoker’s interview with dev1ce at BLAST. You can read the first part here.Hugo “TheSwedishJoker” Nilsson Meier, BLIX.GG: Talk to me a little bit about expectations. Do you guys have any expectations set already for the short-term or long-term? What do they look like?dev1ce: I mean, absolutely bare minimum is obviously qualifying for the Major, but that didn’t happen for the guys last time, and it means a lot for the organization and the team. For me looking at the whole year, it’s definitely bringing Astralis back to a level where we go into tournaments feeling…

In this 2 part article, we sat down with Astralis’ dev1ce to talk about his return to competing in LAN and rejoining Astralis. Check back tomorrow for part 2!Hugo “TheSwedishJoker” Nilsson Meier, BLIX.GG: You’ve had a long break from LAN competition. How are you keeping yourself in shape?Nicolai “ dev1ce” Reedtz: I’ve been playing a lot of FACEIT; when I started my break, I think I had two months of CS, but other than that, I just grinded and played FACEIT for a long time. Other than that, obviously, with the team now, it’s been a tournament or two, online…

Hugo “TheSwedishJoker” Nilsson Meier, BLIX.GG: It’s been half a season with the team, with Jabbi. What are the main differences from your point of view in the team’s game now compared to when you had refrezh?Rasmus “sjuush” Beck: I think it’s more consistent, like, the way we play definitely as CT, with refrezh we had a lot of set things. It was really rare that we played freely. We did it sometimes, and it worked pretty well when we did it, but when we didn’t do those things, it just shut down our side pretty bad, and with Jabbi, it’s…