Pre-Cph Games: dupreeh, mnL

27-3-2013 23:14

This part of our Pre-Copenhagen Games interviews has us catching up with Copenhagen Wolves' Peter "dupreeh" Rasmussen and ALTERNATE's Manuel "mnL" Oberlein.

First up is former 3DMAX member Peter "dupreeh" Rasmussen, who has since his days in his past team joined up with the recently created Copenhagen Wolves roster.

The Wolves already attended HKLAN 2013 last month and took down fnatic and EYES ON U en route to a second place finish, only after taking one map from the eventual winners Anexis, current Western Wolves.

Since then the Danish side has added more firepower in Bo "wantz" Vestergaard in hopes of doing even better at Copenhagen Games. Find out what Rasmussen thinks below.

How has your preparation for Copenhagen Games been? Have you bootcamped or simply practiced online? Have you faced any issues? How prepared do you feel as a team?

Cph Wolves dupreeh: Our preparation for Copenhagen Games haven't been the best, yet not that bad either. We've been trying to play everyday the past 2 weeks, and trying to fix as many mistakes as possible. Sadly, we haven't had the time to bootcamp, but we've practiced through out last weekend, so we've had an "online-bootcamp-ish". We are still a few months behind a lot of teams when it comes to playtime together as a team, as the team was created just a few weeks before HKLAN, but that's just something we have to accept, and try to do our best!

How important is Copenhagen Games to your team as an event? It has the most prize money since DreamHack Winter and just about every top team attending, including the North Americans. Does it being BYOC take any of the prestige away in your opinion?

Cph Wolves dupreeh: Copenhagen Games are really important to us. First of all the main tournament is sponsored by Komplett, which is also one of Copenhagen Wolves' main sponsors, so doing good at this event is highly prioritzed. Secondly, I think it's great to have such a big event like this, gathering all the best teams in the world to compete, it's always a pleasure to watch and attend. And the fact that is a mixed BYOC and non-BYOC doesn't really matter in my opinion, unless the computers provided by the event are extremely bad, I think everyone will do fine.

With almost all top teams present, who do you think will finish in the top four besides NiP? Is there any team in particular who isn't getting enough attention or who has been impressing you in practice?

Cph Wolves dupreeh: It will be very hard to finish top four besides NiP for sure. NiP has been dominating everything so far, and apart from them we have teams like VeryGames, ESC, Na'Vi, Western Wolves and Virtus Pro that are really practicing and fighting hard to win this event.

However, I see that NiP will be one of the finalists, and the last team, can be almost anyone.

I think a team like fnatic deserves a little more attention. They've had a rough time lately with a, in most peoples opinion, disapointing 4th place finish at HKLAN, and in general just having problems in various leagues. However, adding MODDI and stinger to their line-up has really proven to work for them. They've won pretty much everything online, and pretty big, so I believe they are going to do good at Copenhagen Games. They seem like a very strong lineup with a big potential with big individual profiles, so if the lineup stays as it is, they will do very good in the future too.

Do you like the format of Copenhagen Games (best-of-three groups, best-of-three upper- and best-of-one lower bracket)? What would you change? Do you think it forces teams to play too much?

Cph Wolves dupreeh: With such a huge amount of good teams showing up, I think it would be a shame to play only Best-of-one in groupstages, and in the upper bracket. By playing 3 maps the match seems more "fair" and, if a team decides to fail in the 1st map, they can improve by winning 2nd and going into 3rd map. And I dont think its too much. The players who attend such events like this are well aware of the time to spend playing, so I dont think its too much.

Best-of-one in lowerbracket are just fine. You've blown your 1st chance, heres the 2nd. You've got one more shot, and you can't afford to fail.

dupreeh representing Copenhagen Wolves at HKLAN 2013

Which one thing do you think can make the biggest difference in how your team performs this week? Does your team e.g. rely on someone to have good matches a lot? Are you very reliant on pistol round wins? Anything similar besides "hitting your shots" or "being lucky"?

Cph Wolves dupreeh: This team is pretty much the old source CKRAS lineup, who were ranked 2nd best in the world for a long time (only beaten by VeryGames). The only difference is that I replaced h0lm. It surely gives an advantage that 4 players have played and known eachother for a long time. Apart fromt that, FeTisH, cajun, 3k2 and wantz are some of the most LAN-experienced danes around (source-minded).

We are surely going to rely a lot on that experience, to keep calm and play as a team. Hit our shots, have good communication and good chemistry. We will also rely on some individual performances, especially from cajun and wantz to win important rounds, but overall, we have to be ready from day 1.

Your team was able to finish second at HKLAN quickly after its resurrection, even defeating fnatic and EYES ON U in the process, before tying the final 1-1 versus the current Western Wolves squad. How much better are you now? Do you expect to be the best Danish team at this event? How close were you to winning HKLAN?

Cph Wolves dupreeh: We had been playing very poor in practice up to HKLAN, at some point some of us didn't even expect a top 3 finish, but we managed to pull out some strong plays in the lowerbracket against teams like fnatic and EYES ON U.

I believe we are somewhat a little bit better now. We have been working out new setups and tactics to use at Copenhagen Games, and in general the atmosphere around the team feels good at this moment. We have been looking a lot at our mistakes, as it's no secret, that we struggled a lot in the begining when we were practicing with wantz, as he was also fairly new to the game, and also that we had to swap a lot of positions on several maps to make it work for us.

You made a lineup change a few weeks ago, adding Bo "wantz" Vestergaard who has been labeled as one of the best CS:Source players. How has he adjusted to CS:GO and what can we expect to see from him? Is he the best player in your team yet?

Cph Wolves dupreeh: There is no doubt about wantz - he is an extremely good player with such a high individual skill. Hes a really calm guy and he knows when to step up, rally for the team and in general just being amazing. He was by far one of the best players in Source, and I really think he can achieve that in CS:GO as well at some point. He is still learning game mechanics, but he has improved a lot since the beginging! He is one to look out for! I dont think there is a "best player" on our team right now - its a team game, and we are going to perform as a unit!

Next up is Manuel "mnL" Oberlain, the brother of n!faculty star Benjamin "qk-Mantis" Oberlein, answered our questions for ALTERNATE. Oberlain was part of the team who placed second a year ago at Copenhagen Games' CS:S tournament.

More recently his squad attended Mad Catz CS:GO Invitational, where they managed to tie VeryGames in the group stage but went out after a loss against fellow countrymen logiX.

Continue reading to learn what Oberlain thinks of his squad's chances in Copenhagen this week, what they have been doing to improve since Vienna and more.

How has your preparation for Copenhagen Games been? Have you bootcamped or simply practiced online? Have you faced any issues? How prepared do you feel as a team?

ALTERNATE mnL: We feel well prepared for Copenhagen Games, even if we didn't have much time because I had to work a lot in the evenings, but we did the best with the time we had. Sadly there was no room for a bootcamp because kRYSTAL had important exams so we just practiced online as much as possible.

How important is Copenhagen Games to your team as an event? It has the most prize money since DreamHack Winter and just about every top team attending, including the North Americans. Does it being BYOC take any of the prestige away in your opinion?

ALTERNATE mnL: After a bad result in Vienna and a lot of entitled criticism we decided to drive to Copenhagen to show that we can match up with the other top teams. So it's very important for us. I don't think the fact that it's BYOC takes away any prestige of the event. As you can see on paper with the attending teams list.

With almost all top teams present, who do you think will finish in the top four besides NiP? Is there any team in particular who isn't getting enough attention or who has been impressing you in practice?

ALTERNATE mnL: I guess we will have VeryGames, Curse.NA and Anexis. Wouldn't be nice to call ourself to the top 4 but of course I hope that will happen. Even so I wish some other German teams do well and that n!faculty can come back to old strength after their bootcamp.

mnL competing at Mad Catz CS:GO Invitational

Do you like the format of Copenhagen Games (best-of-three groups, best-of-three upper- and best-of-one lower bracket)? What would you change? Do you think it forces teams to play too much?

ALTERNATE mnL: No, I wouldn't change anything. It's the best tournament system so far. Bo3 is the only way to decide which team is the better one. In Bo1 it's everytime a bit of luck to not pick the best map of the opposite team.

Which one thing do you think can make the biggest difference in how your team performs this week? Does your team e.g. rely on someone to have good matches a lot? Are you very reliant on pistol round wins? Anything similar besides "hitting your shots" or "being lucky"?

ALTERNATE mnL: We had to put a lot of work in communication and I think if it's working well we'll do better. We lost every pistol in Vienna but had close results against VeryGames and Anexis and so we put a lot of energy in there too. And for sure doing the important frags is always a part of the game, if you dont get the frags you dont get the game, thats how CS works. :D

What do you credit for your recent improvements? Although you already won last EPS Germany season, most people wouldn't have considered you a threat until recently, when you've clinched first place in the current EPS season's group stage, put up a fight vs NiP online and tied VeryGames at Mad Catz. Have you improved significantly since Mad Catz?

ALTERNATE mnL: The most important thing we did is that we talked a lot about stuff what each of us think and what we have to improve. It is very necessary that everyone in the team feels comfortable to show their best performance. So I can say yes we improved on the server and outside of it.

You placed second at Copenhagen Games' CS:S tournament last year, although the finish was met with a lot of criticism about settings etc. Do you feel comfortable at this tournament? Do you think it's an advantage to you knowing you've made the grand final there before?

ALTERNATE mnL: Of course we're glad to attend Copenhagen Games again, it was the best result on a big international event we've had. The finish was just criticized from one team and all the others congratulated us for the good result in 2012. I don't think its an advantage because every event has their own rules and its a new chance for everyone, also it is a new game.