flusha: "I'm now the in-game leader"

Next in line for our pre-DreamHack Bucharest interview series is fnatic's new in-game leader Robin "flusha" Rönnquist.

Rönnquist and company broke out as Epsilon at Copenhagen Games, where they were able to defeat Na`Vi and come within inches of taking down fnatic en route to advancing to the playoffs.

The team then surprised the world at DreamHack Summer by placing second to NiP in the main tournament while also claiming a second place in the Swedish Championship.

flusha representing Epsilon at DreamHack 

Since then Epsilon let go of their stand-in Martin "cENTRYZ" Brandal, joined fnatic and recruited Andreas "MODDII" Fridh as their fifth member, and at first the in-game leader.

Now Rönnquist however reveals that he has taken over the leadership position in fnatic in order to give Fridh a chance to focus on fragging more. Continue reading to find out more.

How have you prepared for DreamHack Bucharest? Have you only practiced online or also bootcamped? How well prepared will you be in time for the event? Will we see you in tip top shape?

flusha: We have had a bootcamp at moddii's place for 4-5 days prior to DH Bucharest, I hope we will perform at our best level at DreamHack.

There have been a lot of online matches in the past few weeks, do you think this has helped or damaged you coming into a big LAN event? Do you think being able to study other teams’ strats helps or will others studying you hurt you more? How much should we look into your recent performance as an indicator of current form?

flusha: The online matches have probably not been that good to have coming into this LAN since we haven't really played with moddii for a long time and we have had more matches than we have had time to go through every map and strategy with moddii. If people have been studying our latest online matches they will probably not be prepared because we haven't really showed the things we have gone through yet. The recent performance we've had in our online matches doesn't really show anything, we are a totally different team on LAN with a lot of new things.

You've been placed in group A and will start off against NiP, TeG and neXtPlease. How do you expect to fare there? Do you see any upsets taking place in the other groups?

flusha: We expect to go through the group rather easily but we should not underestimate the Romanian teams as they could prove to be very strong and have a different playstyle than the other teams.

MODDII is no longer fnatic's in-game leader 

If you had a gun to your head and had to guess which placing you would end up at in Bucharest, what would you guess? What placing would you be happy ending up at? How do you think the top three will shape up? Who will surprise in the tournament, both positively and negatively?

flusha: I would place ourselves at least in the top eight and if we get lucky with the brackets and we don't face NiP or VG right away, top four. The placing I would be happy with would be top four. The top three would be NiP, VeryGames and the third team is hard to predict since the skill levels are too close among the other teams.

Who in your team needs to play well in order for you to perform at your highest level? Which players from other teams do you think can turn some heads? Any up and coming stars to watch out for?

flusha: No one in particular needs to play well for us to win, everyone in this team can carry a match by himself if he just plays really well.

Your team has been fairly inconsistent since recruiting MODDII and joining fnatic, with impressive wins but also some disappointing losses. What do you think is causing the inconsistency, and what are you doing to fix it? Do you think you are in as good of a shape now as you were at DreamHack Summer?

flusha: As I said before, we have not gone through all the maps and tactics since we recruited moddii and I think that is why we have been so inconsistent. What we have changed is that I'm now the in-game leader so that moddii can now focus on fragging.

If we are in as good of a shape now as we were at DHS? We were in really bad shape going into DHS so I don't think that says too much, and we are probably in a better shape now then before DHS.

Coming up next will be VeryGames' Richard "shox" Papillon, whose interview will be released later tonight. Stay tuned to HLTV.org for continued DreamHack Bucharest pre-coverage.