FeTiSh: "There's no I in team"

dignitas were without a shred of a doubt the strongest side during the first day of G3, having topped their group with four wins from as many matches (the match against fm-eSports ended in a forfeit loss as its outcome would not affect the group placings).

However, the Danish side fell at the second hurdle in the playoffs and suffered a 1-2 defeat against Virtus.pro, who would go on to win the entire event.

In this interview, Henrik "⁠FeTiSh⁠" Christensen discusses his team's performances in London, their apparent mental blockade after a big loss and the addition of de_cobblestone and de_overpass to ESL One Cologne's map pool, among other subjects.

dignitas finished 3rd-4th at G3 

How have you prepared for ESL One Cologne so far? Do you have a bootcamp planned for the final days leading up to the event? Do you feel adequately prepared?

Henrik "⁠FeTiSh⁠" Christensen: We just recently started playing again after six-eight weeks off. To be precise, we started playing just six days before G3. We will not be able to bootcamp prior to ESL One due to work and school. So our way of preparing for ESL One is rather simple: we will play as much as possible and look at stuff we need to improve. Last, but not least, will have to look at some "fun" new maps. 

After a long hiatus from international competition, G3 took place last weekend. What do you make of the results? Were you surprised by anyone? What comes to mind when thinking about the event?

Henrik "⁠FeTiSh⁠" Christensen: I am extremely happy with how well we performed, for starters. I think the results show just how close all the top teams are and that surely makes for great viewing and entertaining. From our perspective, it obviously makes winning a lot harder, but I would much rather have it like this than, let's say, having one team completely dominating all events. I'd say I was by far most surprised by how well we performed, I honestly did not expect us to do this well after such a long break. Besides that, LondonC impressed me a lot.

At ESL One you’ve been placed in group D together with Titan, Cloud9 and Vox Eminor. Can you go through each team one at a time, and tell us what you think about them, and your chances against them?

Henrik "⁠FeTiSh⁠" Christensen: Let's start with Vox Eminor. I know very little about them and I guess everybody expect them to be knocked out first. But that being said, they showed moments of awesome plays at the last major so we definitely will not be going into that game thinking we've already won.

Next up is Cloud9, who played amazingly as coL at the recent ESEA Finals. They are a worldclass team with awesome and very gifted individuals, and we could lose against them very easily. With that being said, I've never lost to an American team, and let's hope it stays that way!

Last but not least we got Titan. From the looks of it, they seem to have overcome their really bad period, where they would make a ton of bad mistakes and just throw round after round. And KennyS has really been proving his worth as of late.

I think our worst opponent will be ourselves. We always make it out of the groups as the winning team and I hope we can keep that trackrecord, but you cannot be too overconfident with so many great teams in attendance. A few too many mistakes or a bad day and you're out. I'll hope for the best and let the recoil do the rest (LOL).

What are your expectations going into the event? I realize everyone will say they are in it to win it regardless of stature, but would you be happy with a quarter-finals exit? Top four? A spot in the grand finals?

Henrik "⁠FeTiSh⁠" Christensen: Well, I would be freaking happy if we could make it to a final for once. For some reason we always get the winning team or NiP. But our main goal is to make it out of the group as either first or second. After that you will have eight amazing teams you can lose to, but it is really going to go down to your team performance that day.

Do you have a clause in your contracts regarding the sticker money that will be coming in from ESL One? Is that something you had added later on specifically with Cologne in mind, or did it exist in the first place?

Henrik "⁠FeTiSh⁠" Christensen: We had a deal with Dignitas going into katowice and it is a good deal for both parties. We did change it slightly prior to G3 but that is not financial-related.

FeTiSh hits out at Valve for imposing cobblestone and overpass

It’s now been weeks since ESL announced the new map pool, featuring de_cobblestone and de_overpass. Now that you’ve had a chance to practice them, what do you think about them? What do you think about the new map veto system? Do you think these changes will work for or against you?

Henrik "⁠FeTiSh⁠" Christensen: I think that Valve should get a f**king clue. I mean the maps look good and they seem to play and fit into play okay. But that is with limited knowledge of how well they are actually going to be, and that is the issue. They impose these random changes without the slightest idea of the possible impact they could have. Do not get me wrong, I love getting new maps into competition, but you have a million ways to test these maps in competition before you add them to a major event, yet they just throw them into the mix without any idea of how well they will do.

I think the veto system could work out really well, without the new "random" maps. The thought process from valve/ESL is simply "how do we enforce the new maps", rather than "how do we improve the competitive environment". But as the two new maps are still way too new, I do not think anyone will benefit from them as the results and outcome are going to be more or less random. Valve will unfortunately never do things with the competitive aspect of the game as their first priority. Or they do, and simply do not know any better. Either way is bad. 

At both of the previous majors we saw a new team win a title (fnatic, Virtus.pro), propelled by new players rising to stardom (flusha, schneider, byali, Snax) . Do you expect another new team to rise up this time and if so, who could it be?

Henrik "⁠FeTiSh⁠" Christensen: Nope, I think NiP will come back stronger than ever and finally win a major. Perhaps the other swedish side, fnatic could win one again, but I do not see any "new" players playing a huge role for any of the teams who are curently favoured to win.

Though the trio of device, dupreeh and Xyp9x did amazingly well at G3, aizy struggled. Do you think it was the pressure of playing with a legitimate top team that got to him? Is that something you, as the oldest and most experienced player, talked to him about?

Henrik "⁠FeTiSh⁠" Christensen: Everyone played amazingly, as this game is a team game. aizy did better than I could ever expect of him, unfortunately for him he got stuck in positions that do not allow fancy scoreboard stats. But as a team player he did amazingly, just like the others! I think scream had a HS rate of 75% versus us, but to what use is awesome stats if you lose? Theres no "i" in team, and that is a cliche for a reason.

You had a very long break from competition before attending G3, where you did very well up until the second map of Virtus.pro series. What went wrong from that point onwards? You seemingly went from dominant to crumbling in a way that resembled your previous semi-final exits.

Henrik "⁠FeTiSh⁠" Christensen: That is sort of what happened. As mentioned before, our worst opponent is sometimes ourselves. We have talked a lot about the mental state you get into once you start losing and how not to get there and how to get out of such situations. Coming from a massive rape on cache 4-16 and then losing an all important anti-eco round was hard to deal with. Besides that we struggled with how they played their CT banana and such. But I honestly think it comes down to us not being able to get back into that mental state where you know you can win regardless of how poorly you've just performed. But it is a great learning experience and eventually we will learn to cope with it. It has only gotten better since EMS One Katowice. Besides that, there is no shame in losing to Virtus.pro, but with our first day performance in mind we should have made it to the final regardless of who we played.

dignitas have been drawn in the same group as Vox Eminor, Cloud9 and Titan, with Christensen's team due to to take on the Australian side in the opening round. Follow all the action of ESL One Cologne, which will run from August 14-17, here on HLTV.org.

More pre-ESL One Cologne interviews:

Jesper "⁠JW⁠" Wecksell: "We can surprise a lot of teams"

iBUYPOWER: "Too many mistakes"

Spencer "⁠Hiko⁠" Martin: "You are in for a treat"