dupreeh: "No more chokerino!"

After their incredibly consistent run of top four finishes ended at DreamHack Stockholm, dignitas have struggled and even changed a player while trying to regain their form.

They removed Philip "⁠aizy⁠" Aistrup to give René "⁠cajunb⁠" Borg another chance, and hope this move will pay off in Jönköping. Find out below what Peter "⁠dupreeh⁠" Rasmussen makes of all this.

dupreeh spoke to HLTV.org about DreamHack Winter

How well prepared do you feel for DreamHack? Did you change a lot of things in how you play or simply focus on refining your current style? Will you be taking part in the official Inferno Online bootcamp, considering the problems having all teams on-site might bring?

Peter "⁠dupreeh⁠" Rasmussen: We're definately starting to feel more prepared for DreamHack, even though I personally feel that one more week would do a lot of stuff for us - but I'd say it's starting to look good in a lot of ways. We haven't changed everything, but we surely have changed a lot, since we decided to bring in cajun to replace Aizy. I can't reveal what, but people might notice! Apart from that, refining our current style and adding some new spices and ideas, is what we have worked on the last couple of weeks! I hope and believe it will help us far in this tournament!

We won't be participating in the official Inferno Online bootcamp, because individuals on our team have work and school to attend, so that attending DreamHack Winter would be possible for them. We have been trying to put in as much time as possible online, to compensate for not attending the bootcamp. In general, our team is having troubles doing bootcamps (apart from onlines) due to a lot of personal work and school. Hopefully 2015 will be able to provide us that option, but only time will tell!

What’s your stance on the stickers? Were you surprised at how much money teams made from them for ESL One Cologne? Do you think more of the money should be allocated towards prizes? As things stand, the Legends capsule pays (per Cologne) more than winning the event.

Peter "⁠dupreeh⁠" Rasmussen: I was indeed very suprised that the stickers brought in that amount of money. In the begining it seemed very surrealistic. For me personal, I started to "care less" about my actual prize money winning at Cologne, as I realized how much I would get just from stickers. Not saying that money is everything for me - but the amount of money from stickers just overshadowed what I actually won from the competition.

I dont know if I would put more of the sticker money into the prizepool, actually. It might be a good idea. Winning a major is the most prestigous thing you can do in this game, so thats a prize itself, I'd say. As much as I love money, that amount more, I love the game, and the competition so for me it's not only about money, but also a large margin about being better than others and beating your rivals. Time will tell if the sticker money will change, but I doubt it, and I will leave that responsibility to someone else!

How do you expect your group to play out? Can you talk about each of the teams in your group in detail, what you expect from your potential match-up against each of them, and how do you expect to fare?

Peter "⁠dupreeh⁠" Rasmussen: I actually believe we have the easiest group of them all. After Titan's KQLY got caught cheating, the skill-level dropped, without being cocky towards Copenhagen Wolves, but I'd go this far saying that Titan would be a bigger threat against every team in our group, maybe a part from us, as domestic match-ups can get pretty tricky, especially in best of 1's.

Our first matchup is against German-sided PENTA-eSports, a team I don't fear, but definately not a team I would ever consider underestimating. I dont know much about them as a team, but I know a that they do have decent players, that could change the games outcome. However, I am confident that we will beat them. Anything but a victory would be very dissapointing from us.

iBUYPOWER had some decent results lately in Europe, but then all of a sudden Steel and DaZeD got removed from the roster, and 2 new players added. Again, after these changes I dont know much about them, but the individual skills of AZK, swag and Skadoodle is something to watch out for. At Cologne we lost against Cloud9, so it's time to get revenge against the Americans if we end up facing them in the group. Most likely a tight game, but I feel confident and believe we will come out on top!

Last team of course are our Danish friends from Copenhagen Wolves, long time rivals! We've been playing against eachother in different occasions a lot of times, so I guess both teams know how each other like to play! A domestic matchup in best of 1's could get grim, but I hope for the best. I hope to face the guys from Copenhagen Wolves, as it would be a very interesting match! Again, I am confident and believe we will come out on top!

Our recent article “Major problems” brought up multiple issues such as the online qualifiers (cheating, DDoS), inconsistent format (best-of-one groups) with very few matches, etc. What is your stance on the qualification system and the tournament format? How would you like to improve the majors?

Peter "⁠dupreeh⁠" Rasmussen: As for DDOS, I guess we are about to be the experts, as we're constantly attacked online. We didn't have to qualify for this major, but I could imagine people playing the qualifier and getting ddosed, having to play with a stand-in is a huge thing, as it could definately determine if you advance to the major or not. Im not a computer tech, so I have no idea how to improve this problem, a part from protection yourself against the attackes better! (*wink at my own team and myself*) inb4 someone says its easy, it's a hard deal for us, even though a lot of people state it's not. I'd love to see LAN-qualifiers next time though, seems like a good and more fair way to do things.

Cheating, simply no comments. A disgrace for eSports and for the CS:GO scene. I've read numerous of threads about how to improve the security at LANs, and some of them are good, some of them seem pointless. If people can actually execute cheats through Steam's own workshop and through their mices, then I dont see any other way, than playing on brand new accounts with no-access whatsoever to the workshop and the organizers providing brand new pheriphials for the competitors. But then again, someone might find a loop-hole and we're back at it again.. At least more precautions have to be done I'd say.

The tournament format has always appealed me in some way apart from the new VETO-system, where a map is picked random. The GSL-format with 2 wins/2 losses, seems fair I'd say. Either you perform, or you go out, it's that simple. When you compete for these prize pools, it should be up-hill from the begining, in my opinion!

dignitas have yet to impress with cajunb

Another big issue for debate right now is the CZ-75. Suggestions for it have ranged from altering its rate of fire and damage, to even making it an SMG while upping its price. Do you think it should be changed, and if so, how would you recommend Valve do it?

Peter "⁠dupreeh⁠" Rasmussen: I definately believe it should be changed. There's so much stuff about this "pistol" that makes me cringe my toes and flip my table atleast twice a night. I have already personally talked to Valve about the matter, and together with our coach, Steffen "3k2" Markussen, worked on ideas how to get it balanced. The thing is, if you change the variables too much, it might become useless, and if you don't change them enough, it's still unbalanced.

The current problem with the CZ-75 lies in the rate of fire and moving accuracy. We've done various of tests with it, and the major problems is, that it has the running recoil of a pistol, where the first bullet 9/10 times hits straight on target and to add up the damage it inflicts. Literally if you know how to pre-aim corners and you get a headshot off onto someone, you can jump and spray like a mad-man, because you just need to hit him one more time, anywhere, so that way you are almost guaranteed a kill. Peeking with a CZ-75 around corners (close-up) is in alot of cases more profitable than doing it with a rifle!

Fixing the damage with a certain amount, and maybe adding rifles running recoil to it, would fix it I'd say. It's too easy to hold angles with just a CZ and that being profitable in most situations. That being said, having the CZ-75 as a close-up gun for backup when playing AWP is ridiculous.

Obviously going into the event the favorites are fnatic and LDLC, but so far the favorites have never won a major. Is there someone else who you think could surprise us and win it all? Who do you expect to place in the top four?

Peter "⁠dupreeh⁠" Rasmussen: I'm looking forward to see if NiP have improved their plays since the last couple of tournaments with the addition of their new player, Maikelele. I believe that Na`Vi could also go far if they get their game going, as they usually always end up performing well on LAN and when it matters however;

A top 4 would consist of fnatic, LDLC, NiP, dignitas in no specific order.

What do you make of this cheating scandal? Were you surprised players might have been cheating at tournaments, or did you expect it? Do you believe the players caught cheated in LAN tournaments, and do you believe more players cheated who simply haven’t been caught, yet?

Peter "⁠dupreeh⁠" Rasmussen: I was very suprised indeed, I could imagine semi-pros cheating in smaller leagues to get recognized but that players like KQLY would end up getting caught was a huge suprise for me. Sf on the other hand, meh, that guy has been fishy for a long time. Not as an Epsilon playerr, but back in LDLC he was unhuman in certain situations, so I am not suprised regarding him honestly. Just glad that they both got caught and punished for their actions, even though I liked KQLY. I do not hate him, but I am very disappointed in him.

It's a disgrace that people have to cheat to be able to compete at this level, if you're not good enough, then you have to practice more, and then eventually you might hit the right amount of skills.

I honestly don't know if these guys cheated in LAN tournaments, I hope not, but after smn was caught and he revealed a lot of stuff regarding LAN-cheat capabilities, I got scared that it might have happened, and will in the future.

For the last question; Yes, I think there are more people to be caught. I don't know who but time will tell if I am right or wrong.

Since ESL One Cologne your team has faced massive struggles at LAN tournaments, unable to break the final four and even going out in groups once. What has changed in your play since then?

Peter "⁠dupreeh⁠" Rasmussen: As stated previously in this interview, we've been trying to work out some new stuff, and really identifty what our major problems were. I think we found atleast some of them, so I hope this fix will help us at DreamHack. And then of course, no more chokerino!

Opening round of DreamHack Winter for dignitas will pit them up against German PENTA, while they also share the group with iBUYPOWER and Danish Copenhagen Wolves.