MODDII: "valde is a complete player"

Despite having to use two ex-CPH Wolves stand-ins, Lukas "⁠gla1ve⁠" Rossander and Null element, SK have so far surprised many by taking down Immortals on Train and taking Astralis to a close Overpass.

At his first bigger event, Valdemar "⁠valde⁠" Bjørn Vangså proved his worth as he's SK's best-rated player, sitting at 1.13 rating after the two maps.

We managed to get a hold of Andreas "⁠MODDII⁠" Fridh after SK's loss to Astralis to talk about their stand-in situation, expectations and their matches so far in Jönköping.

When did you first learn you were going to DreamHack without Pimp and Magiskb0Y?

We found out that we were supposed to play without Pimp during ELEAGUE, because he told us he was going to Liquid. When we came home, Magiskb0Y told us he had some exams he needed to do, so basically five days ago.

Is there a reason why Pimp didn't get to come here, since he isn't really going to play with Liquid until after Cologne?

No, I don't think so, I think when he told us we just wanted to try and find a new fifth. Who knows, if we play good here, maybe we'll bring some of those guys in, I don't know.

Before this event, I imagine you didn't have big expectations considering you had to attend with two stand-ins...

No, we don't, I know we have a tough group with Immortals, Astralis and ENCE, we should be underdogs in all the games. Like people saw earlier today, we beat Immortals and we played a really tough and close game versus Astralis, so I guess we're just playing good right now and people shouldn't underestimate us I think.

Why do you think you were able to win against Immortals, do you think they're in a slump or is there something you did specifically to beat them?

They lost to some good teams [at the qualifier], I wouldn't call it a slump. But that's a hard one. I just think we played one of our strongest maps that we actually have been practising with these two guys. I think that's the only map we have practised with valde and gla1ve before this tournament, so we knew we were strong on this map, and we were strong on it with the original five players as well. We played against them at Gfinity and there we played a poor T side, so we just knew that if we had a good T side this game, we'd have a chance. And we took 10 rounds as T.

For how long did you actually practise with the two stand-ins then?

I think we had about three days of practice before this tournament.

Going over to the Astralis match, you had a big lead but then dropped it, what happened towards the end of the first half?

We took eight straight rounds or something and then they took a timeout. I guess they just figured out something to do to counter what we did, and they had some key rounds and some 1v1 clutches that we lost. They came back into the game and it ended up at 9-6 for us. And then as CT, that was just Hawaii, we won the pistol, they took one eco, we took one eco, back and forth, and we had just one real buyround on the CT side, so it was hard.

What do you think about valde now, seeing as he was such an unproven, new player in the scene?

For a new player in the scene I think he's a really complete player, he's very calm, shoots good, talks good, he's just a really good player.

In the decider you're going to meet either Immortals or ENCE, is there a preference?

No, I don't think so, it's gonna be hard either way. It's a best-of-three, we need two maps to win, not only one, all teams can win a map against a stronger opponent. Either way it's gonna be tough, we have two stand-ins and they're a full team.

Make sure to check out our other interviews from DreamHack ZOWIE Open Summer if you missed them:

William "⁠draken⁠" Sundin: "I'd prefer playing GODSENT"

Aleksi "⁠allu⁠" Jalli: "naSu brought more stability"