Xyp9x: "I think fnatic will do well"

17-2-2017 03:05

After Astralis became the first team to advance to DreamHack Masters Las Vegas quarter-finals, Andreas "Xyp9x" Højsleth gave us an interview about their comfortable journey through groups, the change in the map pool, and some of the teams that changed lineups prior to the event.

On their way to playoffs, tournament favorites Astralis made it past Complexity and OpTic without their opponents getting to double digits despite the Danes losing all pistol rounds.

Astralis tried not to put pressure on themselves going into Las Vegas

Andreas "⁠Xyp9x⁠" Højsleth talked to us after their match with OpTic and gave us his thoughts on various topics:

You had a very comfortable going through the group stage, two wins without breaking much of a sweat, it looks like you're feeling good as a team.

Yeah, coming into the tournament, we had a lot of pressure. Of course, we won the Major, we're top one in the world and now we're looking to establish ourselves there for a long period of time. Coming in, we tried to not put so much pressure on ourselves and just try and take it like a normal tournament. I think we did pretty well in the group stage when it comes to handling that pressure, now it's about playoffs. I think we'll go far in the playoffs, I expect us to go far at least.

You're going into the series now, where I believe the change in map pool is going to project itself more. How did losing Dust2, one of your better maps, affect the team, how much were you able to deal with that in the two weeks since it's been announced?

Well, I don't think it affects us that much, I think it affects other teams more than us. But we have been looking a lot on Inferno as all other teams have, now this is the first tournament where it's gonna be played. So people will come with like 10 strats that haven't been played before and that haven't been tested properly. There are so many variables that change during the game, and I think that we'll have to wait like a month to tell who's good on Inferno and who is not.

You mentioned teams trying out a lot of new strats, does the new Inferno allow for a significant change in playstyle compared to the old version?

I think the T side is going to be more favorable, I expect that at least, it's easier to enter sites, executions, flashing CT's especially when there's no roof on A. And there are not that many hiding spots on B, and the fountain in the middle has become more narrow. So I think the executions towards A and B will be easier for T's, so I think it will become a T map. We will probably see some standard tactics here at DreamHack, but going forward, like one month or two months, we will see some advanced tactics.

A lot of teams have changed lineups in the past few weeks, G2 is one of the more exciting ones from the teams that are not here, but we do have fnatic and SK present; which teams do you think will be able to do well right from the start?

I think fnatic will do, they haven't been doing really well at this tournament, but I think they will do well because they have good individual players. But G2, I think they need some time and they will become good as well. They made this change because they think this is the best for them, but only time will tell, it's so hard predicting teams getting good even though they were good before with the same mix of players, like fnatic. It's a new meta and people are always changing things, and it's a different time, so it's hard to say.

I noticed you have quite a large supportive staff at this tournament, does that change anything for the players, maybe make things a little bit more hectic?

No, we have been making sure that everything mostly involves the players and coaches. Before matches, it's only us, and in the free time we will mingle and stuff like that. During the games, leading up to them and afterwards, it's only the players. We've been working with our sports psychologist about that as well, how people affect us before and after the game.