flusha: Got good at almost every map

fnatic passed their first test in Katowice, edging Ninjas in Pyjamas 16-14 on Cache after picking up a 13-2 Terrorist side. 

In our interview with Robin "⁠flusha⁠" Rönnquist, he explained what went wrong in Las Vegas, where the Swedes exited in groups, and how they prepared in the past week ahead of Katowice. He also shared his thoughts on the tough CT side against Ninjas in Pyjamas, and the remaining match-ups in Group A:

Starting off with your performance at DreamHack Masters Las Vegas, why do you think you didn't perform there and what did you take away from the event?

Our performance there was, yeah, it wasn't good. We didn't practice the right way before that, but before this [IEM Katowice], we got good at almost every map and we practiced really well. Even though it was only one week, we felt like we improved more than we ever did before.

Was there anything specific that you focused on in that week then?

We just got a few tactics on each map and we defined our default rounds more, the mentality we should have and all that, that we should help each other. If someone goes first, the other one should follow. The first guy is never the one who makes the mistake, it's always the other guy. So it's mostly our mentality.

Having the same lineup as a year ago, I imagine it's easy to just go back to how you used to play before. Is that the case? If not, what were the biggest changes you made compared to how you used to play in 2016 with this lineup?

We're trying to remember how we played and get back into that, but it's hard, because we played with other people for six months and that destroyed what we had. We're starting to get back to it, I think we're gonna reach that very soon.

In your first match, you had such a massive T side against NiP but then had so much trouble closing it out, what happened there?

I think we lost our momentum at first and then like, we knew what we should do, but we never actually did it until like the last few rounds. In one of the last few rounds, we actually did it perfectly but they had a very good timing on it, so we lost that round. Other than that, we just knew they were playing defensively, we had to wait for like one minute and then get information and push behind them.

What do you expect from the remaining four teams in your group, Astralis, FaZe, OpTic, and Immortals?

I expect easier matches than versus NiP, because we don't play very well against a defensive style. We will see, Astralis is the only one we kinda feel not too confident against.

What about FaZe with NiKo, is that going to be a good match-up considering you mentioned you don't play well against defensive teams? FaZe is another story entirely…

We played against FaZe in two praccs, I think, and they never stopped going aggressive so we'll see if they do the same, but we know what to expect.