Xyp9x: "I expect [NRG] to go quite far in this tournament"

The team currently ranked #1, Astralis, had a tough time against the team that has been tearing it up online, NRG. The North American side started well and threatened to take the victory, but Lukas "⁠gla1ve⁠" Rossander and co. were able to bring it home in overtime.

Xyp9x is really excited about Dust2 returning to the map pool

Following the game, we discussed Astralis' favorite tag, the NRG game and Dust2 returning to the map pool with Andreas "⁠Xyp9x⁠" Højsleth.

You just won DreamHack Masters Marseille, the scene is kind of in flux... coming here, does that make you feel like the favorites, as if you should take the title here?

Saying that you are a favorite just because you win the previous tournament, I don't think that's viable. I think so much changes in between tournaments and the things we did in Marseille, people will look closely at because now we are the best team, everyone will copy our strats, everyone will do what it takes to beat us—we are the team to beat right now. So I don't necessarily think that we are the favorites here, but I expect us to go far in the tournament.

Coming in, the first game was against NRG, obviously, you knew a bit in advance who you were going to play. They are a team that have been pretty good online, but on LAN we haven't seen them play anything. So what was the thinking about the game, did you prepare anything, did you go and watch their games...?

I mean, we always watch the opponents' games before matches. We did expect to play Overpass, I think they played great in the start and we had some microphone problems which were not so good for the spirit and stuff like that. After we got over that, they were leading 5-0 but we came back to a 9-5. It was very stressful in the start but then we clawed it back.

On the T side they won a lot of clutch situations which we should've maybe won. The communication wasn't really there, there were signs that this was the first game, that we need to get back on track. Yeah, it was mainly a first game nerves kind of thing, but I expect us to play better against mousesports. I have to add that I think NRG did well as well, even though we knew—kinda—what they were doing, they just outplayed the rotations and stuff like that. I expect them to go quite far in this tournament, I think they can play their online game on LAN as well.

Last time you played mousesports [on LAN] was at the Major I think, and they won two tournaments this year so you haven't crossed paths recently. What do you expect from that matchup?

I think mouz is a good team, they have very skilled individual players, I think they seem like a FaZe in many ways, but I just expect us to prepare for them and go out there and play confidently. I think that's the key part; play confident against them and you will win. If you start backing down and don't do the stuff you usually do, they will rip you apart. We will try to stay confident during the game.

So Dust2 is back in the map pool, this is the first tournament that has it instead Cobblestone. Are you excited about Dust2 returning?

I'm actually pretty excited about it, it was one of my favorite maps and also one of our team's favorite maps, So I'm really excited to see if it's even going to get played here. I know we have been practicing it, I know a lot of other teams have tried practicing it, it's really a mind game in the veto, if you want to play it or not—and who you want to play it against. So yeah, definitely looking forward to Dust2 being played.

Do you feel like the map has been significantly changed? Is anything really different about the meta or how you approach the map now?

I think it's very much the same, actually. There are a few things which you need to consider when you adapt the strategies from the old map, but otherwise, I think it's pretty much the same. The rotations are same, the nades you want to use as well, there may be some tweaks here and there, but in general, it's very much the same. I enjoy playing it at least.