k0nfig: "It's really nice to see gade play really well, I know he can be one of the best Danish players"

We sat down with Kristian "⁠k0nfig⁠" Wienecke after OpTic advanced to the upper bracket final following a 2-1 victory over Ninjas in Pyjamas.

The Danish squad are now through to the upper bracket final, where they'll once again meet ENCE in a rematch from the group stage for a spot at the FACEIT Major.

After OpTic's win over Ninjas in Pyjamas, in which they looked more than confident aside from an overtime loss on Overpass, we grabbed k0nfig for an interview to ask him about their issues on the aforementioned map and about tomorrow's rematch against the Finns. The 21-year-old also touched on the firepower in OpTic and briefly explored North's current state of affairs.

Nuke and Inferno against NiP were one-sided maps, not quite so much on Overpass where you lost in overtime. cajunb called it a choke, what would you call it? What happened towards the end?

I think we got a little bit tunnel-visioned. We didn't take A control like we used to and then they read our game and they always stacked four people on the site where we were going. I just think that was the main problem, we just had the wrong gameplan at the beginning of the Terrorist side.

Were you then just not able to adjust in overtime?

I think overtimes are really hard because you can't really predict what people are going to do because you're going to spawn with the maximum amount of money, and then you don't know if they bought double AWP, they have all the grenades and so on.

Usually, we predict what kind of weaponry and what kind of grenades our opponent has when we're playing in the normal rounds and then in overtime, we couldn't really predict it and we were just running into a site where they just blocked us with nades and we got kind of smashed.

ENCE have so far been the only team who could really contest you, how do you feel going up against them again in the upper final, in the match for a spot at the Major?

I think it's going to be a fun game because ENCE is really different from everyone else. They're a new team, haven't played that much, they just played Cologne and played really well. You don't know what to expect when you go into the game, so I think it's going to be a fun game and I think it's going to be hard for us, as well, because it's a new team and we can't really predict them. allu is definitely a good player and he's going to help all the new players in the team, like sergej, he showed up really well. We're not scared but we will come prepared 100%.

Going back a little bit and touching on your individual performance here so far. North used to be a little dependent on your play, but as we've seen thus far in OpTic and especially here - not that you've been playing poorly, but it has mostly been other players stepping up. How does it feel for you to be part of this team where you've got multiple players that can carry the game?

It's not a relief, but it's really nice to see gade play really well because I know he can be one of the best Danish players and probably one of the best aimers in the world. cajun is always like the rock, he always has good stats and really good individual skill, always confident in his plays. I think our team is just a good mixture of individual skill and then the oldschool, cajun, Snappi, style of play. I think it's just perfect, I haven't played in a better team so far.

What do you think has changed from the way you were playing in North, comparing in-game styles from MSL and now Snappi - what is the main difference for you?

I think it's the way Marco calls. He likes to call tactics, but he also likes to listen to people mid-round calling. For example, me and cajun, or Niklas, or JUGi for that matter, everyone calls in the middle of the round, he's not the best at mid-round calling, so everyone is helping each other.

It just feels nice when you're making a game plan and people are mid-round calling, it feels nice to play in a team where everyone has something to say in the middle of the round instead of just getting a 'no' from someone.

Staying on the topic of North, they looked on the rise but now they've removed a player again. How do you stack up against them? Who is going to be better in a couple of months?

I have no clue about North, I have no clue who they're going to pick as the last player. They played with mixwell for one tournament, they won the tournament, but it wasn't like a hard tournament to win, they were the best team and they had to win the tournament, otherwise, they would kind of look stupid.

I just think that if they pick someone else than mertz - mertz was hard to play against for us, he was really good with the AWP, he caught us off-guard - I don't know if MSL is going to AWP again like he did in dignitas when I played there, I don't think that's a good idea, so I have no idea what they're going to do.

But we will be the better team.