device: "This is the best lineup I've ever played in"

We caught up with Nicolai "⁠device⁠" Reedtz, who earned his second MVP medal of the season at ELEAGUE Premier CS:GO 2018, which his team won after defeating Liquid 2-0 in the final.

device put on an MVP performance in Atlanta after leading the rating standings. He ended up with a tournament-high 1.44 rating, including a team-high 1.57 in the final. The Danish AWPer also topped the charts in seven categories, including a +75 KDD and a 73.8% success rate in opening duels.

In his MVP interview, device talked about going to the break as the top team in the rankings, how he feels at an individual level, the map veto in the final against Liquid, and the psychological edge the Danes had over their North American rivals going into the final.

It's the end of the season, we're going into the player break, you ended with a victory after an amazing season. Looking back, did you see yourselves here?

Honestly, looking back, when we brought Magisk into the team, I knew it could be really good, but not this good. I said it in an interview previously, this is the best lineup I've ever played in. It's the strongest the core of dupreeh, Xyp9x, and I, have been in. I didn't expect to get this good, this quickly, but we found a really great system that works for us.

Now you're in great form, best team out there, do you think you'll be able to carry this after the player break, considering the Major is still far out there. Do you think you'll still be the best team going into it?

I think a lot of teams are catching up and getting better, but the thing is we've been here before. We've been the best team in the world for a longer period of time and we just dropped off, so I think we've gained some experience from that. To not lose the hunger of winning. Going into the player break right now we just want to relax because we've been pushing ourselves beyond some limits, I'd say. Obviously, I hope we can still be at the top, but it's impossible to always be the best team and win all of the tournaments. We're going to aim to at least be Top 3 and win the tournaments we go for.

On a personal level, individually, you've been playing lights out all season, you got a second MVP award here in Atlanta. Do you think you're in the best form you've been?

It was a really rough ending of the year, last year. I had some thoughts of "Can I still do this? Should I even consider this?" and so on, so it was really challenging. It has been really challenging on different levels than only Counter-Strike, but I think I have been playing the most consistent I have ever been. So yeah, I'd say I'm at my best, but I don't feel like I can't get better. I feel like I can improve my aim a lot, I think a lot of the things I win on are when I position myself correctly. The AWP is really good when you utilize it correctly, and when you find patterns in the opponents. It's not easy, but I've found a system with zonic, who has helped me look at opponents, and I think that's one of the main reasons that even though I feel like I'm not playing up top my 100%, I can still look really good.

NAF said before the match that they're a bit afraid of you, being a dominant AWPer. Did you feel like you had a bit of a psychological advantage going into the final? Also having beaten them in a few finals before...

I think psychologically we have had the upper hand against them for a long time. I didn't read his interview, but I can feel that when I play against them, not that they're scared of me, but they're a little bit hesitant when they're executing, and that's one of the things we took advantage of a lot. Other than that, I thrive against a team that doesn't have an AWPer that has been an AWPer for years. Take KennyS or GuardiaN as an example, I think those are the hardest AWPers for me to play against, because even though you look at them and see what their tendencies are, they can pull something out of their hat and surprise you all of the time.

Going into Inferno, you really smashed Liquid during the first half. Do you think this was a misspick by them? Should they have gone about the veto differently, perhaps?

We didn't expect them to pick Inferno at all. We expected them to pick Dust2 because they just won it against Na`Vi. They have some tendencies that are easy to read when they play Inferno, like how they play Banana as both T and CT, so we were really happy when they picked that, to be honest. As I said, they started off pretty slow, like when they executed and so on. One of the reasons for that was also Magisk who was just headshotting everywhere, so it's kind of hard when you meet a wall. But yeah, I was surprised, I thought we were actually going to play Dust2 and Overpass. I thought they were going to ban Nuke since we won it like six or seven times in a row. We were very confident when we heard the veto.

Going on to Nuke, you were very comfortable having won it so many times, but early on in the map, the beginning of the first half, Liquid took a 7-3 lead. Was there any moment you were having some thoughts that they were more prepared or had something special coming into it?

Last time we faced Liquid on Nuke they also played well on CT, they just got a bad start, but we know we're capable of playing a good CT side. One of the things I told gla1ve a few times was that we should go to B through Secret from Yard because they always put one guy there and he plays alone, so by the end of the half we ended up going there a lot and abusing, in some way, that they were playing heavier on other parts of the map. But yeah, we were really confident going into it. Nuke was the hardest map for me to play at this tournament. I don't know what happened, after I played against mousesports I got a bit out of the zone in regards to my T side and that stuck a bit in my head at the beginning of the half, although I was able to get past it and move on.

You guys are the undisputed #1 right now. It looked like Na`Vi was creeping up a bit, but how does it feel now, after winning here? Is this a nice reward for the season you put forth?

I would say it's a fair assessment to count us as #1 in the world. We still have a lot of series to play against Na`Vi. They got the upper hand the last time, but I still feel like we're the best team in the world. I'm just really proud and I think everyone is really proud of what we've achieved. Last year we tried skipping Cologne going into the Major and it didn't work out, this time we tried more often to be able to feel more energized at tournaments and it definitely paid off for us, being at full level at all the tournaments we played at.