gade: "[After ZOTAC] we realized that we've got to work harder"

We interviewed Nicklas "⁠gade⁠" Gade in Stockholm about what had gone wrong for OpTic at ZOTAC Cup Masters and about their first match at DreamHack Masters, in which they defeated fnatic convincingly.

After bombing out in last place at ZOTAC Cup Masters following a loss to Ghost, OpTic have started out well in Stockholm, defeating fnatic 16-7 on Train in their opening battle.

After the match, we managed to grab gade for an interview, in which he went over the disappointment in Hong Kong and discussed various topics around DreamHack Masters Stockholm.

Let's go back to ZOTAC Cup Masters and the stunning loss to Ghost, what happened there?

If you go back, it was the first event after the vacation, so I think we have to have that in mind, people didn't have the hours, they didn't put in the work into CS, so I guess it was kind of a warmup event for us.

Ghost, you see they beat Na`Vi in a best-of-one, they're definitely a team you have to watch out for, but we were just not ourselves, the mental preparation, the in-game preparation was not there at all. So I think we realized that we've got to work harder, we can't just come in and do things half-heartedly.

With that in mind, what has changed for this event given that you didn't have time to practice in between?

We have been having team talks, trying to figure out what's working for us when we play well and when we don't play well, we have to register the mistakes we make. I think we've done a really good job after the ZOTAC event, just talking to each other and figuring out how we play our game.

How much time did you actually put into the game before the tournament in Hong Kong, when did you start practicing?

Marco came back, he was in New York with his girlfriend, we had four really long practice days and they were not that great. Practice means a lot coming into events, for us, at least. That's one thing we've got to value higher, it's definitely getting practice in.

So do you consider these tournaments, including ZOTAC, as preparation for the Major?

Yeah, definitely, it was a warmup event, we could've made it better than we did, it was a long journey to China (laughs), but we've just gotta look forward to the Major, that's what it's all about right now.

Here you've looked quite convincing so far, it didn't look like you had any problems against fnatic on Train...

I think we had a pretty good read on what to do and what not to do. We won both pistols, that's always a great start in best-of-ones, but I think we had a really good read on them, we expected Mirage or Train and we got Train, where we're really confident. I think we had that match in our hands.

What kind of goals have you set for yourselves here before you go to the Major?

I think we just want to prove ourselves at this tournament, showing that we're not going to lose to Ghost anymore, hopefully, so yeah, just take it step by step, one match at a time and, hopefully, we can get out of the groups.

Given that we've had a month off I wanted to try to gauge which teams look in good form, is there any team that we'd be surprised to see do well here, based on practice?

You can talk about Astralis all day long, they have the upper hand every time, I can't see any flaws, they're just the perfect team. Ghost, maybe? (laughs) But no, you see Heroic were close to beating FaZe in a best-of-one, so the competition is just tough right now, you've got to be on top of your game to win the matches.