dennis: "I've never played a team that plays like [Ghost] do, very surprised and very impressed"

We caught up with Dennis "⁠dennis⁠" Edman after Ninjas in Pyjamas topped Group B over Ghost at DreamHack Masters Stockholm.

The Swedes are now through to the playoffs, where they'll play in front of their home crowd, after beating North American sides NRG 16-13 on Train and Ghost 2-1 on the way to first place in Group B.

dennis gave us an interview after their latest match and told us about Ninjas in Pyjamas's preparation ahead of a busy month, as well as their journey to the playoffs in Stockholm:

Let's begin with the preparation coming from the break, how much time did you have ahead of these events, Stockholm, the Major, and others that are coming up for you and what did you focus on?

I think we started practicing like two weeks ago. We didn't bootcamp for this event, we played at home because we're going to have a lot of tournaments coming up. We played a lot as if we were on a bootcamp but at home, we played the whole days. We kind of just refreshed what we had, made some new things, and just went over what we had before the break. I think that's what every team does right now.

How ready do you feel for these tournaments, did you feel any rustiness coming from the off-season?

I don't think anyone is really rusty right now, but we feel ready, yeah, we don't have the same pressure as before, we're just trying to keep playing without pressure this time around.

In your first match here against NRG you got off to a bad start on Train, how did you come back from that and managed to win in the end?

I think they have some of NA's best individuals in the team, they're currently top eight, I believe. They kind of just killed us, whatever we tried to do, they got a good start 10-3, we came back to 10-5 and won the game as CT, I guess we're just slow starters (laughs).

I imagine it came as a surprise that Ghost won over Na`Vi, were you expecting the possibility of meeting them when you prepared for the group?

Not really. I've never played them before and I've never played a team that plays like they do, I'm very surprised and very impressed about how they played the stacks correctly all the time. They play in a different way which is very hard for teams to face, so we weren't really prepared for this, no.

What was it that surprised you about them?

When we played Train, there was a 5v4 situation for us, we faked inner, went outside, and they were four outside. That's what we did not expect (laughs).

Making it to the playoffs as the only Swedish representatives now that fnatic are out, and it has been a while since you played in front of your home crowd, how are you looking forward to the playoffs and how confident are you about your chances there?

I feel pretty good about our chances and I'm very happy we made it because of the Swedish crowd. It would have been devastating if we had gone out in the groups. I feel confident and I believe we're going to have the home crowd cheering for us, so that's going to give us a lot of power.