AmaNEk: "We did not have a winning mentality here at all"

Max Melit briefly sat down with François "⁠amanek⁠" Delaunay after LDLC crashed out of DreamHack Winter to know what went wrong in the tournament for the French side.

LDLC traveled to Jönköping looking to build on their top-six place from IEM Chicago, but bombed out of DreamHack Winter after just two matches following losses to HEROIC and x6tence Galaxy.

amanek still had positives to take from the event as he averaged an impressive 1.27 rating in Jönköping - the only LDLC player to exit the tournament in the green.

After the match against the Swedish side, we caught up with the 25-year-old to discuss LDLC's disappointing run and what it could mean ahead of the closed qualifier for the Europe Minor.

You exit the group stage here at Dreamhack Winter, losing a Bo1 to Heroic, then a Bo3 to x6tence. This comes off the back of IEM Chicago, which was such a big result here for you. How do you see the contrast?

It's like black and white. This result is a black one [laughs]. Yeah, I don't know, we got so much energy at IEM Chicago, at this event, except for the last map... we did not have any energy at all. It was... I don't even know what to say. We failed.

While you didn't have the results you were looking for, individually, you had an excellent tournament. What was the key for your own great play but no so much the team's?

We did not play as a unit, which we had at IEM Chicago. At this event, we were playing more individually, in some situations we were not playing together and that costs us so many rounds. I think we had a good online preparation for this event, but, while at the event, our preparation was not good at all. We did not fully prepare for the matches. We felt like we were already through the group stage or that a good result was already guaranteed. When we enter matches we need to have the necessary mentality to win. At this event, we did not have that mentality at all.

You talk about mentality, playing more together as a team, preparation. What about in-game? What in-game changes are you looking at making after IEM Chicago and now this event?

I think after this event we are going to watch the matches we played and learn from them. And yes, we are going to change a lot in-game. Like, T-side, CT-side as well, we are going to make a lot of changes, not positions, but style and preparation. I think we are going to have a good preparation before the Minor qualifier. We will bootcamp, and I feel that we can qualify.

Max Melit covers DreamHack Open Winter 2018 for HLTV.org and can be found on Twitter.