zonic: "Any changes to the game do not benefit us at the moment"

We heard Danny "⁠zonic⁠" Sørensen's thoughts on the AUG and how it affects different parts of the game in an interview that took place at the New Legends Stage of the IEM Katowice Major.

Astralis' run through the Swiss stage of the Major was expectedly convincing, as the Danes secured a top seed going into the playoffs with a 3-0 record. However, unlike Liquid, Astralis did drop a map along the way, as Renegades managed to come back against them on Mirage.

In our interview with zonic, which happened during the last day of the New Legends Stage, we focused on the current AUG meta and learned the coach's thought on how the gun should be countered and potentially balanced. zonic also discussed the timing of the upcoming Berlin Major and how his team will approach it.

What was the moment you realized AUG is pretty strong, that you should start using it more often?

I think it was around the end of last year, maybe during the Christmas break. I think people just started playing with it a little bit, I remember Magisk was known for buying it even when it was more expensive, both the Krieg and the AUG. Now when it's more common and everyone is using it, Magisk is more like "I'm not gonna use it now". Everyone is using it now, but I think Xyp9x is the one who is actually really good with it from our team. I think when we started practicing for iBUYPOWER, and after iBUYPOWER, we realized we need to be serious about it and try and play with it a lot more.

I think most people agree that even if the price was $3,300 now, which it was before, the AUG would still be used quite a lot. Why do you think it never got attention with the old price?

I'm not sure, I think obviously the price has something to do with it, but as you said if you are leading a lot and you have the economy in place, you can definitely just buy it. I think, if we go way back to CS 1.6, there was a "gentleman's rule" about not buying these untraditional weapons, maybe that played a role as well. And then people just bought it for fun when the price was reduced and only then saw how good it actually is, after practicing a little bit. You don't see people doing the same with the Krieg, so there must be something about the AUG that's a lot better. But I agree with some of the others who think that, even if it was increased in price, people would still use it. But then it would also be on a little bit more of equal ground.

When I talked to gob b, he said that the AUG meta kind of killed the double AWP, that it isn't as prevalent as it was before. Do you agree with him, did you notice a similar trend?

Yeah, I agree with him. To an extent, it's a good thing that you get a counter to that, but also, I think that the Terrorists now can't just go around and peek here and there, they will get punished instantly. I think a solution to that is to have more set executes, where you flash out the AUG, because it's really just about sitting and holding an angle with AUG, that's what we are losing to right now. For us to make executes, then we eliminate these threats. I think that will be the solution for us at least if you see 4 or 5 AUGs in the opponent team, then we will probably do more set executes.

Did you notice anything else that used to be prevalent that is not really viable now against the AUGs, some popular tactic or some approach on a certain map that used to work, but now against AUGs you can't do it anymore?

Obviously, we probably have some things that don't work, I think overall you just need more T rounds now on every map, it's more CT sided, especially on Train. We haven't really faced a team right now that tested us on our T side, we haven't played that much officially either, but our CT side has definitely improved after using the AUG more. I think that everyone buys the AUG on our CT side now, and some even prefer it over the AWP because you can be much more mobile, and even when people, for eg., do a heavy set executes outside, then device would be happy with the AUG because then he can move around and still play around smokes and stuff like that.

This buff of the AUG, which buffs the CT sides and makes the T sides harder, do you think that's more beneficial or detrimental to your team specifically? Because you used to have pretty good CT sides as it was, you were the best CT side team, and I feel like other team's CT sides have become better, how do you balance that out?

Any changes to the game do not benefit us at the moment because we are currently the best team in the world. I haven't put much thought into that, I'm still working under the same conditions as before the AUG meta. I think we are still in the phase where we have to see what happens. In my opinion, we should just start and try with lifting up the price again, because it's gonna be more expensive to play with the AUG. I don't think it necessarily has to be nerfed... I haven't put much thought into it actually, for me it doesn't play as much of a role as I think it does for any other team. It's just about adapting and finding new ways to counter it.

Coming into this tournament, obviously, it's after the player break, but there was a buffer period, then there was the iBUYPOWER tournament, which was what it was, but it was a tournament. How much did you get out of that "break rust," how prepared were you coming into this tournament? Were are you at the level, with all the players, that you're happy with?

Yeah, definitely. We took 5 days off after iBUYPOWER and then we played for a week online, then we had a bootcamp for a week, then we played online for one more week before coming here. I always make a plan, like: "We have three weeks, we need to focus on these maps, these tactics...". I schedule the whole thing and I think that even though we had some personal issues within the team and now some disease, people are down with the flu, we are 100% ready for this tournament.

With that being said, what are your thoughts of the upcoming Berlin Major, it's after the player break that we know and love, what do you think about that and how are you gonna approach it?

I think it's really disappointing, to be honest. I don't know if it's someone who needs to take initiative from our side of things or if it's Valve who hasn't paid attention to the players and teams. From what I understand, every team now wants the Major to not be just after the player break. Then we got to the discussion if it should be just before the break or a bit after, I don't care about that too much, it should just not be straight after vacation, there should be some sort of time after that. September would have been fine for us, but now we're looking back and it's the second year in a row where we only have two weeks of vacation, and that comes after traveling so much. That's really disappointing, but I can only blame myself because I wasn't the guy who sat down and wrote an email to Valve. Because going on Twitter and writing stuff to them, hoping that will fix stuff, that's also a bit naive. I'm just disappointed in myself to not write an email, at least do my part of things.

Is there an option to go and say we will take a longer break earlier in the year, instead of doing it in August? Is that an option you are looking at?

Yeah, definitely. We will definitely do everything in our power to at least get 3 weeks of vacation, if that means we will have to skip some of the late July events, then we will do that. With device's situation last year, or 2017 which was even more crucial, we are never gonna go back down that road. People need resting time and vacation is a really important step in our success, otherwise, we wouldn't be able to perform on the level we want to.