hampus: "Of course I would want this REZ every game; we've been working on a little secret with him"

Hampus "⁠hampus⁠" Poser spoke to HLTV.org in Katowice, discussing REZ's level, bringing Vertigo back into the map pool, and health issues the IGL has been experiencing in Poland.

Starting all the way from the Play-in stage, Ninjas in Pyjamas have shown up in solid form in Katowice. Despite a loss to Copenhagen Flames the Swedes made it to the main event without too much trouble, and in the group stage they have so far defeated Gambit, lost a three-map battle to a strong-looking Virtus.pro, and eliminated MOUZ after a convincing series.

After the last match, we got a hold of hampus to talk to him about Ninjas in Pyjamas's key victory over Gambit in the opening stage and their upcoming rematch against the CIS side, which will determine who goes to the quarter-finals.

The in-game leader also spoke on the topic of the impressive level Fredrik "⁠REZ⁠" Sterner has displayed so far at the event and why the 24-year-old hasn't been able to shown up in such form on a more consistent basis, revealing that it is something they have been working on together.

hampus went on to discuss the arrival of their new coach, Daniel "⁠djL⁠" Narancic, and what role he played in Ninjas in Pyjamas's decision to start playing Vertigo again, which they had had as their first ban in the previous year.

Discussing the run you've had here so far, was the opening win against Gambit a big confidence booster?

Yeah, of course, it was a big confidence booster. We knew we always have tight games against them, and we felt like this is LAN, it's their first LAN this year, and it's their first game on LAN, and they would be a bit shaky. They're not that experienced yet, so we just felt that if we go in hard and win the first round, we'll get them to lose confidence a bit, and I think we did that.

I think on Vertigo we had a very good chance against them, but we lost both antiecos, one on T side and one on CT side, I think, which destroyed our economy and gave them the game. But then we controlled it easily on Overpass.

Speaking of Vertigo you've recently picked it up again — NIP were one of the first ones to pick it up from the start, but then you stopped playing it. What made you go back to it?

Actually, they played it before I came into NIP and they were the best in the world at it in the beginning, I remember they won against Astralis when Astralis had their old lineup and just won something before. And then I came and it didn't go so good on Vertigo (laughs), so we just decided to switch back to Dust2.

We played Dust2 for a while and it was okay, we had some tight games against pretty good Dust2 teams, but now we just felt that we could easily be good at Vertigo again. When djL came we had about three practices on Vertigo, so we haven't really gone through a lot, we just have our basics and the defaults and some executes, but djL just wanted to bring it back and everyone was on board.

REZ has been having a great event, and when he's up there it seems like you guys are always competitive, but we don't always see that. How is it that we don't see this kind of a level from him more consistently?

I don't know, it's a tricky question, of course I would want this REZ every game. It's a little secret I have with him that we've been working on, but I can't tell you much about it. I have been doing some things with him that I've been trying out that I've been experimenting at this event. At IEM Winter I tried one thing, this event I'm trying another thing, so yeah, it's going better. I'm getting him to perform more consistently, I would say. At least now it's going good.

You mentioned djL, and of course he's been brought in recently as the new coach. What does he bring to the team and how is he different from THREAT?

The main difference I think is that he's not from Sweden. Of course he's Swedish, he speaks fluent Swedish, he's been living in Sweden for I think all his life — I'm not sure —, but his parents are Croatian. So he's not afraid to really yell at us if we do something wrong, and THREAT was a bit like... Of course he said when we did something wrong, but djL is more straight, he's more like a dad in that way. djL just gets us to be there.

How are you feeling going into the Gambit rematch? Do you expect it to be more difficult?

Yeah, I think so, but I also think that we can do it again. Of course, they will have some more prep on us now when we play more, and they're more confident, or more comfortable here now when they've played a few games, but I think we can do it again. It will be a very tough game. If it's the same maps I think Overpass will be much harder this time, I think we had a very good idea of what to do and how to abuse them, and I think they will have fixed that hole. But I think we can do it in two maps next time.

I hear that you've been playing with some health issues?

Yeah, I had an ear infection, I got it like five days before going Katowice. It got better and I saw a lot of doctors and things like this, but then the flight destroyed it a little bit again, the recovery I've had, it almost went away I think. I've had a lot of pain in my ear, and when you fly you get this block in your ear — I have that permanently, so the sound in my left ear is not consistent. We played Mirage, they did a B pop, and the four guys went out B and one came from mid, and the guy mid shot with a Tec-9 towards A, but I thought he was default on B. And then I died in the back. Small things like this happen, but I'm getting much better now, it's soon recovered I would say.

Is there also something going on with your hand?

Yeah, I had a problem with my hand yesterday, but we got on it with doctor [unintelligible name] instantly, and I feel much better now, we have it under control.

Doctor who?

Uhh, a Swedish doctor. I FaceTimed him.