beastik: "We had to change our style, oskar was really adaptive whereas forsyy likes structure"

SINNERS' in-game leader Sebastian "⁠beastik⁠" Daňo believes his team has a shot at making the Major if they can keep beating their most direct rivals.

SINNERS have come out of the PGL Major Antwerp Europe RMR B best-of-ones with a positive record, 2-1, after beating HEET and Spirit while taking their only defeat at the hands of Copenhagen Flames. In each of their matches, the Czech team ended up on different maps, winning Vertigo and Nuke while dropping Overpass.

After their day-two victory against Abdul "⁠degster⁠" Gasanov and company SINNERS' in-game leader beastik took a moment to talk to HLTV about the most recent addition to the squad, David "⁠forsyy⁠" Bílý, who was brought on in lieu of Tomáš "⁠oskar⁠" Šťastný at the beginning of the year, and how it caused a shift in the way Czechia's top side plays.

The 24-year-old also talked about his team's map pool, their chances of advancing to the Major, seating arrangements, and trying to find out what it is the squad need to become a more stable and consistent team fighting at the top of the second tier in Europe.

I don't think we've spoken to you guys since you brought on forsyy. What happened with oskar, and how is the adaptation with forsyy being?

We had some different opinions about the game, oskar and some of the players, but it was his decision to leave the team and join GORILLAZ, or whatever team he's joining. forsyy was an obvious, obvious pick up for us because he was the best Czech AWPer at the moment and we had no other option, so we went for him. When he came in we were a bit of a random team, a bit chaotic because oskar was really adaptive whereas forsyy likes structure. So we had to change our game style a bit, or I would say a lot, because he likes to play a bit slower, not so aggressive. We had to change a lot of things.

Tell me about these changes in style and this adaptation, the differences between the two.

oskar wasn't talking as much about the game, about how he wants to play, he just adapted. I called something and he just went for it, nothing against anything, he just went for it. forsyy is the kind of guy that when I call something or we play a default and something doesn't go right, he just tells us 'you have to do this, you have to do that' to try to improve and so on, which oskar didn't do. So we started playing Overpass, even if we don't win it that much, but I think we're playing it better with forsyy because we're playing it a bit slower, more structured, more calm and patient. I think that's the main change.

You mentioned Overpass, which you lost to Flames. You also had two wins on Nuke and Vertigo, so three different maps in all. Tell me a bit about your map pool.

We try to play as many maps as possible. We don't like Dust2 because that map is really bad for us, nobody on the team likes it. We try to play all of the other six maps, we're trying to improve on Overpass, we play Ancient, Nuke, Vertigo... But Inferno and Vertigo are our two main maps that we like to play, that we've picked since SINNER was made. We like them and we're very comfortable on them.

We knew that there are many teams with Inferno as a permaban and we wouldn't play any Inferno in best-of-ones, so we tried to improve our Overpass, Nuke, and a bit of Mirage, although we knew we didn't want to play Mirage in best-of-ones. I'd say our map pool is quite OK. We don't have any super bad maps, so let's see how it goes in best-of-threes.

That segues perfectly, you're going into the best-of-threes with a 2-1 record, a positive record, so how do you feel about your chances now?

We're pretty confident because in best-of-ones we had to play our not best maps, but in best-of-threes against some of these teams we may have our best maps, two out of three, so I'm confident that we may go through.

What were your expectations coming here, how positive were you that you have a chance to make it through?

Since forsyy came in we had some up and downs, our results weren't very consistent. We won the qualifier and came through in first place, we were happy about that, but since then we've struggled a lot. We were losing everything, but I think it helped us a lot because we had so much information about what's wrong, what we should improve, and what is good and bad.

We managed to improve a lot of things, we had a bootcamp and so on, we put in a lot of work and I think our expectations were that we know we are capable of going through because our group is easier than group A. If we beat teams like Spirit or HEET, which we've done, we might make it.

SINNERS has had periods sitting atop the second tier, but it felt like you'd often fall short of the finish line. What do you think you need to take that next step now?

I've thought about this a lot. We made ESL Pro League and last year's RMR, where we choked in the most important match against Movistar Riders. I don't know what we need, maybe more experience. Maybe one day if we qualify for more of these tournaments... But I don't really know what we lack, what we need to become a consistent tier 2 team that's also a tier 1 contender. But I hope I'll figure it out someday! [laughs]

I noticed that you sit between NEOFRAG and forsyy, off to the left instead of in the center where many in-game leaders sit. Is there anything to that?

There's not really any kind of structure, we made it ever since we had CaNNiE. He was sitting in the middle because he wanted it. When we started SINNERS I sat between CaNNiE and NEOFRAG because these two are just ADHD guys, crazy and running around the map, so I had to calm then down. Then it just settled, I've been sitting there since 2020 and it just goes on.