HooXi on beating NIP at the RMR: "We did not get our full revenge yet"

Copenhagen Flames have become the second team to secure a Legends spot at the PGL Major in Antwerp with a clean 3-0, we caught up with in-game leader Rasmus "⁠HooXi⁠" Nielsen to hear more about the Danish squad’s feat.

Copenhagen Flames, who shocked their rivals and awed spectators at the PGL Major in Stockholm last year by going 3-0 in the Challengers stage have now pulled off a similar feat at the next Major’s qualifier, the European RMR in Bucharest, Romania. The Danes went 3-0 with a final 2-1 victory against Ninjas in Pyjamas, the team that barred HooXi and company from reaching the Avicii Arena at the previous Major.

After stepping by the PGL broadcast room and giving an on-air interview, HooXi took some time to sit down and chat with HLTV about becoming Legends at the upcoming Major, getting revenge on NIP in a Major cycle, the differences between LAN and online, or the pleasure of having guys like Nico "⁠nicoodoz⁠" Tamjidi and Jakob "⁠jabbi⁠" Nygaard playing at an incredible level.

Congrats HooXi, you claimed the 3-0 and you are going to the Legends stage at the Major. How does it feel? And did you expect to be leaving this event with this score?

It feels absolutely amazing, there is no other way to describe it and no other way to feel it than to actually do it. It feels amazing, and in terms of expectations, I wouldn't say I expected to go through with a 3-0 in this way. I think we got a little bit lucky with the draws, especially in the second game against SINNERS, there were a lot of good teams that went 1-0, and with all respect to SINNERS, I think they were on the lower end of those teams.

When I saw that we had to play against NIP, I was very confident because I knew we would all be fired up to beat them.

There is a bit of rivalry with NIP, they knocked you out of the last Major after going 3-0 in the group stage. How does it feel to get revenge against them?

[laughs] I still feel like that win was better because it was played for the arena, stickers, and top eight at the Major. They can still make it to the Major so we did not get our full revenge yet. I feel like I will still be fired up next time we meet them because I don't think I will ever forget that game, I still have nightmares about it sometimes [laughs].

nicoodoz and Jabbi were fantastic today. Tell me, how easy do they make your job when they play like that?

It makes it pretty easy when you just have an AWP saying he has information all the time as well as a young guy that all you are expecting from someone his age is to be popping heads and he's doing just that. The fact that he can also communicate, read the game, help me call rounds, talk during timeouts, etc., He is playing so much more above his age and that helps me a lot. I get chills just talking about how good they both played.

After the last Major you had a few offers from some organizations, but in the end, you stuck together under Copenhagen Flames. Do you think this result more or less validates that outcome?

For us to develop as a team, there is no better place than Copenhagen Flames, but the only problem with the organization as always is that it's not the biggest one. We don't have all those fancy spots like the one that Heroic just bought for example, and Complexity has both spots for ESL and BLAST, that's the only thing. I wouldn't say I dislike it, but it's definitely missing from this organization, but besides that, everything is totally perfect.

This way you have to go through all the online qualifiers and it's a nightmare, right?

Yeah, but it can sometimes help us. We just played four straight days of open qualifiers before we got here, and I think that helped us get some of the rust off and get ready to play. In some ways it's good, but sometimes you also want to have the easy way once in a while, you know? [laughs].

You mentioned doing all the qualifiers before this event, were you able to get together before the tournament to boot camp?

No, there was no boot camp, our coach actually went to Panama [laughs] because his girlfriend lives there, so no boot camp for us, but it was fine because we had all agreed on that. We just played a lot of online games like those qualifier days, then some officials, like we usually do, and then this happened.

What's the difference between online Flames and offline Flames? It seems like you guys really get pumped up when you are on LAN.

We are a lot stronger mentally on LAN, it's a lot easier to pull your teammates up when they are down. Maybe you don't visually show that you are frustrated as much because you know your teammates will see you, and that will impact the game as well. At home, you can maybe smash the table one more time than you would here, even though I still smashed the table once [laughs]. So that helps the younger players as well.

You are going straight to the Legends stage of the Major, what are your expectations?

I don't know, I have not really had time to think about it because I put so much focus on this, but after thinking about it for two seconds, our expectations are to do a little bit more damage. Last time we were just happy that we got to the Major and we were there just to enjoy the moment. Now I feel that there are some teams that we should beat and some teams that we should at least give a good fight, and if we are not doing that, I would be very disappointed.