bodyy: "I'm full of confidence and surrounded by teammates that I love playing with"

Alexandre "⁠bodyy⁠" Pianaro has gone a long way since his days with G2, growing in and out of the server to help lead HEET in their bid to reach the Major.

HEET have been on the rise, and their adventure at the European RMR in Bucharest, Romania, is a perfect example of their development. They were quick to shake off their opening defeat to SINNERS early in the tournament before getting their first win against Sprout. A tough match against ENCE sent them back to reality, relegating them into the 1-2 pool to face Entropiq for tournament survival.

bodyy's men needed to show up to keep their hopes of reaching the Major alive, and they delivered. The Frenchmen comfortably beat the CIS squad 2-0 and are now one best-of-three match away from qualifying for the PGL Major in Antwerp.

Following their solid performance against the Russian team, the French in-game leader had a chat with us about HEET's performance on LAN, their team structure, and his personal evolution as both a player and a captain.

You just beat Entropiq to go 2-2 and have your last match ahead. How do you feel going into it?

We didn't have enough experience on LAN and at events of this stature to have the confidence of saying we'll beat everyone in best-of-ones. They're fast games, you have to go into them prepared and doing well from the pistols, the anti-ecos. We managed to win some pistols but then lost anti-ecos.

But we're calm, we knew that when the best-of-threes came around we'd be very at ease because there's less pressure. You can lose a map, the match is long and you have time to play. We're 2-2 now, I feel very good and just want to make it to the Major.

About just wanting to make it to the Major. With DBL PONEY you were always close to making it to big events, but could never quite get there. Is it time now to step up to the next level?

At the end of last year we had all of these tournaments in which we couldn't take that next step, like the last RMR where we lost to FaZe 13-16 by giving up anti-ecos, we were three rounds away. Then we choked to Fiend, but we were very close to making it. At the time we didn't have a coach, we were just five guys that had been playing together for six months, or even less, just three since Ex3rcice came on. Now we have a coach, an analyst, a manager that takes care of us, and a structure supporting us.

We're much more confident, our match preparation is much quicker and we have a lot more time to focus on the game and our individual level. I think the next step will come, we're very close to achieving some crazy things. We made it to ESL Conference by winning Challenger League, we won the RMR qualifier in our first try, and now we're 2-2 here at the RMR. I feel the difference, the match we played against Entropiq today, if we would have played it six months ago we would have never won it. We would have choked in the late game, no doubt about it.

You're on LAN now, and you yourself are experienced, but some of your teammates aren't as much. Were there any jitters?

Yeah, I felt it a bit during the best-of-ones. We've never been in this situation in which we're in a hotel all day long thinking about the next BO1 and the next BO1 other than the previous RMR. It's a situation that we don't live often because we're at home. During COVID it was easy to just rest an hour before the game, or if you wanted to rest all day and then go out for a bit before jumping on the computer for the match, you could do it.

Now we're on LAN, we're at our computer an hour and half before the match, we're thinking about our best-of-ones all day. We can't do any activity other than be all together, although that's fine because we have good fun, we're friends above all, but there's definitely some pressure. As I said before, a lot more when it's best-of-one than when it's best-of-three.

The pressure isn't too bad, though, with the young guys. I felt it a bit at the beginning but they're at ease now. Djoko just played an amazing game. He also had a great game against Sprout, then a really bad one against ENCE, so we've had time to get acclimated by now. I'm very proud of the team, we never beat Entropiq online and now we got the 2-0 and that's that.

You signed with HEET a few months ago, how has having that structure helped you guys?

Well first of all, our situation back in the day was the same as Entropiq one year ago. We were five guys together just chasing our dreams. We had no one to back us, everything stemmed from our personal connections and that made us stronger and stronger. Then we got a coach to help us, a structure that picked us up and are now fully supportive, they always cheer us on and don't pressure us. We needed to bootcamp at the beginning of the year and they sent us wherever we wanted to go, we've had two or three bootcamps since. Anytime we asked, a week later they sent us out, doing everything they could to help us.

It's great to feel that outside of us five now there's an additional force. It eases the financial and mental pressures, helps with morale and we don't need to think about anything other than preparing for our matches, our strategy, renewing our game, and now qualifying for the Major. Jazz, HEET's COO, is here with us. We hadn't planned for it but he still came out wholeheartedly to help us, so there's this family feeling in HEET. We had never seen him and he came out to meet us, it's nice to have him here helping manage everything.

You've gone a long way from the G2 days, becoming an IGL and leading a team. What has that transformation been like?

The old bodyy took everything literally, adapted to any situation no matter what, fit into any role he had to fit into, even if it wasn't his role or one he couldn't build on. The present bodyy has a predefined role that he loves and wants to do.

Now I have an extra additional load, which I never thought I'd do in my life and I'm full of confidence. Especially since getting a coach to help with the mental load because I have a lot less work to do and I can focus on myself. It's very important because before I had to do everything. I was the analyst, the coach, I was watching all of my teammates, I couldn't do it all.

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How bodyy is relishing his new role as the leader of DBL PONEY

Mat [matHEND] has really helped me a lot, he has helped everyone build up their roles while I worked on myself personally after a year of not really being able to do that. Now I'm full of confidence and surrounded by teammates that I love playing with and that bring me a lot of joy.

The old bodyy wasn't very structured and played a lot on feeling. I still struggle with that, getting structure in my life and in the server. So I've added some structure, I've imposed some routines on myself and made some lifestyle changes to help me evolve with this role, and I'm a lot better now mentally and in the game, which I think is visible on the server — it's really great.