Xizt: "I'm very confident that we can go really far"

Richard "⁠Xizt⁠" Landström spoke to HLTV.org about HEROIC's improvement with Jakob "⁠jabbi⁠" Nygaard and the team's confidence heading into the Rio Major.

HEROIC are now 1-0 in the IEM Rio Major Legends Stage after entering the tournament with a convincing victory over Outsiders. Having seen the Russian team succeed on Overpass in the previous stage, Xizt was happy for his team to face them on the map, and HEROIC went on to dominate their opposition with a near-flawless CT side display.

"When Vitality picked it against us in the RMR and we won 16-3, that was a statement for us that Overpass is back," the Swedish coach said in an interview with HLTV.org after the match. "We knew it was going to be a weakness, that the other team would see it as [our] weakness, so we've been practicing it a lot."

Xizt went on to praise jabbi when talking about the team's improved form as of late, saying the June addition has been getting more comfortable in his rotation roles on the CT side and that he even takes on more responsibility on the T side as well.

"He's taking a lot of initiative," Xizt said about the 19-year-old. "He's taking some load off cadiaN's shoulders because he's calling a lot of shots. If he wants to call over some rotations, he will say it, he's not gonna ask cadiaN for permission."

The Swede talked about various other topics in the interview, sharing a couple of theories as to why the Challengers Stage was even more heavily skewed towards the CT side than before, and discussing where HEROIC stands among the competition in Rio.

You can read the full interview with HEROIC's coach below:

Outsiders have been playing Overpass this tournament a lot and seen a lot of success on it. Tell me about what the thinking was behind letting it through to the end of the veto and playing them on it.

We were 100% sure that, if we left Overpass, it would be Overpass. Our stats on it aren't really good lately, I think we only won it once and had four losses in a row or something with jabbi, but in practice and if you look historically, we've been really good at the map.

When Vitality picked it against us in the RMR and we won 16-3, that was a statement for us that Overpass is back. We've also practiced it a lot because we knew it was going to be a weakness, that the other team would see it as a weakness, so we've been practicing it a lot. I was happy with the veto.

What was behind that big CT side?

I think TeSeS is probably one of the best A anchors in the whole scene right now. We've been putting a lot of work into sjuush and jabbi on B, and I think it showed in this game that they really stepped up. Also in the game against Vitality at the RMR, they really stepped up, so I think we've solved the puzzle on B, and A has always been really good.

This Major has been even more CT-sided than previous tournaments. Do you have a theory for why that is?

I guess one of the theories could be the crowd. When they're cheering so much and so loudly, maybe it's a little bit of pressure for some of the IGLs or teams. But also, the silencer is just super-good, and especially on LAN where you can't really hear anything, it becomes more powerful.

Early on with jabbi the signs weren't great, you struggled in Cologne, but in the past couple of months you've shown much better results. Can you tell me about what that improvement has been with jabbi?

I think it comes down to a lot of things, but obviously jabbi being more comfortable now, because he has a really important part in the team in his positions both as T and CT. As CT, he's kind of the guy running in between sites, he's the backup on Mirage and backup on Overpass and Vertigo as well, so he's playing a lot of those roles where he's rotating and running around a lot. Now, I think he's much more comfortable in the team and he's communicating much better than he did before. He's taking a lot of initiative.

And then if we move on to the T side, he's improving a lot there as well. He's our lurker and he's taking a lot of initiative there as well and he's taking some load off cadiaN's shoulders because he's calling a lot of shots. If he wants to call over some rotations, he will say it, he's not gonna ask cadiaN for permission, for example. He's just doing it automatically now, so it's more cohesive.

I noticed you came to Rio a couple of days earlier than some other teams, so you've had a few days to prepare. How does it work with practice? A lot of the teams that are here you might play eventually, so how do you approach that? How do you decide who to play?

Well, obviously, there are pros and cons if you wanna practice against the other Legends teams, maybe you don't wanna show everything. Luckily, we had some practice against some pretty good Brazilian teams while we've been down here. We decided to come a few days earlier mostly because of jetlag and getting settled, and so far so good, we played pretty good the first game.

There have been a couple of surprises with Cloud9 and Vitality struggling early on so far at the Major. Other than that, do you think there have been any surprises for you?

I was really surprised that Cloud9 struggled in the beginning and they've been playing close games, but it's also good for them to get those games out of the way. The best-of-ones can always be a bit random, of course. MOUZ looked pretty solid from the previous stage and they played good again in their first game here.

What do you make of your stance in the competition? The storylines heading into the Major were that the two big favorites have been struggling, FaZe and NAVI. Where do you fit into all this?

I'm very confident in this team that we can go really far. But you also have to be careful, because I think all the analysts and experts, even you guys at HLTV, have been saying before every Major that we've been kind of a dark horse. So I'm not gonna jinx it. I'm confident in the team and so far we're looking good.