dennyslaw: "We believe in ourselves and we really think we can win this tournament"

Denislav "⁠dennyslaw⁠" Dimitrov says 500 are aiming high at Elisa Masters Espoo.

Elisa Masters Espoo day two is well underway with the second of two groups, also featuring the inexperienced 500. Despite their lack of pedigree the Bulgarian side started off the event with an upset win over Complexity, and has looked scary in every matchup so far.

Coming off the Complexity win and a tight loss to fnatic, dennyslaw spoke about the invaluable experience they were hoping to gain at the event, their struggles on the CT side, and the responsibility of representing the Bulgarian scene in Europe.

Editor's note: The interview was conducted before 500 beat Bad News Eagles

Coming into this event you were an unknown entity because you have not been with 500 for very long, and now that you've won your very first game, what has that done for your confidence?

I think the game against Complexity was pretty good for us, it was good that we started with a win even though it was really close. It meant a lot to start with a win. The second game against fnatic was a pretty bad start, we were losing a lot of stupid rounds and making some rounds 5v2 really close, leading to a 1v1. We were really bad with the money and they just had a really good T-side, we got back into it but if we had played better as CT I would say we would have won easily.

The meta at the moment is weighted towards the CT side, but you as a team have had good T side performances, can you explain that?

We have worked a lot on our defaults, and we have prepared some stuff to surprise the enemies here from the bootcamp in Warsaw, we were there for one week so we have pretty decent preparation. You see that if we start badly on the CT side, no matter how good our T side is, we just lose the game.

Speaking of that bootcamp, you have not been together as a team for very long, how has the transition into 500 with the new roster been?

It's obviously our first LAN, no one has a lot of expectations but if we keep focused on the next few games we can get through to the playoffs. Even though we had that loss to fnatic I think we can qualify for the playoffs if we refocus and start playing our game again. We need to step up, especially me.

You have not been with 500 for very long, how has the process of joining them been?

They just contacted us as they wanted to sign us as a trio, me, SHIPZ, and Rainmaker then we decided we wanted to play with niki1 and Patrick. Before the organization even approached us we played some tournaments as ex-SKADE, we had some pretty decent results online in our first tournament together but this is on a very different level. We are playing on LAN, the biggest LAN for some of us, against good teams, so it's going to be really really important for us to get into the playoffs. So we are going to do our best for us.

You mentioned this is a big LAN for some of you, whereas for SHIPZ he's been to other LANs with SKADE and you played with SKADE too. What kind of experience are you trying to pass on to the guys who haven't been to those LANs?

Only SHIPZ has bigger LANs played, this is definitely the biggest LAN I've played, and that is the same for niki1, Patrick, and Rainmaker as well. SHIPZ has played many LAN tournaments but we have never. They bring experience, and they know a lot of stuff, niki1 as well, even though he hasn't played an S-tier LAN it is still really good to have such an experienced player in our team.

The Bulgarian scene is not in the state it once was, there is no Fiend or SKADE currently, how do you feel about the quality of the scene?

The last season, in the RMR qualifier, we had two Bulgarian teams, Fiend and SKADE as you mentioned. We were really close, there were a lot of close games against good opponents, and we were really close to getting into the Major and no full Bulgarian roster has ever been. Now it is kind of different since right now we are the only official team, there are some rumors about some teams getting into the scene as well but we are going to see what happens.

Being the only official team, does that add extra pressure onto your shoulders?

I don't know maybe, it's always better to have a few good teams in one region, especially in one country, because we can have this rivalry to push ourselves to be the best team in our country. That helped us when we were SKADE and also Fiend as well. Now we are officially the only team, so it's going to be good for the scene and us to have another Bulgarian roster who can just push us.

You mentioned that there's never been a full Bulgarian roster at the Major, do you think this squad has what it takes to make it to the next one?

Only time will tell, it's only the beginning and we still have a lot of stuff to work on, still a lot of practice, and a lot of stuff to fix. We also have some experience to gain, so it's really good to be here against these opponents. Only time will tell, we will see.

In the short term, for this event, what are your hopes and expectations?

The first thing we want is to get into playoffs, getting into the Arena. Every one of us has always wanted to play in front of a crowd on a big stage, it is really important and everyone wants it badly. I think everyone will give their best so we can make it into the arena.

For the rest of the games, is there any team you want to play against?

No actually, we don't really care who we play against. We will just prepare well, we will try to focus on playing our game and perform at our best. It doesn't really matter which opponent we play against, I think everyone on the team knows that if we play our A game we can beat any opponent, it doesn't matter about the ranking, it doesn't matter that we are outsiders in this tournament. We believe in ourselves and we really think "we are here, we can win this tournament", even though there are good opponents here.