TeSeS on Astralis rivalry: "We don't have the best connection to each other, both organization and player-wise"

HEROIC once again got the better of Astralis in the Danish derby.

HEROIC came into 2023 as the number-one ranked team in the world, and the Rio Major finalists were expected to continue that form. Their start to the new season was derailed, however, by a resurgent Evil Geniuses who defeated the Danes in a closely-contested opening series.

René "⁠TeSeS⁠" Madsen and company bounced back against arch-rivals Astralis in the next round of play, coming back in the series after losing the first map to extend their win-streak against them even further.

HLTV talked with TeSeS after their derby win about their slow start in the opening game, as well as the importance of the Danish rivalry.

So before I touch on your win today, I want to ask you about the previous game against EG. What do you think went wrong that day?

A lot of things went wrong. Of course, we lost the game and there are always many rounds to look at where things went wrong. I think most of it was rustiness, not having played officials in a long time. And of course, that goes for EG as well, and for every team here. Maybe we just need a little more time than others, because today we saw how good we are and how well we can play together. I think if we played like this in the EG game, we would win. But EG was a better team that day and they managed to win against us.

What did you do in preparation for today's game after that loss?

Well, we did what we always do. We start with watching the demos and making a game plan and all these things. Don't want to spoil too much of our secrets, but yeah, we always do the same against every opponent, whoever we meet. We don't underestimate anyone and we don't overestimate. So yeah, we take it game by game and it doesn't matter who we meet.

I also have to ask you about the map veto, you decided to remove Ancient and left in Inferno. Can you talk me through your decision?

Yeah, well, not going to say anything, but we have a lot of opportunities and some tricks up our sleeves that we're going to be able to use and today we used one of them.

So the first map of the series was Inferno. How did the map go from your perspective?

I think we are really confident in our Inferno, even though our statistics are extremely bad. I think just about every team in the world right now is good on the Inferno, everyone knows how to play it and some playstyles just don't fit against us. So, yeah, we made a lot of mistakes on Inferno, but they were playing really well on that map and we weren't hitting that team play we wanted and our trades weren't on point.

You turned the series around by dominating the next two maps. What helped you come back into the game?

I think we have shown a lot of times that it doesn't matter if we lose the first map or second map, we can always bounce back on the next one because we're really good at resetting. And on Mirage we just started out well and we kept going and kept building that momentum and I think our T side was extremely good.

We managed to play some true Heroic CS as we call it, with the back-and-forth, winning clutches and making the opponents scared. So we played extremely well on that map and we brought it into Vertigo as well and managed to close out the series pretty confidently.

You extended your win streak against Astralis to five in a row. That must feel good, right?

Yeah, it's always something special to play against Astralis and it feels amazing every time we win against them. It's a strong rivalry and we don't have the best connection to each other, both organization and player-wise. There is nothing to hide or anything, that's just how it is and it builds more energy and more hype in our games and I enjoy it every time. They are a good team, they're playing well and most of the time we have close games and it's fun to play. It just adds a little more adrenaline to the game.

A rematch with EG now awaits you. Do you feel ready to take them down this time?

Yeah, I said to other guys today that today I was feeling much better about the game and I was able to enjoy it much more than I did in the EG game. I was way more relaxed today and I think that I will build on this momentum and feeling that I have today in future games.

For me, it was like playing last year when I was able to enjoy playing and enjoy the moment as we always want to do here in Heroic. And to bring that into every game is just so important for us, but also especially for me because it just hypes everyone up and helps to enhance your focus much more. So we will definitely bring that to the EG game.