nicoodoz: "People shouldn't underestimate tier two teams, they shoot hard"

The Danish AWPer talked to HLTV after fnatic secured their Paris Major berth with a 3-0 record.

fnatic became the second team to qualify for the BLAST.tv Paris Major 2023 with their 2-1 win over B8 on Friday, traversing the Europe RMR A with a 3-0 record and thus securing a Legends Stage spot at the French event. While their journey to qualification was aided by a few surprising upsets, they still had to face tough competition from lower-ranked teams to earn their spot at the French event.

HLTV spoke to Nico "⁠nicoodoz⁠" Tamjidi after their Major qualification on Friday for some insight about their run at the RMR, fnatic's shaky online form, and what it means to qualify for the Valve-sanctioned tournament straight into the Legends Stage.

You guys went 3-0, a clean run. Was it something you expected to pull off here?

Looking at our group we definitely thought we could go 3-0, but it was not really our focus. Our focus was just going through and playing as good CS as we can. We played a few close games here, so there's still a lot we can work on, right? But overall we're very happy with out performance. We didn't let go even though we had some big leads or close games. We finally we won those crucial rounds and it paid off, so we're 3-0.

You're straight to the Legends Stage, which can be a bit of a double-edged sword. What are your thoughts on that?

Yeah, I really don't like going straight to Legends Stage, honestly, because I think that the teams in Challengers have a slightly bigger advantage. They get to feel the studio, they get to feel the game more, play more officials, they basically have a week on you in which they're playing in the environment while you're just watching their games. Obviously you get more time to prep and stuff like that, but I still don't appreciate it that much. But it's still nice to go to Legends, I can't really complain.

Tell me about this last match against B8. They beat you guys at the previous RMR and they seem to be pretty good when they get into these LANs and this sort of environment. What are your thoughts on that last match?

Honestly, people from the outside probably thought 'Oh, that's going to be an easy win for fnatic' because they just look at the world ranking, they don't look at the demos or how players play individually. I think a lot of people underestimate them in general, but I think they're a very good team, they play Counter-Strike really well, they're well drilled, and they have some really good T sides.

They're just an overall good team and you shouldn't underestimate them. We learned that lesson last RMR, where they destroyed us on Ancient. Just in general people shouldn't underestimate tier two teams, even us playing online, we don't underestimate them and they honestly just beat us sometimes. They have some insane individuals, those teams, they just shoot hard, harder than you expect.

You had some early clutches on Vertigo that got you going. How important was it to get those early rounds to build the confidence from the start?

It's really important for us as a unit right now because we're really struggling to get good starts; T side, CT side, whatever, we're struggling to get good starts and it was really important that we won those clutches. That has also been our problem recently, that we don't win those crucial rounds. It's not the rounds you must win, but those crucial rounds that turn the tide in the economy, the momentum and basically everything.

Honestly I was just in the flow of the game and when we start winning those clutches people start giving more ideas and we get a better idea of what we want to do. We can get away with more because they become more inclined to fall back a step and we get more inclined to take a step forward. It plays a huge part.

Closing out Ancient on the T side... It seemed like they were finally get a hold on the CT side, there were moments when us watching out here were saying 'Oh, this is going to be overtime.' But in the end you made it through. What was the key?

The key was trusting the information we got in the rounds. We had a really good read on how they play the game and they have a few reactions and things they have to do, we just had to have no hesitation and react on that stuff. That's basically it, just trust the information.

For example in one of the last rounds we went out A and kind of hesitated even though we knew they were all going to be donut because they did the late reagression in mid. That's why we lost that round, because there was hesitation, you know? We just need to keep trusting that information and the prep we get from our coach.

You guys had a big end of the year, you were out in Rio, now you're here qualifying for another Major. But it seems like you've struggled at times in between, not able to do your best. Where do you see yourselves in terms of consistency, getting that ability to play at the top day in and day out?

I think, honestly, that we just sucked online. Maybe it's our preparation or our focus level that's not the same as on LAN because I think that when we play these Big Events we qualify to playoffs almost every event. I think it's more the environment we play in, and as a team we just play better on LAN — sitting next to each other, feeling each other.

I think it's more of an environment thing. Online games can catch you off guard because you look and say 'We can do this, this should work against them,' and then suddenly they do something random like running through smokes and small things that you're not used to in tier one CS that they do in tier two CS. Honestly, that's not a bad thing, but you're more used to the traditional way of playing, where you focus more on the logic part of CS instead of the randomness and sitting in smokes, stuff like that. I think that plays a huge part.

One interesting data point is that you guys are actually the oldest team at the RMR. What do you make of that?

With roeJ and KRIMZ almost being 30-years-old, we make a lot of jokes with it, but we can't really feel it that much. roeJ is one of the oldest star players in the world right now next to rain on the CT positions, so it's just what you make of it. There's no limit to how old you can be when playing at the highest level of CS. You see it in traditional sport, like Zlatan Ibrahimovic playing until... I don't know how old he is, but he's pretty old, right?

Age doesn't really matter too much. As long as you're good enough, you're good enough. It's a bit weird because FASHR is probably the most inexperienced player on the team now, right? But he's still like 26-years-old, even though when you look at him you don't feel like he's 26. Simple stuff like that.

How do you think that plays into the potential of this lineup and what the ceiling of this team can be?

Honestly, I can't really say. We're here right now, this five. This lineup is a long term project, we all signed on that, and we all expect this to be a long term project that won't make any changes. It's just where time takes you. If we can't perform well, if you can't be consistently top 10 going towards top 5, top 3, starting to win events or make deep playoff runs, then obviously change is going to happen. That's CS, that's life. Even though I'm the youngest I might be the one getting replaced, you know? You can't really count that out. We just have to keep working hard as a unit and we'll stay together because fnatic is giving us all of the resources we need. We have no excuses not to make it, it's all about the work we put in.

Going 3-0 here and securing an important spot at a Major, does that put you on the right path to actualize that? To become the team you want to be?

Yeah, for sure, we're one of the teams in the world that talks the most without playing, like just talking theory and going through stuff. I think we steadily make a lot of improvement in the long talks we have and we also have meetings after every match just talking about stuff, what we could do better. Everyone looks at themselves, individual stuff that you need to improve on. We all kind of have a list, that's the work you need to do if you want to be the best. You can't just keep doing the same over and over.

I wanted to touch on the map pool because you're one of the teams that tries to have a very deep pool and play everything. At the same time, do you think that can be a bit of a double-edged sword if you're not so comfortable on a few of the maps? Or are you confident that this is the way to go?

It's a pretty weird dynamic because it's hard keeping the map pool consistent. When you start working hard on a map that you're doing bad on, then slowly the good map starts to fade away. That's why our map pool keeps changing a bit and suddenly our Nuke is not that good or our Overpass is one of the best in the world. It's just about trying to put in equal amounts of work on all maps to keep the good maps good and improve the worst maps.