TeSeS: "We were one of the teams that chose to not bootcamp because of the travel schedule"

The Danes prepared from home coming into the Paris Major.

HEROIC got off to a flying start in France as they dispatched of FaZe with ease in their opening match of the BLAST.tv Paris Major Legends stage, carving through the European combine's CT defenses en route to a clean 16-7 victory.

René "⁠TeSeS⁠" Madsen shared some insight into his team's preparation coming into the Major with HLTV after the dominant victory, touching on HEROIC's mentality regarding being matched up against a fellow top-five team in their first match and how their online practice went.

A strong start to the Major for you, big win over FaZe. How are you feeling after that match?

It was a great match for us. We had a little struggle at the beginning of the CT side, and we managed to pull back pretty quick. Even though it was 8-7 in the half, it's Inferno, our T side in the past has been extremely strong and we showed again today that it is really strong. When Casper [cadiaN] is feeling it with the calls in the later parts of the half, we're just running around and shooting headshots, so that was great.

Not the easiest matchup to start. Did that shake you at all coming into it, or was it business as usual?

Let's say we lost, then we wouldn't meet them in a 0-2 game or a 1-2 game, so in that way it would be positive. But we also knew that even though it's a hard matchup, we're going to go in with the same mindset as always, that we're just going to break them and just do everything to win against them. Not let the fact it's a hard matchup stop us, because that doesn't do anything good for you.

You had a lot of time off after Rio. cadiaN had mentioned you were going to do a lot of hard prep from home. Tell me a bit about that coming into here.

We were one of the teams that chose to not bootcamp because of the travel schedule, and I think it benefitted us a lot. All the players needed some time at home to be with their families and stuff, because that is creating a lot of energy for us.

We practiced a lot and had an online bootcamp, we're also playing together after practice. I think we definitely made the right decision in the preparation leading up to this tournament for sure.

Online bootcamp, and then did you do an in-person bootcamp at all after getting to Paris?

No bootcamp at all, just home. It's what we wanted, we've done it before, and we know that everyone is taking responsibility and not slacking the days off. We know everyone is grinding just as much as if they were at a bootcamp.

Obviously a bootcamp is very different and you can talk all the time, but that is what we're trying to do with an online bootcamp, plus some extra rest.

Not really shaken coming into an official after mostly practice matches either?

Yeah, I think right now we are in the tournament season where we have played a lot of tournaments in a row, both RMR and then Rio. I think it's only been one and a half weeks since Rio, and for us one and a half weeks is not that long ago, it's more that if it's 3-4 weeks, then you can feel the shakiness in the game usually.