cadiaN: "The crowd can cheer for who they want, we're just going to play and win"

The Danish captain isn't fazed by the crowd cheering against HEROIC, as usual.

HEROIC came out on top of their quarter-final series against FaZe to kick off their BLAST.tv Paris Major playoff campaign, ousting Finn "⁠karrigan⁠" Andersen's men from the last CS:GO Major in a three-map series. The Danes required all thirty rounds to take Nuke after staving off a FaZe comeback and faltered on their own pick of Overpass, but a masterclass on the Mirage decider ensured their victory and put them through to the semi-final, where they await the winner of Monte vs. GamerLegion.

The Danes were dealt a rough hand despite having the No.1 seed in the bracket, getting the most difficult opening matchup of the Champions stage, but stood up to the test despite the majority of the crowd in France being against them. It's a scenario that Casper "⁠cadiaN⁠" Møller and company are not all too unfamilar with, and he talked to HLTV after beating FaZe about how he and the team are not shaken by the crowd, and touched on details from the game, as well as spoke about Martin "⁠stavn⁠" Lund's development and his performance on the big stage.

Congratulations, you just beat FaZe 2-1. Tell me how you're feeling about that match, which was close at first and then kind of a blowout at the end?

Yeah, that's a pretty good description. A tough game for sure, a lot of good players, good calls, they're a great team. Lot of respect for them. We played some tremendous CT halves today, and that definitely gave us an extra edge.

Communication-wise it could be better on both Nuke and Overpass, to be honest. Not perfect, but good enough. I'm satisfied because I think we are getting better and better at pushing together, lifting together, helping each other, and that's a great sign for this tournament.

Let's go back to the start of the series, FaZe were 5-1 up initially, what did you do to find answer for that, because they were locking you out at first?

It's a good question. I think it's about first trusting the concept. We grabbed the momentum back and that made it a bit easier to read their tempo and their tendencies. Being 5-1 down as CT on Nuke with a lot of pressure in a game like this, not many teams can take nine in a row after that, so again, what can I say? The boys are unbelievable.

We played good CS, we kept our composure, we trusted the preparation, and we saw the tells coming. We played aggressive when we had to play aggressive, and we fell back when we had to fall back.

You weren't the only team to get a few rounds in a row on that map though. FaZe came back toward the end, what was going wrong for you, what were they doing to exploit you a bit?

They exploited absolutely nothing. They won the 2v2s, the 3v3s. What you see is, when you attack A for example versus them, somehow they're just five [there]. broky rushes out heaven, ropz rushes up vents, all these kinds of things consistently, you know? We talked about it before, you need to be ready for it, don't force the plant, don't stress it, but they got the good trades and they just kept swarming.

We didn't capitalize, because I think we had good entries and good trades, but at the end of the day they play some super good CS. ropz is known for being one of the best ramp players in the world, and rain is known for his Major appearances outside as both T and CT. rain, Twistzz and karrigan know how to play inside too, use their utility wisely and when to play close when they don't have it. What can I say, it's not easy to play a T side against a team like that.

Going into the next map, you ended up down 14-5 or something, I think you even lost the round and went down 15-5, but there was a big smile on your face. What was that about?

The 15-5 round that they got, it was 14-5 and yeah, then they got to 15 — just pathetic, this situation. I had a good read, pushed out short, saw broky in connector with an AWP, ropz was below, and it was just unfortunate. I was just like alright, if that's how it going to be, then that's how it's going to be. And I told them [his teammates] when we were running out of freezetime, 'Come on, let's get one round at a time now.'

One turned into two, three, four, five, six, and then we lose to a kinda shitty buy on B when they popped monster, which maybe shouldn't happen. But we played some good CS and no matter what, it takes out energy from them to keep thinking, what is the solution, use energy on closing the map, so it was great.

Talking a bit more generally, stavn had a really good game. There was an article that NER0 released a while ago about Big Game players, which showed stavn wasn't super good on big stages [in arenas]. Any thoughts on that?

Yeah, I saw it. With the article you could also see players like s1mple underperforming, and obviously it's because both s1mple and stavn had such excellent group stages that it's hard to match in playoffs. But there is no denying that he has not been as good in the playoffs as he has been in the group stages.

I think it's about experience, it's about just trusting his own abilities, because he has the mentality, he has the mechanics. He can do anything, he's such a fricking amazing player, and I have no doubt he's going to show it more and more the more we play. We had some talks, I tried to help him, other people tried to help him, and all he needs to know is that we trust him, and we do.

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The crowd was against you here, you did have a little Heroic cheering corner. Not something you're unfamiliar with, but how did it feel here?

Yeah, I've been there, done that, not much to say. Not surprised.

Do you think you can turn the crowd going forward?

Not even going to attempt it, they can cheer for who they want — we're just going to play and win.

You're playing the winner of GamerLegion vs. Monte next, any thoughts on that matchup?

Tough to call who's going to win, [they have] different strengths potentially. Both teams have done really well, both are obviously, maybe a tiny bit surprised that they made it here. Both are going to be very happy with the draw, but the fact of the matter is that you can't underestimate anyone. We'll go home, rest, prepare, just like we always do, and we'll be ready for Saturday.