k0nfig: "I thought we would steamroll EG"

The Danish rifler admitted he didn't expect Ninjas in Pyjamas to struggle against the North Americans.

Ninjas in Pyjamas were one of many teams to make a roster move in the off-season, removing Aleksi "⁠Aleksib⁠" Virolainen in favor of the returning Hampus "⁠hampus⁠" Poser, who previously took a break from competition in January.

In their opening match at BLAST Fall Groups, the majority-Swedish squad faltered to Jonathan "⁠EliGE⁠" Jablonowski's Complexity side in an incredibly close game, which pitted them against Evil Geniuses in the loser's bracket. While many expected a one-sided affair, the Ninjas were far from convincing in their victory.

After the match, HLTV sat down with Kristian "⁠k0nfig⁠" Wienecke to hear his thoughts on the difference between Aleksib and hampus, their games at BLAST Groups, and Ninjas in Pyjamas' goals for the season.

Were you expecting the series to be as close as it was? That first map particularly was a slog.

No, not really, I thought we would steamroll them a little bit, but we are still getting used to hampus calling, and I'm getting used to it. It feels like a good change for us, but of course, when you change an in-game leader everything becomes brand-new. You have to look at your strat book way more, and we had to remember the things that we agreed on a week ago when we practiced Inferno. There's a lot of things happening right now.

What is the difference like for you, playing with Aleksib and then playing with hampus? How are you finding that difference, is there a big change in style?

I think Aleksib has his own style of calling where he needs all the players to believe him 100%, and he has these really good reads at times but if someone half-asses it, then it's not going to work. hampus is more like a freestyle caller, he mid-rounds a lot and says like 'do this for me and I'll do this peek', so there's different things with both of the players.

Do you have a preference?

I think the hampus style of in-game leading fits me more as an individual, because it feels like I am getting a little bit more leash. Aleksib also gave me some leash but it was in a different way, and I feel like me and hampus have a better understanding of the game together, we are both on the same page.

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What are the goals with this NIP roster? I know it's a little bit early, but have you guys sat down as a team and said what you want to hit, like rankings?

Right now it's only progression. I think we started a little bit late practicing, which is our own fault, but progression is the only thing that we think about right now, we will set the goals later on when we have a good map pool and know which maps we are good on. So yeah, progression.

When looking at the NIP roster, and I think this is something they were talking about on the broadcast, it's not clear what the direction is. Either having a couple star players and making them shine as much as possible, or going down the Heroic route where everyone chips in. Do you have any idea about that as a team?

I think hampus and djL gave positions out to players which they think are their best positions, and then we just work from there. I am playing underground on Overpass, not the most fun position in the world (smiles), but I will still play it if it's the best for the team. I definitely think we just hope for the best, play the game and help each other out, and everybody can 30-bomb as we saw today.

If we could take a step back and look at the Complexity game — what do you think caused you problems in that match?

We were hesitant. I think we had some good rounds on Nuke where we could have closed the game, we had some rounds on Overpass where we could have closed the game, and I felt like we didn't do what we said that we would do. It was a shaky game, our first actual official game, so we were a little bit shaky. I think if we had played them today, for example, it would have been a closer match than it already was, we would probably have been coming out on top.