sjuush: "We're not going to be afraid to take chances"

The Danish player said that his team will play more loosely than at the Fall Final.

HEROIC head into the World Final in Abu Dhabi with hope, rather than expectation, having been placed in a tricky group that also includes FaZe, G2 and MOUZ. The team has added a third stand-in for this event, Jason "⁠salazar⁠" Salazar, after already attending the Fall Final in Copenhagen with Peter "⁠dupreeh⁠" Rasmussen and Rasmus "⁠Zyphon⁠" Nordfoss.

The World Final will also mark René "⁠TeSeS⁠" Madsen's debut as an IGL after Casper "⁠cadiaN⁠" Møller's departure to Liquid. For Rasmus "⁠sjuush⁠" Beck, who sat down with HLTV during media day, TeSeS has proven to be a good fit for the role, and he will have the help of the team's more experienced players to help alleviate some of the burden.

HEROIC were last seen at the Fall Final, where they went out in the first round of the playoffs after losing to Cloud9. Getting to the Royal Arena put a lot of pressure on the players, sjuush admitted, so the team will be showing a more loose style in Abu Dhabi.

This is your third time attending the BLAST World Final and the third time you’re having to play with stand-ins. In 2021, you played with b0RUP, last year you played with k0nfig, and this year you’re playing with three stand-ins. How are you handling it this time around?

Obviously, it's sad because it's a pretty big event, and you want to end a year on a good note. With stavn it was because of personal issues. It is what it is, and we have to make the best of it.

With so much happening around the team and you bringing in salazar for this final event, what was preparation for this event like?

salazar is playing for another team, so we’re loaning him right now. We only had like a week, maybe eight days, to go through some maps and prepare the best we could. On HLTV it says dupreeh is the in-game leader, but it’s TeSeS, so it’s his time to try it out and see how well he is doing. And I’m really surprised at how well he has adapted to that role in the game.

During that week, what did you have time to prepare? What were you able to work on?

Obviously, we can’t change how people are reacting individually, but we have certain strats or how we want to read or play the game. We talked about certain situations, how we want to read the game, how we want to react, what kind of keywords we have, so we can get a little more control over how we want to play the game. If people are playing aggressively towards us, how we want to react… Also, some basic stuff that keeps us calm and allows us to help each other.

You mentioned that TeSeS is now the IGL. Is this something that he wanted to do? How would you compare his style with cadiaN’s?

Obviously, they’re different. Casper has been an IGL for many years, and for TeSeS it’s still new. But I like his style. He has to find his own style, how he wants to do it, but he is kind of like Casper. We were with him for so long that we have that kind of play style, how he wants to read the game, how he wants to react, all of that.

And TeSeS is a grinder, he watches demos all the times, he is DMing, just playing, and he has a lot of good ideas. In general, we’re really good at helping each other. Even if he is going to struggle, he can always find calmness in me and dupreeh, for example. So we can help him out with mid-round calls and give some information so he can make a call.

Even if TeSeS ends up not being the IGL for Heroic in the future, do you see him being an IGL further down in his career?

Yeah, I can see that. If he really sets his mind to doing something, it is completely possible for him to do it. He’s eager to learn. And I think he is a good leader and a really nice person. He wants the best out of everyone and he doesn’t want to force things. He wants to do what everyone needs, individually as well.

salazar is a bit of an unknown quantity. This will be his first tier-one event. I went through through his stats, and in those two Challenger events that he attended, he struggled a bit. How do you think that he will perform, with so many eyes on him?

I think it’s important that we help him find… It’s so easy to become eager to look good, have good stats and all of that, but I think it’s important that we help him be calm and play how we want to play the game, the way we have been practicing. He has been a lot more vocal compared to how he was at the beginning, to the point where he says more what he wants to do, and it’s not just what we want him to do. And it’s always better when you’re feeling comfortable and have the confidence to take certain peeks. As an AWPer, you have a lot of responsibility, and I think he’s really good at adapting.

What made you pick him? Were you looking at other players as well?

I think we saw potential in him. He is young. He has experience, but not that much, so we can help with that. And also, we needed an AWPer, and I think he was the best AWPer we could find.

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With so many changes for this tournament, what kind of goals have you set?

At the Fall Final, with Casper, it was too serious in a way. We wanted to get into that arena so badly that we wanted to play too perfectly in a way. So I think the important thing is that we go in with the mindset that we are going to have fun. We are not going to be afraid to take chances because we are a mix team. We have to take some chances. We are playing against FaZe in the first game, a really strong team, and if we can catch them off-guard…

We talked a lot about trust, about not overthinking and not being afraid to make mistakes. There are going to be mistakes, and we cared a little bit too much about that in the past. We were afraid of making mistakes, of what could go wrong sometimes. We put a lot of emphasis on not being afraid to make mistakes. I mean, in the end, it doesn’t matter. We all want to win. We have our strats of how we want to play the game, and we have to follow that. But you can also take a step away from that if you have a good feeling.

Everything is still a bit up in the air about the future of the team. What can you say about the plans that are in the making for 2024?

I don’t really know how much I can say. I think we’re getting closer to finding a stable… It’s been rough, but I think we have finally found a solution that is going to work.

With the current state of the Danish scene, do you think that going international is the solution? Is that a possibility?

It’s a possibility. If you look back five years, it was mostly single-nationality teams. And now, everyone is international. There are only a few Danish teams. There aren’t many other single-nationality teams. I think in the future, going international is probably the best. There is a bigger market to find what you are looking for.