sAw: "We have to be a new, international Heroic and we need to do things our way"

Heroic's new lineup has continued to surprise in Katowice by eliminating the world's best team, Vitality, from the tournament.

HEROIC had a turbulent offseason after losing Martin "⁠stavn⁠" Lund and Jakob "⁠jabbi⁠" Nygaard to Astralis, which forced the organization towards an international route. They brought in Damjan "⁠kyxsan⁠" Stoilkovski, Nico "⁠nicoodoz⁠" Tamjidi, and Guy "⁠NertZ⁠" Iluz to fill out the roster spots, with Eetu "⁠sAw⁠" Saha taking over the coaching role from Richard "⁠Xizt⁠" Landström.

The Finnish mastermind made a name for himself in ENCE, where he and Marco "⁠Snappi⁠" Pfeiffer built a system that survived the departure of key players and put the team among the world's elite.

He is now tasked with meshing several different styles of play together in HEROIC, which has proved a stumbling block for many teams before. The early signs have been good, however, as the team secured their spot at the RMR and just beat Vitality to knock the No.1 team in the world out of IEM Katowice.

Date	Matches
IEM Katowice 2024
05/02/2024	HEROIC Finished 2:1 Vitality	Match

After the victory, sAw sat down with HLTV to talk about the season so far, the process of finding their identity, and their expectations for the rest of the year.

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Talk to me about this tough match against Vitality. It's come as a surprise that you are this competitive against the best teams in the world this fast. What was it down to, being able to beat the number one team at the moment?

Well, of course just looking at the score it was a tough match, a long match. We had good starts on pretty much each map. We struggled a bit on Anubis CT side and Vertigo CT side, which kinda tells the story that we are still a new team. We need to figure out solutions and we don't have it down to details yet, basically. We haven't practiced, we don't have the repetitions in those rounds, so we need to figure out solutions mid-game, which is sometimes really rough.

I felt like we had the solutions, but we weren't able to execute them. Then they're coming back and it gets more of a mental game - that's another thing when we are a new team. I'm just really happy we were able to close it off in the end, and also having not so much time with the team it is pretty impressive and I'm proud of the boys for what they did today.

What makes you so competitive so early?

I think, first of all, we started with the right steps for the team. We are laying down the foundation for the team, and we have players who have experience from being in a top team, so they kinda know what they want and they are also playing similar roles.

I think we are doing a lot of good things and even in practice you can see - obviously, it's only practice - we are doing good. What I was thinking is, can we transfer that into officials, that's another thing. I think we are doing it pretty well, but it is the small things.

I think I also learned from the ENCE time and how we built that project. Right now we are doing similar things, but we are taking the steps faster because I also have a better vision of how we need to do it. Of course everyone with the Heroic staff is helping with that, so we are doing a lot of the right steps and learning fast from the mistakes also.

TeSeS had a great game today. In the previous roster he was generally the guy going in first and being traded, and from that position it's not always easy to have the numbers. This time he did - is there less pressure on him, is there more of a setup for him to perform? Where does he fit?

I think he does have for sure more space in the team, more space to say his ideas and more space in-game to then try a couple of tricks here and there. He is still playing the same role as the aggressor and taking space on T sides. On CT sides there were a couple of changes, but mostly it's the same old positions, so he can feel comfortable with that, and then it's like a fresh start, a bit of a honeymoon. He's showing his potential, for sure.

You've had pieces come in from all over the place. Did that make it difficult to mesh things together early on? How did that process go?

It is, of course, difficult, but that was one of the first things we were talking about as a team. It's important that we don't think of ourselves as an ENCE or the Danish Heroic, or Apeks, Preasy... We have to be a new, international Heroic and we need to do things our way.

Of course, if you had something going good in your last team we can try to bring it to the new team, but we have to still do it our own way and we need to get on the same page about those ideas. We might have five good ideas, but in the end we can only do one, so it's about choosing and also accepting. We need to have open minds towards new ideas, but in the end it's just accept and go with one idea in a lot of the times.

Late last year when you were putting together this roster I'm sure there were a lot of moving parts regarding who you'd be able to get and what the final team would look like. Where are the expectations set early on into this year considering the pieces that you were able to get? How high are they?

The expectations are more on the side of the 'trust the process' kind of thing. We wanna do the best we can, we wanna go into every match giving 100% of ourselves. Of course later on down the season we're gonna set more structured goals in terms of numbers and where we wanna place on events, how we wanna be. We kinda have an idea on that, but that's not the main focus right now. Right now it's going day by day as we are a new team and as everyone came from different places, but there is a vision on the background, of course.

What about from the organization's side? They had a team that was able to compete for titles. Is that something the organization is expecting down the line that this lineup will be able to do?

Yeah, the expectations are that we will be at one point a Major-winning team, we will be the No. 1 team in the world, but of course Heroic is realistic with it and we have had open talks about it. We have the time needed to improve and we're not expected to do it instantly at the first Major of course, since we started in the open qualifier, so it's a long road. They are pretty realistic and I feel like we are also, but it will take a lot of time and we just have to see where we are.

What do you think are the pre-requisites to be able to hit that kind of a level?

Well, I do think it does require a lot of experience, and that's what we are here gaining. We need to go through arena matches - right now we are playing from the studio, it's a whole different thing. And just gel the team together. Of course we also need individuals to step up and perform in their own roles, and if everything comes together I think we can reach that. But like I said, it's a long road ahead of us, still.

Drawing quickly back to Katowice, you have this lower bracket run still ahead of you and a couple of games before you can make it to the playoffs. Are you confident that you can get there after the start that you've had?

I think so, yes, especially now after the G2 and Vitality matches. We are confident, but like I said, any match can be really hard, there are a lot of tough teams still waiting in the lower bracket. We have to take it one match at a time and just keep fighting. I think it is possible, but it's not gonna be easy.