sAw: "I like the way kyxsan thinks about the game"

The Finnish coach says he has a great dynamic with the Macedonian IGL.

HEROIC started the year with a completely revamped roster that began their Major qualifying campaign in the open qualifiers. They avoided a shock upset and followed that up with a solid appearance at IEM Katowice to ensure a good start for the organization's international era.

The team never slowed down and progressed through the RMR to secure their Major spot, and Damjan "⁠kyxsan⁠" Stoilkovski and company now sit on a 2-0 record after the first day of play in the Opening Stage in Copenhagen.

After their overtime win against Imperial, Eetu "⁠sAw⁠" Saha sat down with HLTV to talk about their Major campaign so far, his dynamic with kyxsan, and his expectations for the remainder of the Major.

If you can't see the SoundCloud embed above, you can find the audio version of the interview here.

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You're through to the 2-0 bracket after today. The game got pretty close in the end, can you talk me through that match and what took things over the line in the end?

We pretty much expected Mirage to be one of the most likely maps, so we were prepared for that even though there was not a lot of time after the first match. In the end, they did play well, they were able to do some aggressive moves on their CT side which they gained some info with, which made it really hard for us.

When they get the kills on top of that, it's hard to react on the map, get any space. I'm really happy we were able to get it in the end, we kept fighting, we kept going for new solutions and figuring out things as we were going forward in the match, so I'm happy about that.

We've seen you go through the open qualifiers to make it here. To go straight to the 2-0 bracket, what does that mean?

It's nice of course, and it's important since the first day is the best-of-ones. It is more random and it's a good thing for us that we are able to go 2-0. I will say that it doesn't really matter for us if we go 3-2, 3-1, 3-0 in the end, we just have to fight every match, so in that way it doesn't matter a lot. But it's a nice thing to have this 2-0 right now.

I was listening to a podcast on the way here, and I remember hearing that you weren't there for the opening qualifier games and it was mostly kxysan working with the team, is that true?

In the open qualifiers, yeah, the Valve rules say that I can't be in the room, so that was the thing. No coaches allowed, you can't be there during the matches, so I was just watching it in the bootcamp place in a different room. But obviously I was at the bootcamp, I was helping the team.

Can you tell me about working with this lineup now that you've had some time to develop the players and what that has been like for you after working with ENCE for so long?

The biggest thing is that it's also been a learning process for me as a coach. I was a totally different coach back when we started ENCE and what we have started now with Heroic. I'm able to pick up on things faster as a coach on how to develop the team, the structure, everything around the players which I feel like helps us a lot.

But we are just at the start, we are a team for three months, it's still early days and you can't really build the full playbook, the structure, how we want to prepare for the matches, the team culture, everything that goes into it. We are doing the correct steps to start it, but it's still far from us getting to a peak level or anything like that.

I'm enjoying working with these guys, the players we have. They are fast learners, they're smart players, and that also shows in our game with all the reactions, what we're able to do together, the team play we already have. It's at a really good level for an international team without any background together with this short amount of time.

There was a lot of hype after Apeks made their run at the last Major and I know that a couple of teams were interested in kyxsan, but Apeks didn't get that many good results for the rest of the year. Under his leadership this team has been playing quite well, so how much have you contributed to that and what is the dynamic between you two like?

First of all, when we got the lineup together and we started working together, it was really important for me, and for him also, that the coach and in-game leader connection is there and it's good, that we are able to communicate with each other, and that's what we have been doing a lot. We are communicating, we are trying to get on the same page about a lot of things.

I actually like the way he thinks about the game and I'm also giving him a lot of freedom, so how we play is not only coming from me. It's also, on the other hand, not only coming from him, so it's a mix of things. But I like the way that he sees the game, he's mid-round calling a lot, trying to play reactive CS so that it's not only [sending] stars around and then just deciding where we end. The way he calls is adaptive.

Then of course I try to build the structure, so look at what kind of strats we have in general, how can we build our playbook so it's as versatile as it can be so that we are becoming as close to unreadable as we can, and all these things. And a lot of players we have are also contributing, but I like the dynamic between us.

There was a lot of curiosity about that dynamic because you worked with Snappi for so long and people were wondering about your influence. It's pretty clear you did a lot in terms of how much you contributed with your pauses and tactically in general for ENCE, so I'm trying to get a picture of what you're doing in this team to help develop that side. Like when you say you're trying to to make yourselves unreadable, can you explain more on what you're doing for that, specifically?

That was a thing we became pretty good at in ENCE, that we would have a really good understanding of all the top teams, how their playstyle works and what we can do against it. Of course every match can be different and there will be some kind of mind games, but we have an understanding about that. That's something we're building right now in Heroic with more and more matches we get under our belts.

But then for different matches you want to have different options. Those are the options we are also practicing so that we have a playbook of enough variety and we can pick the right things and we don't need to do a couple of new things for each match, we're already in our comfort zone in that sense. Then there are of course more details that we can change all the time inside the strats.

Then, thinking about the player's comfort so that they are comfortable in their own roles. It's another important thing, so we need to look at what are the players' strengths, how can we use them so we get the most out of them. Not necessarily focusing so much on their weaknesses, try to fix that on the side a bit, but focus on their strengths, get the most out of everyone, and make the team work like that so you get more out of your pieces.

You said that whether you go through 3-0, 3-1, 3-2 doesn't really matter to you, but at least now you're 2-0, you're going to have best-of-threes for the rest of the stage. How do you feel about tomorrow with just best-of-threes now?

I enjoy best-of-threes more, I think everyone does. It does matter in the way that if we were able to go 3-0, we would have a bit of time off before the next stage, which would be really nice for us. But in the end it doesn't matter in the sense of whether we end 3-0, 3-1, 3-2 because just getting to the next stage is the objective of the first stage of course. Then it resets and starts all over again, but there are some bonuses if you make it early. I will enjoy the best-of-threes, it always nicer, there's a bit of room to do more mistakes in those matches.

Right now we've seen some of these Brazilian teams surprise based on the expectations people had before, do you have any general thoughts on that and what these teams are bringing compared to what people were expecting?

It says something when so many of the Brazilians qualified, for sure. They are playing some good aggressive Counter-Strike, which can also fit the environment of the Major being a pressure tournament, an important tournament. People might have more pressure because of that, so it can go well with that. Of course I don't want to say too much since it's the best-of-ones being played today, so it's hard to say, but it's a good sign for Brazilians, yes.