sAw: "I would expect us to be at a higher level at this point"

sAw believes his team's level has dropped since the player break.

HEROIC's season has been a disappointing one so far. The European squad flopped the BLAST Fall Groups, didn't make the main event at IEM Cologne, and then dropped out of BLAST Fall Showdown to boot.

They experienced a brief mini-resurgence in the past week, bagging four series victories on the bounce to make it through the IEM Rio closed qualifier, but their LAN woes continued in Serbia as they exited BetBoom Dacha Belgrade via back-to-back losses.

With their early exit fresh in his mind, Eetu "⁠sAw⁠" Saha gave an interview to HLTV reflecting on their recent struggles and the reasons for the downturn as he sees them.

If you cannot see the SoundCloud embed above, listen to the interview here.

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A bit of a tough tournament for you, what are your reflections?

Yeah it was a short one, two matches and out, and it's of course not what we wanted, especially after the Rio qualifier which gave us a bit of confidence. Coming into this BetBoom playoffs you hope to show the same kind of level, which we were not able to do. It's a disappointing result.

What do you put that down to? Do you put it down to the very busy schedule over the last week?

Yeah possibly the schedule could have had an impact in terms of energy, people might not be there and it's a bit hard to keep playing multiple officials on multiple days in a row. But I wouldn't put too much on that, I wouldn't use that as a reason.

I don't know, I think there is still some shakiness in the team that we obviously need to fix. We showed some good matches this week online but I just want it to be more consistent, where we are able to show a better version of us day by day, instead of some days we are there but some days it's more off. I want the consistency to be there, and that's a problem when it can change quickly.

What kind of things are you looking to fix? Is it gameplay things, communication, or what do you see as the problem?

I do feel like in-game we have a lot of issues, but I think at least part of it is also due to the mental state, which we need to be more stable, consistent, and having more of this positive mindset instead of going down the rabbit hole of being too negative. That obviously happens when you focus on mistakes and you have these things that you want to fix, and then you start to focus on those things too much and forget some of the fundamentals and basics that you need to have.

Comparing practice to officials, it's easy to have this mindset in practice where you fix the mistakes, but coming into officials you can't really have that. You need to be focused in every situation, every round, you need to go for the win instead of dwelling in the past or thinking about the last rounds. It's a mix of things, there's multiple things we need to focus on. At the same time it's good to identify the mistakes and problems and just work on it, try to be patient with it.

Do you think that comes down to the personalities on the team, tending towards the negative or wanting to fix the mistakes?

Overall I feel like our atmosphere is not really negative in that way that there would be any kind of toxicity, that's not really what I'm going for. It's more like we just need to be able to reset fast, make a new plan, and come into the new round with full focus, instead of having mixed ideas or multiple ideas, so that we can connect the ideas and be on the same page. It's those kind of things more.

Also having this hyped-up mentality where you show your passion for the game you are playing. Those are the things we need, because some of these matches we have been losing, you can see us playing situations without any kind of confidence.

At the moment, all we need is confidence and some good momentum, and then I think it will also show in game. We end up in good situations, thinking about for example this Eternal Fire Mirage, which was one-sided for Eternal Fire but then looking at the T-side, there were multiple good situations for us which we were not able to capitalize off. In the end it comes down to the smallest of details which we need to get down, but of course you would like to see it sooner rather than later.

You've had some disruption in general with LAN events due to degster's visa issues. How much do you think that has hampered the development of the team overall?

I think it took something away from us. Coming after the break, we started practicing quite early, we had a bootcamp and did good progress I would say. Of course practice is one thing whilst officials are another, but still I saw good gameplay from us, good atmosphere, good everything.

Then the issues started and we had to start the season with a stand-in, and especially talking about Cologne, it was really important for us, which is why we wanted to come back early. So it took something away from us, and right now we are working towards getting everything back.

In terms of being more stable I think we are getting there, so I would say that's not a factor anymore, but thinking about a couple weeks back when things were happening, it was for sure something on everyone's mind. It's that annoying part where you want to give 100% but you can't, because you are in a stand-in situation, so I think that took something. But now things are more or less getting fine, in that sense.

What kind of timeframe in your mind do you expect HEROIC to hit the best version of yourselves?

That's the interesting thing, because right now we have of course been a team for a while with one change so far this year. I would expect us to be at a higher level at this point. Right now there has been a bit of a drop-off from last season I would say, which is a shame of course, because that's not the trend you want to go towards. So of course I would expect more things, but expectations are just one thing in the end, we just need to put in more work and see where it takes us basically.

I still think we have all the pieces we need, we have so many good things going for us and we know what we need to improve on, but it will always be a question about time as well; how fast can you improve when every other team is improving around you?

You've said there you feel like you have all the pieces you need, but at what point do you start wondering about the pieces you have and thinking if one needs to be changed out?

That's a hard question because we started the project with nothing, and we have a lot of tournaments from last season where we had to decide how we go from tournament to tournament with minimal practice.

Right now we are getting more into the stable zone where we actually are able to have practice, we are able to go into these tournaments really prepared, and then we just have to show it. So of course it's something that needs to be assessed during this season, like how do things go, how are we able to improve, but right now that's not my biggest thought. I just want to improve the team.