NertZ: "Less talks, more play, [...] that's a big part of why we're clicking right now"

A barebones approach to merging HEROIC's different schools of thought is helping them get firing again, according to the Israeli star.

HEROIC's Elisa Masters Espoo campaign began with a win over Rebels, as Guy "⁠NertZ⁠" Iluz and company look to build on a semi-final finish at IEM Rio at the small Finnish LAN.

The squad have struggled at times in 2024, as they look to merge the styles of 2023's HEROIC with NertZ and SAW's ENCE and IGL Damjan "⁠kyxsan⁠" Stoilkovski.

Date	Matches
Elisa Masters Espoo 2024
17/10/2024	HEROIC 16:00 ENCE	Match
17/10/2024	HEROIC Finished 13:10 Rebels	Match

"During the start of the year, we felt like something was missing because we had a lot of talks," NertZ told HLTV in Espoo. "No matter if we won or lost a game, we had talks for at least two hours."

"It was a crazy time for us, and after it, we said, 'Fuck it, we don't need to overcomplicate it or overthink the situation we have.'"

It's back to basics, and that approach, NertZ hopes, can get the roster back to performing at the level they all expect. Step number one is to "win this event."

"For me, everything is the Major. This is just one more step to being a Major winner."

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

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You came here straight from Rio, where you guys came back to life. You made the semi-finals and had a close game against NAVI. How important was getting a result like that after a tough beginning of the year?

From the start of the year for us, it's to build confidence against the best opponents in the world. We already beat NAVI when they were Major winners, but what was important in Rio was that we beat G2, we beat Vitality after — an impressive game —, and we should have closed the game against NAVI.

We just showed to ourselves that what we're doing in practice, we can implement in officials. That's very important for us, for the future.

How has the team come together? There were changes on the Heroic side, then you and sAw came in and mixed that together, then degster had problems traveling to events. It seems like it was some chaotic months; maybe it was hard to gel as a team. What were those problems, and where are you now in figuring them out?

It's more complicated than people think because Heroic played a certain way, we in ENCE played a certain way, and kyxsan in Apex played in some way. For us, it was very hard at the start. The communication in the game, some people think [something] was basic for them, other people think [something] else was basic for them.

It was really hard for us to bridge the gap and talk about everything we needed to talk about, the small details. When we got Abdul [degster] we played a lot, we practiced a lot, and I feel like this practice and this time together helped us a lot. It didn't help at all when degster had visa issues, but I'd say now we're safe, and we don't have any background noise. I hope we'll keep like that.

How did you get rid of the background noise? What were the keys to getting on the same page?

I would say that, for me at least, I felt like at the start everything was good, but during the start of the year, we felt like something was missing because we had a lot of talks. No matter if we won or lost a game, we had talks for at least two hours.

It was a crazy time for us, and after it, we said, 'Fuck it, we don't need to overcomplicate it or overthink the situation we have.' That's what helped us the most. Less talks, more play, and that's it. That's what helped us. That's a big part of why we're clicking right now.

You're playing a bit of a smaller event where you and The MongolZ are the big teams and then there's a little gap with the others. Then you have Thunderpick, online, and after is the RMR where you're probably looking to peak. How important was it to get a good result at Rio now to gain some confidence for the RMR preparation?

For me, it's everything. It's everything because before we fixed all of the issues we felt like we didn't have the confidence. This is what I told you before, the wins against the top one, top two, top three, that was everything from my perspective because we showed that no matter who is playing against us, we can smash them on a good day.

Now you have to find out how to have those good days...

Exactly! Imagine when you have a good day and when it's a bad day. We're trying to be consistently on our A game almost every day.

Before Rio this could have been a good place to gain some confidence, but after Rio do you feel like a big fish in a small pond? Does being a clear favorite add a bit of pressure?

For me, everything is the Major. This is just one more step to being a Major winner. Even if we are favorites here, for me that's a step to have this consistency during the games, during the events, for the Major. If we win this event we'll get more and more confidence, and if you don't have confidence in yourself as a CS player, just be whatever you're doing, but not playing CS. If we win it will be one more step to being in a good place for the Major.

Is there anything special for sAw here [in Finland]? Have you said anything about getting this one for the coach?

He wants to win it because it's in Finland, of course, but sAw is the kind of guy... typical Finnish; he doesn't care about anything specific, you know? That's what I like about him.

What's the roadmap? What are the expectations for this team heading into the RMR?

To win this event, and after this we have another tournament online with good teams there. If we qualify, we'll have good points for 2025 because it's a huge prize pool. Maybe we'll bootcamp before the RMR, we'll probably stay in China the whole time after the RMR if we qualify for the Major. We'll bootcamp in China, so it will be more than one month away from home. This is the road to the Major for us.

Are you ready to be away from home?

Right now, I don't know if I'm ready, to be honest. I never had the schedule I have with Heroic before. It was more chill in ENCE, we were picking our tournaments, but right now because of the new 2025 system with the Valve ranking we're trying to be more greedy with tournaments to reach 2025 in a good place.

There's a general feeling among teams now needing to get all of those points. Is that something you feel is good?

I think it's not that good for teams, it depends on the organization and the management what's good for the players, but now I understand why it's so rough. But I think what Valve did is incredible because it ESL and BLAST had a monopoly and I like to see more teams.

Instead of watching the tier one teams every time... It's kind of boring. I like action, I like fire when I see for example $500 prize pool. Most of the teams aren't going to attend the event, so you'll see tier two teams, some tier one teams will go down because there's no partnerships and it will change the whole CS community. That's how I see it, and that's what I like about it, that there are not two monopolies.

And old TOs are coming back, which is also always welcome to get some more variety.

For sure, for sure. For us, for the players, it's pretty good, but it depends if you choose wisely what tournaments you need because nobody wants to burn out during the year.

Yeah, of course, hopefully it'll allow more teams to spread out instead of burning out the top ones.

Exactly, exactly.

Tell me about this opening match against Rebels. They're one of those teams you don't get to see very often.

I think they're pretty good. We saw their online results and we feel like they're pretty good. We weren't surprised by the map pick; we prepped Anubis. It was a bit unfortunate that we lost both of the pistols. It's very important to win pistols in MR12. I felt like we were controlling almost all of the buy rounds, and yeah, it was a good game.