tN1R: "Entering the European market was a very good step for me"

The Belarusian rifler was at LanDaLan to cheer on his former GUN5 teammates.

Andrey "⁠tN1R⁠" Tatarinovich, the Belarusian rifler who has been shining for HEROIC and was the highest-rated player in his team's championship run at MESA Nomadic Masters with a 1.38 rating, took some time while cheering for his former GUN5 teammates at LanDaLan 2 to speak with HLTV.

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HEROIC beat BIG 3-1 to win MESA Nomadic Masters Spring

The 24-year-old opened up about his move to HEROIC, what it was like joining an international roster and adjusting to a new culture and language, playing under Eetu "⁠sAw⁠" Saha, the win in Mongolia, being among the first Belarusians at a Major, and his quirky monitor tilt.

[Editor's note: This interview was conducted in Russian and translated to English]

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We’re with tN1R at LanDaLan. What are you doing here?

I came to cheer for my guys from GUN5 because I left this team relatively recently, as well as just to see some other guys. And for the CIS region it’s a return of HLTV LANs, so it’s nice to watch and cheer for the guys.

I wanted to start with your move to Heroic. Can you tell us how it happened?

I was bought by GUN5. I played out one season well, I had good numbers, and in the transfer window I started getting a lot of offers from Europe. I think I had three or four offers. It was GamerLegion, NIP, and Sangal. From the CIS region Aurora, 9 Pandas, and Nemiga also inquired. I turned of them all down except 9 Pandas, but the deal wasn’t made because of the buyout, and that’s it.

I thought I would likely remain with GUN5, but then, after some time, Heroic came and asked if I would be interested in making a move. I said yes, went to sleep, and I woke up the next morning to a message from GUN5’s founder, buster: 'The deal is done, you’re in Heroic.'

You’ve been playing in tier three from a few years. How was it for you to experience such interest and ultimately join a team with a relatively big name?

When these offers came, I didn’t have any colossal emotions, like, 'Wow, a big org came, and I’m going crazy.' It was nice that there was that demand because I’ve had a somewhat tough career. I had a slump here, something else there... Basically, I was playing in the tier-three level constantly. When such an organization comes it's nice, of course, but I wasn’t going crazy. I just knew that I had grown and that I had to move forward.

Moving to Heroic meant moving to an English-speaking team. How did it work out for you? Did you know you would do well or did you have doubts?

Actually, the reason I turned down all of the European offers is because I was worried about potential barriers in communication. Only with Heroic did I consider all of the pros and cons and said yes. I knew that my perception of English in both real life and on the server was okay, but to speak in-game and outside of the game was totally different.

In-game, you can get used to it fast, but outside of the game talking to teammates is much harder. I was concerned because besides the game on the server you’re also supposed to maintain communication within the team and have some connection with your teammates, so I was worried.

And in the first couple of months, well, it was tormenting, really, even though Heroic provided me with a teacher and the guys from the team accepted me very nicely and helped me with the language. They were helping me fix my mistakes, and we even have some memes with my English.

Three months in, by the time when the Major qualifiers began, I had adapted to the communication both on the server and outside of the server. It got much easier. I sort of just adapted.

Besides the language, how was it to adapt to tier one Counter-Strike? Did you expect you would do so well, considering your current numbers?

To be honest, in terms of the game, I wasn’t worried at all thanks to Artyom 'Fierce'. We’ve done a colossal amount of work together. I was only worried about the communication and being able to understand people because without communication, without understanding what you hear, it’s very hard to make decisions. That was the only thing I was concerned about.

Also, when I was playing in the CIS, I was the second voice on the team, so I was always helping the captain at the round starts, mid-rounds, clutches, and late-game situations. I just knew that if I wouldn’t manage to fix my communication really fast in order for it to be comfortable, it would be very hard to play. Thank god, it all worked out and now I’m a really active voice in Heroic.

Yeah, sometimes it’s funny, or sometimes it’s broken, but after some time, I have found certain effective short sentences and words in order to be understood, and it all works out quite well.

You recently won your first event in Mongolia. How important was this win for you and your team?

It was quite an important win for our team because it was basically the first time in an arena for three players. And those are really, really great emotions. I liked it a lot. I’m really glad that all of the guys supported each other throughout and wanted to win because there were some delays and tech problems, but we were very strong mentally. Everyone supported each other, so it didn’t break us, and it ended how it ended.

Were the tech issues a serious struggle that needed to be overcome?

It wasn’t really a serious struggle, but during the first arena day there was a situation. On one of BIG's PCs a wireless mouse wouldn’t work because the signal was getting interrupted, and they were changing the PCs, they were changing mice, and no one could fix it. That's why our game was moved from 17:00 to 23:00, six hours. Yes, it was hard to start at 23:00, end at 1:00–2:00 and get to the hotel and just go to sleep. So yeah, it was tough, it wasn't really nice, but it’s not a big deal if you’re a professional.

You personally played very confidently there, finishing the event at the top in terms of rating. Does it give you confidence that you managed to show such performance at a LAN in such suboptimal circumstances?

Definitely, it’s nice and it gives a lot of confidence. The guys always support and praise me and are like... When I joined the team, when good moments happened, they would always call me an animal — like a beast —, but I was thinking, 'What is this about? I don’t understand.' And ever since I figured it out, they always yell, 'You animal,' and so on.

Are there any differences in mentality in terms of East and West? Is there anything that introduces difficulties?

In terms of mentality, there's no problem, everything is quite nice. I really like the positive approach and everyone supporting each other. There’s no tilting at each other, no negativity. Even if something horrible happens on the server, like if we’re losing some bad situation or clutches, everyone just says, 'Smile,' and, 'Let’s go, the game is not over.'

Showing performances like this, do you feel like you have already proved yourself on an international team, allowing for more options and flexibility?

Yes. Entering the European market was a very good step for me because there’s much more potential for offers in Europe, and that’s quite cool.

You play under sAw’s leadership in Heroic. He’s considered to be one of the best coaches in the game. What is your impression of him?

I agree with this. Actually, this was one of the key reasons why I agreed to join Heroic. It was because I was confident in this coach. In a team, the coach is what matters to me above all because I believe the coach is the top of the entire hierarchy and the entire system inside the team.

I believe if you don’t have a coach who will build the system up and carefully put everyone together, a team will likely never take off. Some individual exceptions always happen, but still. Actually, sAw resembles Fierce to me, in a way. They don’t have exactly the same approach, but it’s similar, and they’re fully calm. I don’t know how to say it differently, but with him, it’s always effective, competent, and clear. He will never say too much, there’s never negativity.

There are moments, though, when we haven’t woken up, and he would put on a pause to say, Guys, what are you doing? Let’s get to work. Get yourself together and let’s go.' And yes, his voice is a bit louder, but it doesn’t sound like scolding at all. He gets only a bit harsher to shake us up, and that’s it.

There are rumors that sAw and SunPayus might leave Heroic. Do you have concerns that Heroic might lose its key elements?

I don’t have concerns because I believe that rumors should not be trusted, and that’s it.

IEM Dallas and the Major in Austin are coming up. Since you’ve had a problem with a visa before, have you got your US visa yet?

Regarding the US visa, I got it almost immediately once we made it to Dallas, in March. Generally, I’ve never had problems with visas. It just so happened that when I moved to Heroic from GUN5 I had to go to Katowice and I applied for a visa to Katowice straight away. But at the time, we had online qualifiers for BLAST, which we successfully went through, and it so happened that my visa became active two days after BLAST started in Denmark, just as they finished. There was no way for me to get new dates starting earlier, so it happened that I sort of had a problem and missed my first event with the team.

What are your expectations from these two final events of the seasons? Do you have any goals?

We don’t have specific goals set. We try to go step by step and see how it goes, but in any case, every player wants to go deep and reach the arena. Personally, I would like to go through to the arena in Dallas, but we’ll see how it’ll turn out. As for the Major, I believe the first stage is much easier than the MRQ. But for me, a quite decent result would be if we reach the Legends stage [Stage 3].

You will be among the first few players to represent Belarus at the Major. Does this matter to you?

Yes, it’s very nice, because I believe that my example can show players from Belarus that they can aspire, grow, get somewhere, and play on the global stage, even if the situation with esports is not very good in our country.

Last question: Is it true that your monitor is horizontally tilted by 10–15 degrees?

Yes, that’s true. And I don’t know what it is about, because in all the teams and LANs I’ve been to, many people were curious about it. They thought that maybe I had some problems with my back. I already started to think that I might have problems with my eyes, but no one could understand how that could be related.

I tilt the monitor 15 degrees to the right because when I play CS the picture seems distorted to me, and when I tilt it a little to the right, it seems to straighten out. I don’t know how it works, but somehow it does, and now monitors that don’t turn like that have started appearing on LAN, so I have already gotten used to that.