nunji: "we keep getting better"

HLTV.org sat down with Antwerp Aces member Felix "nunji" van de Put a couple of days ahead of DreamHack Summer, and questioned him about the upcoming tournament and more.

Antwerp Aces have been placed in Group D along with the likes of mTw and H2k-Gaming for this Summer's edition of DreamHack. The team will travel to Jönköping, Sweden, hopefully to show what the Benelux scene is made of.

The team also won the Party 8 LAN, thus qualifying for DreamHack Summer, along with KaoS who managed second place.

In this exclusive interview with HLTV.org, Van de Put comments on Jamie "luosrevo" Lammers' departure, their newest addition, and thoughts about the upcoming tournament in Jönköping. 
 

After a rather disappointing show at Inferno Online last month, Jamie "luosrevo" Lammers chose to leave Antwerp Aces. How did, or has, Lammers' departure affected you as a team in any way?

Well, our game didn't really feel good at IOL and we were already talking about things we could improve. For instance, Jamie is a good player skillwise but didn't bring any experience to the team. And it was mostly experience we missed in our game; how to react to certain situations, playing your opponents and not just your tactics.

We really wanted Ivan [Apollo], because we felt this was what we lacked. A player who can really read our opponents and knows what works and what doesn’t. And since we’ve all been good friends with him in the past, the transfer was really good for us.

We are really happy to play with an all Belgian lineup again. I feel we keep getting better week after week and all the guys are really motivated and hungry to improve, so our praccs have been really fun to play lately.

So has Ivan "Apollo" Wuddhisukhum improved your tactics? Has he added anything else, or strengthened you as a team?

Well, he's not the kind of guy that will show us new tactics or anything. He’s just the guy that will use his experience to our benefit in game. He’ll be our IGL’s right hand, advising him to do different things in different situations and such. His communication skills are really good. That’s something we are really working on as a team.

DreamHack Summer is coming up, and your team has been placed in Group D, along with mTw and H2k-Gaming, who the latter recently added kHRYSTAL and FYRR73. What is your opinion about these two teams, and do you see Antwerp Aces advancing past them?

H2k and especially mTw are world-class teams that have won many events in the past, and considering we are in Group D, I'm assuming that who wins the BYOC compo will end up in our group. I heard teams like playzone.fi have already signed up for the BYOC compo, and also heard a rumor that Fx will be there.

So our group will be extremely hard and honestly I think the chance of us advancing will be really slim.

But we will never stop fighting and try to perform the best we can in every game. At dreamhack winter nobody expected us to come out of the group with complexity, Begrip and confis (with players from Online Kingdom), but we did. So, who knows. We might shock eSports :D

How is your team preparing ahead of DreamHack Summer?

Our preparation for dreamhack has been really rough. Most of the players (including myself) have had exams for the past two weeks and will have our last exam this Friday. So we haven't been able to pracc for the past 2weeks. Luckily, we did get some practice out of WES and Eurocup.

What is your team's goal for the tournament?

Like I said, we don't expect to survive the group stage considering our pretty hard group, we just hope to give a good match to all the teams in our group and not be run over =]. I definitely think we have a chance to prove ourselves. And that's something we really need at the moment, with all the hate towards Antwerp Aces that we've had to take since IOL.

One week ago, your team was removed from the ESL Amateur Series, following that you had claimed too many penalty points. The final blow came after you were penalized for not having purchased premium accounts over a five-matches span. What happened?

Well, as I said, we've had exams the past 2-3 weeks so we played every EAS match with 2 or 3 mixers. Our organization didn't want to pay ESL Premium for all of our mixers. This gave us major penalty points every match so we were removed. If it would've been EPS we would have tried to play with all our members, but considering it was EAS we didn't really care that much.

Some teammates prefered to study 2 hours more than play an EAS match, and I honestly can't blame them.

The Electronic Sports World Cup organization recently announced eight invited teams for this Summer's event, where KaoS had been issued an invitation. Do you feel this is the right team to send as a Benelux representative?

Well, I think we've expressed our opinion well enough in the announcement post. I really don't want to get into this again. I just want to wish KaoS the best of luck at ESWC and also hope the benelux scene will grow closer instead of all the flaming there's been in the past month.

Your Benelux rivals, KaoS, are traveling by bus to DreamHack, while you guys are going by plane due to exams. Seeing as Justin Bieber's lovely hit "Baby" is sure to be played non-stop on the bus ride, do you think Antwerp Aces will gain a mental advantage for the tournament?

LOL :D. Advantage or not, I definitely am happy to go by plane, because the last bus ride to dreamhack was horrible. I didn't get any sleep at all on a 22 hour busride.

Do you, or your team, have any form for mental preparation ahead of bigger tournaments or matches?

We just try to relax. Before matches we often review some of our basic strats for the given map and after that we just listen to some music and maybe to Al Pacino's 'Any Given Sunday' speech for the motivational boost =).

Besides DreamHack, the Summer is packed with exciting events. Have you guys planned any other tournaments?

Yeah, we are going to Gamegune Bilbao. We're probably gonna make a little vacation out of that too, going for a week instead of just for the tournament. After that I think we will take a break in August and see what events we can attend in September.

Is there anything you would like to add?

I want to thank our organization, Antwerp Aces, and all of our sponsors. Check out www.antwerpaces.be! Peace.

Antwerp Aces will be on display in Jönköping with the following five:

 Dries "ciseta" van Houdt
Fréderic "Monu" Dewever
 Jules "nookbrid" Wydoodt
 Felix "nunji" van de Put
 Ivan "Apollo" Wuddhisukhum 

HLTV.org will be on location in Sweden to provide you with full coverage of DreamHack Summer. Be sure to tune in for more interviews, pictures and constant updates between 19-22 of June.