dupreeh: "We come into this tournament knowing we can redeem ourselves"

We sat down with Peter "⁠dupreeh⁠" Rasmussen following Astralis' 2-0 series sweep over Cloud9 at ELEAGUE Premier 2018 to talk about the last event of the season and what is to follow.

Astralis came out swinging against Cloud9 in the Group A opening best-of-three match, securing the overtime win on Inferno 19-15 and clinching the series on Overpass 16-9, with Nicolai "⁠device⁠" Reedtz shining in the series.

Following the sweep, we caught up with the 25-year-old to talk about Astralis being the best team in the world but not quite being able to completely dominate, their preparation before events, and what is to come after the tournament in Atlanta.

It's the last event of the season before the break. how important is it for you to go into the offseason with a good result?

I think as a team it's very important for us. Also individually, I want to end the season with a good result. Obviously, we're always fighting for the win, but we want to go as far as possible. Our preparation hasn't been as good as we might have hoped for, but I'd still say we prepared pretty decently.

There has been some talk, especially at the beginning and middle of the season when you were very dominant, about having an Astralis era, but you haven't quite been able to get there. Is that something on your mind?

Of course, that's very flattering and every team's goal, to have the lineup remembered for the tournaments you won. That is something we would like to achieve, but I don't think it's the alpha and omega for us, we just want to do the best we can every tournament. We didn't win in Cologne but we come into this tournament knowing we can redeem ourselves, so it's not like if we don't win a tournament we cry about it. We just want to be the best team in the world and that's what we're always trying.

You're cherry picking tournaments, you go to the ones you want and take some time to prepare for them, which zonic talked about in an interview in Cologne. Don't you think that doesn't allow you to be as dominant because other teams are then winning big tournaments and being able to take the big events? Are you going to keep the way you are or do you ever think you should go to more tournaments to become a truly dominant team?

I don't think we're going to change anything for the next season, I think we're going to continue like this because it's what works for our team. We are the best team in the world right now and have been dominating pretty much everything the past three months. If we continue like that, I think we can do it next season as well. We definitely feel that the meta has changed because other teams are starting to adapt to a lot of the things we have been practicing and doing, and we also feel like they copy some of our stuff.

It just works for our team, we have to take into consideration that device has had some health issues, although it's going really great right now which is really good for the team, but if we just keep piling on events the team is going to go downhill and we just don't want that. The most important thing is that everyone on the team is fine and that we enjoy what we do and that's why we're doing it this way right now. We're still participating in as many tournaments as we feel we can, but going from Sydney to Dallas and back to Stockholm or Marseille or stuff like that, it's just going to be too much and we don't want it because, as zonic said, we want to be prepared for every single tournament we go to.

Do you feel like you get that preparation in? That you are as prepared as you want to be?

I'd say so. So far it has been really great. We've been doing a lot of preparation. I think this is the event we prepared the least for, but once here we still do all of our things, we prepare before the matches, we do our rituals... so far so good, it has been going fantastic.

Earlier you were saying the meta is changing a bit and teams are adapting and learning to play against you. When you lost in Cologne to Na`Vi do you think there's something about a team that really relies on their stars shining making it harder for a more structured team like yours against them?

Let's take the match in Cologne, first of all. It can't be denied that s1mple and electronic have become really solid players. Well, s1mple has always been, but electronic has stepped up tremendously and is playing really good so they have those two stars going off and flamie adding to that. Then you have Zeus, a great in-game leader and Edward doing his thing as well. They have a really solid team right now and they're in a good flow.

We didn't play badly in Cologne but we didn't play our best, either. It was a mediocre game for us and I think they got a bit lucky winning some of the rounds and winning the economy game. Also, when we played Inferno they were able to read the right stack every time. I don't know if that's something they gambled on or actually had a read on it, but it was good play from them. That's why we lost, in my opinion.

We're definitely looking for revenge here, I think we can definitely beat Na`Vi, it's not like they have become this super team that we can't beat or anything, and usually, in the past, we've had pretty good results against them even though it has always been really close. I'd also look at the fact that we have won a lot of matches against FaZe. I don't think you can get a better team than them when it comes to individual level and we know how to play around that.

On our side, we have a good mix of playing really structured and letting people do whatever they want in certain situations. I think that's the way to go because if you rely too much on playing structured as a team you get countered and everyone will know what do against you, and if you play too much as an individual if you don't hit your shots you're just going to get locked down by people playing set-ups. I think if you have a combination you're going to become harder to read but you also have a deeper playbook and more to bring to the table.

Let's move on to today. Did you expect Cloud9 to come out so strong, particularly on Inferno?

Not really. It's hard to go into the tournament with two stand-ins, but at the same time they have nothing to lose, they have nothing to prove here. They're in a situation in which they don't have a full roster and they are in a situation where they have to figure out who they want to play with. In that way, they don't really have anything to lose and that's the mentality they go into the game with. They want to win and do everything as a team to win, but they might over peek a little bit here or there and they may take a few more risks, and sometimes that's what pays off. If we're not in our zone and can't figure out what to do, that's what's going to beat us.

I think they played a great game today. Individually I didn't play the best game today and I cost us a few rounds on Inferno and that's just how it is sometimes. You get off to a bad start and have to find out what to do, but as a team, I think we played good and device and Magisk stepped up tremendously. That was really good, and I'm just really happy that we won.

It seemed like you were falling a bit behind and then adapting and then later in the halves taking the lead and turning it around. At the same time, there were a lot of close rounds that you would usually win, clutch situations and so on that this time around Cloud9 was winning... a lot of retakes and close situations. What do you think that was due to?

I think no matter how much experience you have and how good the team is, you're always going to end up in a situation in the first game of a tournament where you're either struggling or dominating. Some people are better at controlling nerves, whereas I think in our team we just need to settle in, to play a few rounds.

No matter how much you warm up and everything, you just need to get in the zone, and the team that gets in the zone first and gets comfortable is the team that's going to win it. I think they hit the comfort zone on Inferno faster than we did despite us winning the pistol round because they won the right rounds.

You can't look back on it as a team or as an individual, you always have struggles or really dominant games in the first games of tournaments because you just need to get yourself into the zone and that takes some time. Sometimes you'll go to a tournament and never hit it, you'll just go out and groups and go, like, "what the hell just happened?" And sometimes you just pass the groups like this [snaps fingers], and that's how it is.

This season has been really unstable for a lot of teams, which you've capitalized on. What do you think the off-season holds?

When it comes to changes, I think we'll see less. It'll either be a lot or fewer changes because the Major is just on the other side of the break. I think the stable teams, us and Na`Vi and the teams that already made changes will keep their lineups. Some teams will start practicing earlier than others. We have three and a half weeks and then we're back bootcamping.

I think MIBR is potentially going to be playing well, I think the addition of Tarik is going to help them, especially since, in my opinion, I think their language barrier was more of a problem than they considered and I think having a second guy speaking English fluently is going to help the rest of the team adapt and it's going to help the communication flow a lot more. I think he's a good addition to the team, I'm not sure if he's going to lead in-game but I definitely think they made a good choice. Not that boltz didn't do well, but for the main core of the team to function, I think this will go well. Obviously, Na`Vi are doing well, and I think they will be a big contender for the Major. Then I'm just curious to see how teams like NiP and fnatic do.

Before the Major there's DreamHack Masters, do you think that's going to be a good tournament to let teams get back into the flow of things before the Major or would you have rather gone straight into the Major?

We won the Major when we came directly from vacation, so in some way, I would like that to happen again because I think it's about dedication. I think it's about what team wants it the most. Let's say you go back to practice five or six days before another team, that means a lot in Counter-Strike because the first couple days you have to get back into it, get the work ethic going, so I think it's somewhat nice to have a tournament right after the vacation to see what team is more dedicated to win.

Then again, I still think it's nice to have Stockholm before that so you get the best possible result and the best possible competition for the Major and the teams getting into the zone. They may also even get a little bit hungry if they don't win Stockholm they may be hungry to get the Major. Both scenarios are fine for me, I don't really care which way it goes. Obviously, it's already determined but whatever would have happened I would have loved it.

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