hampus: “Our coach told us EG were screaming 'they are shit,' so we had to shut them down”

Despite touting their boot camp ahead of BLAST Premier Fall Groups as one of the best the team has ever had, Ninjas in Pyjamas have struggled so far in Copenhagen. The Swedes finished third in their group after losses to Vitality and Astralis and played a close elimination match against the new Evil Geniuses squad in the knockout stage, ultimately edging out the series 2-1.

In our latest interview from Copenhagen, we spoke to hampus. The in-game leader had a difficult time explaining why Ninjas in Pyjamas have stepped into the new season on the wrong foot and what happened on Overpass against EG, who shut them down on the CT side.

hampus then gave us his thoughts on some of the biggest changes that took place during the off-season, in particular sharing his opinion on ENCE‘s addition of Alvaro “⁠SunPayus⁠” Garcia and Lotan “⁠Spinx⁠” Giladi‘s move to Vitality.

You’ve been saying how the boot camp ahead of this event has been great, but during the matches it hasn’t necessarily translated. Why is that?

I don’t know, I don’t know. Yeah, as we said, it was the best bootcamp we’ve had to date, all of us agree on that. I don’t know why we can’t translate it into the games here, I guess we’re a bit nervous, I don’t know. It’s the first event of the season, I guess we’re a bit rusty even if we feel good in practice. We just need to get this official form going and then we’ll be fine, I think, but we’re not there yet.

How do you reflect on the run so far? What have been the issues that you identified?

Pistols is one thing, we lost a lot of pistols. We were lucky that we didn’t need them on Inferno now against EG. I think we played a good Inferno against them – we fucked up some rounds, but it was fine. Even though we lost both pistols we had a big margin to work with and we kinda knew how they would play, and it fits our playstyle, so Inferno was the easy game, I would say.

We were really fired up because our coach told us that some of the guys were like “they are shit, they are shit,” they were screaming, so we had to shut them down, because we’re not shit at least. The first day we had here, the three BO1s was a very bad day, all three maps were very bad. I don’t know, we’re just a bit nervous, I guess.

What about your issues on Overpass against EG? You had such a slow T side.

I don’t even know, man, it felt so weird. It felt like, if we played FACEIT and played against autimatic and CeRq, we would have lost that FACEIT game if they had three randoms on B. They just owned us on A, we couldn’t get close, and that’s a problem we usually don’t know. I don’t know what happened, we were just too afraid to play sometimes and always wanted to flash, always wanted to do this, and we just tested A, they played on their skill and won.

How much pressure did you feel when you were down 0-5 on Inferno on the third map?

Not a lot of pressure, to be honest. We were down 5-0 on Nuke and that was why they got some rounds on Nuke, on Nuke they had no chance against us. We were gonna pick Nuke, but they picked it for us, so it was good. Being down 5-0 was all good, we just played our game and we won, we won nine rounds in a row, I think, and then the last round we kinda threw a little bit in my opinion. Then we obviously lost the second pistol round, but then we just got going. I had some good reads and it worked out.

I wanted to go over the off-season and what that means for you, but just generally about the scene. A lot of teams went through changes as usual – what do you make of some of the big ones and who perhaps made the best changes?

Uh, I haven’t really thought about that, to be honest. I really just focused on my team during this off-season, what we should do better and all this going into the bootcamp we had, but I don’t know, what changes have been made?

G2, ENCE…

Yeah, ENCE, they got SunPayus, right? I think that’s a very good pickup, even though I liked hades a lot, he’s a very good player and I think he was a super strong clutcher. He had like the most clutches of all pros last year, or last season. But yeah, SunPayus is a really good upgrade, he’s super skilled. I think he was a big part of Movistar’s success.

Then I think the G2 one is… I don’t know. I want to see them play more, you know? We’ll see now, they’re going into the game (Editor’s note: G2 was just passing by the interview area, heading into their match against BIG), so we’ll see how it goes. I haven’t really watched their games at all. Who more did changes?

Vitality with Spinx.

Oh yeah, that’s a very good pickup. To be honest, if I was Spinx, I don’t know if I would have left ENCE, but he did and I guess it’s better for him. But I think ENCE was a really strong team, and if they would have changed the AWPer and stayed with Spinx there, I think they would be a top-three contender. Spinx is a really, really strong player, but then again he’s going to play with ZywOo, so now Spinx and ZywOo have a good game and it’s an easy win for them, so… I guess I understand it, but I don’t agree with it.