Following NiP's victory over North, that got them a playoff spot in Kiev, we caught up with Fredrik "⁠REZ⁠" Sterner.

Despite a defeat to AGO, NiP were able to make it to the playoffs of StarSeries i-League S5 with a 3-1 score by defeating HellRaisers, TYLOO and, lastly, North.

NiP are trying to anti-strat opponents more since pita joined

After the match against the Danes, in which REZ stood out with a 1.50 rating, we talked to the young Swede and heard about the tournament, the upcoming Minor qualifier, and the team's style.

Your team beat TyLoo yesterday, you were 2-1 in the group stage after that, but it didn't seem like you were very satisfied with the result, or maybe how you played. How were you feeling after that win, about the tournament you played that far?

We had some minor issues, and we still have them, I think. We are still working really hard on getting the structure in the team. With that, we need to make draken more static. We want to play a way where draken is more supportive, stays static, so we can work more structure in a core of me, dennis and f0rest. That's how we want to play and that's what we are striving for, right now. It's still new to us because before dennis joined we have always played individually, played more in free roles, me and draken were mostly free. We are trying to get a hybrid of having these free roles while also having this structure. That's why we are struggling a little bit. We are trying to get that done.

Now that pita is also in the team, what is his role in all of that?

pita is doing coaching, analytics, statistics, he shows us the big picture of a team. He watches how they play, he figures out what they tend to do, and how we are going to work on a certain map against a certain opponent. We try to anti-strat more right now.

Talking about maps, in the map veto against North picked Nuke against you. With this core you don't have a good history on that map, but do you think they kind of played themselves picking Nuke against you?

We will always leave Nuke open. Historically, we don't really have good results on it, but we always feel like we have this confidence going into it, it's a map we all go way back with, we all like it. I think we have the structure needed to play it well. Rotations are the most important thing on Nuke and I think we got that down 100% now. North is a really good Nuke team, I think we just showed today how good we are with the rotation and how structured we are on Nuke.

The road to the Major is the main focus of NiP at the moment

You made the playoffs here, you have Cologne and the CS:GO Asia Championship coming up. Is there pressure on you guys to deliver in these couple of tournaments, to achieve good placings?

Not at all, actually, we have a few tournaments right now, before the Minor qualifier, but the Minor qualifier is the most important. All these tournaments we are playing right now we are just pretty much trying to get better, get this structure and practice more and more. We just want to be performing the best at the Major. That's what we are focused on right now.

Talking about the Minor and qualifying for the Minor, it's obviously a sensitive spot for your team. But obviously playing tournaments like this, Cologne, tier one tournaments, is not the same as facing tier 2 and 3 teams online and at the Minor. Is there something specific you are trying to get prepared for that level of competition?

All these tier 2, tier 3 teams are difficult to play because you don't understand 100% what they are going to do, how they are going to play - it's hard to read them. That's the most difficult part that we need to work on. We want to get this structure because if you get good structure, gameplans, and team play, you will destroy teams like that. That's what we want to work on the most.

Final words, going into the playoffs, what's the mentality like for you guys now?