The Danish squad opened the tournament in Malmö, Sweden, with a win over the new-look Cloud9. Tarik "⁠tarik⁠" Celik did his best to stop North, putting up 31 kills, but North's new signing Valdemar "⁠valde⁠" Bjørn Vangså was equally inspired, helping his team win their opening match.

North put a lot of effort in preparing for the second part of the year

Following the game, we talked to Mathias "⁠MSL⁠" Lauridsen about his team's preparation, the Cloud9 match and the impact his individual performance has on his calling.

When did you get back to practicing, how much did you get to try out stuff with the new roster and how did that go? What were you focusing on?

We started practicing from the 14th of August and we just grinded. Before that, I did a lot of work with my coach, to prepare our game plan and what we wanted to do. So we just focused on that and when we started, we knew exactly what we wanted to do and we just went through every map together and practiced a lot.

Coming here, you knew that in the first match you were going to play against Cloud9, but at the same time, they are a fresh team with two new players. How much could you prepare for that, what did you expect from the matchup?

We couldn't prepare so much, we looked a bit at the demos, or my coach did, and we figured out some small stuff that we could use. But eventually, we were just going to play our own game and we did that and it worked out.

Let's touch on the match itself, you seemed like you were getting into the groove on the T side, you were going to get the momentum and then there was that one pistol round they won that swung the match back in their favor. Talk me a bit through the match and the key rounds.

On the T side we kinda struggled, we didn't get our game rolling and they played really smart, they saved their grenades to the ends of the rounds. But we managed to get some rounds because of valde's clutch and some other rounds that were key. And then we lost the anti-eco which kinda threw us off again. It was a messy match for us on the T side, they played really good as CT I must say. They made it uncomfortable, for me at least.

But as CT, it was clear to everyone that we had the control and that they wouldn't get into the match. Because you could feel that they had nothing to come with at the end. They just tried different yolo things after the first buy rounds that didn't work out for them. So we felt like it was in the house.

Talking about you personally, you had a kind of a rough match, kill-wise. How does that impact the whole thing, the calling? Is it kind of awkward for you as you can't get individually on the board? Does it put you off from the calling side a bit or can separate the two things?

Of course you are going to call better when you are playing well yourself, but I think I'm one of the in-game leaders that have kind of gotten used to not getting so many kills. And I know that my biggest thing is to make sure that I'm playing well and I'm making the right calls.

For example, in this match, I was really struggling individually, but I still felt that I called fine and found some solutions, but they were just really good. I wouldn't say it affected my calling, but it was hard against them.

As you mentioned, valde had a great game, 30 kills in his first LAN match for the team. Considering all the buyouts that are happening, he is a player you got for free. Tell me a bit about that and having him on the team now?

It's really great to have valde in the team, I've wanted to get a team player that could still frag and he is doing that. He is very good at communicating, helping his teammates with grenades and so on. So it was exactly what we needed, and that he frags so much is just even better. I'm really happy to have him on board.

You are done for the day, but you are moving on to the winners match tomorrow that is going to be against SK. Tell me a bit about that, what are you expecting and looking forward to?

It will be a hard match for sure, we only won against them with valde in a BO1 at ECS S2... So maybe this makes us the favorites now. (laughs)

No, we are ready for the game, we have a different game plan and play style than many of the last times we met them. Now we play much more structured and team-centered, as me and my coach like it. I think it's harder for SK to beat us now because before we played on the individual level and SK is better than us on an individual level.