The IGL chains are off for Nicolai “dev1ce” Reedtz, who is seeking a return to his consistent best with Astralis after exceeding expectations at the BLAST World Final.
Losing a CS2 tournament is never a great feeling but it's certainly bittersweet this time for device and Astralis. The Danes entered Singapore with next to no one believing they'd be competitive against this lineup of teams.
But, defying all expectations, Astralis steamrolled Na'Vi and MOUZ to lock in a semifinal spot early. They did their best to hold on against Team Spirit, with yesterday's 2-1 loss including a brilliant win on Vertigo — but Spirit lifted on Ancient and sent the Danes packing.
Device in particular turned heads, posting a 1.25 HLTV rating over the seven maps played. It's his best event since the BLAST Spring Final, and curiously a return to form in his first event since handing the captaincy to Casper "cadiaN" Møller, but as device said to esports.gg, there was more to his return to form than just that.
Astralis exceeded device's expectations, but the stakes will now be raised in Shanghai
“Commiserations, mate. The event all around has been pretty impressive for Astralis given expectations around the lineup heading into Singapore. Are you happy with how you guys have performed at this one?”
“Yeah, of course. We are really happy with the first two games and making the semi-finals here is fine for us. Going into this tournament we didn't have high expectations — we just wanted to see what our practice has brought us heading into the RMR. So yeah, of course, I’m overall happy. There are never any happy emotions after losing a game, but that's just how it is.”
“CadiaN said to me in the group stage that Vertigo was a specialty for you guys — a lot of these other tier-one teams are not even bothering with it. Can you talk me through working Vertigo back into your game? There are also rumors the map might not even make it to the Major…”
“I think it will be crazy to change the map pool now, but you never know. We've liked [Vertigo] for a long time — since we had br0. When they changed the things on A site, no teams really committed to playing it other than Complexity.
“In Europe we tried to practice Vertigo a lot but you can't even scrim against the best teams because they don’t want to practice it that much. Still, we put some time into it and it's a good comfort map for us. It's always good to have a map that you feel like you can pick against most teams.”
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Unshackled device seeks consistency above all
"This event has been a little bit of a return to form for you. It had been kind of a flat year so far individually, but you were pretty lights out here in Singapore. How much of that is handing the captaincy armband to cadiaN, and how much of it is the system developing?"
“I think it's a mix of all sorts of things. From the start, going back to being an AWPer is always a change. You need to back down a little and just listen and do your thing, and then it’s about adapting to the system, which stavn and Jabbi have played for years.
“So, yeah, I think it's just a mix of the system and me also trying to disconnect from the overall leadership role and just give my input on what's happening for me and for the part of the map that I'm playing. There’s always some individual work, of course, but it's about being consistent. We have to do it at the RMR as well now.”
“You've got a couple of days to decompress before the EU bootcamp and then onto the Major. What's your plan ahead of Shanghai?”
“We’re definitely heading back to Europe. We’ll go home, look at the stuff that worked, look at the stuff that didn't work, try to find a good mix of what we want to develop going into the RMR and yeah, that's just the plan.”
Device and Astralis return to Asia in three weeks for the Shanghai Major European RMR, where they'll open their qualifier against 9Pandas. Stay tuned to esports.gg for the latest CS2 news and coverage.
