Three days into the Esports World Cup, Ninjas in Pyjamas have stayed alive at the tournament after making up for a best-of-one loss to Legacy with a series victory over BetBoom.
It was an Kacper "xKacpersky" Gabara masterclass that got them over the line in the series, a stark improvement on the Pole's somewhat patchy form in recent months.
We caught up with Marco "Snappi" Pfeiffer after the match to ask him about the Pole's inconsistency of late, which the in-game leader put down mainly to the CT sides, where the Opener is still coming to grips with Martin "stavn" Lund as the new AWPer and new player in Roman "n0te" Hamze.
"He has like a 1.20 rating on T and then 1.00 on CT. So I think with more consistency and learning the players around him, he's a guy that's really good at understanding patterns of other players. With time, he will get more and more comfortable," Snappi said.
The Dane also commented on Ninjas in Pyjamas's up-and-down results and struggles to break through the glass ceiling through the many changes that happened on the squad. "It's hard to build consistency and actually build proper routines when there's constantly shifts. And I think that's been one of the bigger things," he said.
"A lot of the time it also sucks because then when we have had the roster change, we go into the most important tournament straight away," he went on. "I just hope now that we'll obviously do a good EWC. We had some time now, so we should be playing pretty good here."
You can listen to or read the interview in full below:
That was a xKacpersky masterclass, I think you can call it.
Yeah.
Tell me about that game, especially Anubis, towards the end, in the second half, you had struggles with closing it out.
Yeah, generally we played a really good game. I think we lost both pistols and we got nine rounds on T on both Nuke and Anubis. But I think in the end, at the start, we maybe hesitated in the mid-round a little bit, and then there was a round where I also had a big whiff, which cost us a round. Well, it would have been a 5v3, so what, you win them 90%. So there was some of these moments, but we got it in the end, and I think we started to play a little bit more with some confidence. I think sometimes we get in these small moments or pockets where we maybe forget to play with the confidence that we have in a general game, where things go well.
So it was nice to close it out anyway. And yes, Kacper played insane.
In recent times it's felt like his consistency has dropped off. We've seen some of these peaks out of him, but it doesn't necessarily happen from game to game. Can you tell me about that and how much it's been a struggle to get a little bit more consistency out of him?
Yeah. I think it's just his CT sides have dropped. So I think just, getting stavn on as a new AWPer and getting n0te as a new rifler... I think just some consistency issues on the CT. I think his T numbers have stayed up the entire time. When we looked at it, he has like 1.20 rating on T and then 1.00 on CT. So I think with more consistency and learning the players around him, he's a guy that's really good at understanding patterns of other players. I think with time, he will get more and more comfortable. And if he brings his CT up on 1.20, he's one of the best players, right? So yeah.
Astralis coming up, they've had their own fair share of inconsistencies recently. Do you feel like they're beatable and you can make it to the playoffs?
Yeah, they're obviously beatable. I also think we are beatable. It's kind of hard sometimes to know which NIP shows up. I think we have a really high level, but we also sometimes tend to... we are really good when we play a little bit more free, where we follow kind of a plan. But then in the mid-round we let loose and everyone kind of chips in, and I give a direction for the general team.
But sometimes we get into these games where we kind of follow plan A, and when plan A fails, then I will give a plan B. But there can obviously be hesitation if people are not feeling the game. And I think that's what we are trying to improve. I think it happened against Legacy, but we really tried to go through it yesterday a lot during our practice and also today before the game, that when we get in these mid-round situations, this is where we need everyone to chip in with the small micro movements, information that can lead us in the right direction. And I think obviously with Kacper having such a good game, he becomes a bigger voice. You know how it is when a player plays good, he will be a lot more talkative and-
Especially in his position.
Yeah, yeah. And I think that really helps us. So I think if we can kind of compose ourselves and understand that when plan A is done and we get to plan B and plan C, that we all chip in and we do a great job together, then I think we will win.
You spoke about coming up to grips with the new players, with stavn and n0te. Can you tell me a little bit about that development, especially from n0te? Because I think stavn we've already seen a bit out of him of the AWP, but with the n0te change coming in over the break.
Yeah, we were in a position where we felt we needed a little bit more of a, how do you say, a player that would fit the system a bit more. I think cairne was an amazing player, but I think maybe some English... there was probably some communication struggles at times which could lead to a lot of weird rounds, to be honest. And that was... I don't think it was anyone's fault, it was just the reality of things.
Getting n0te, obviously he's Belgian, he played in international teams. He's obviously young and needs experience, but he has really sharp mechanics, and I think it's just about getting some confidence into him because he has surreal aim. I think it's just about, he just needs to be built up as a player. And then I think we will see the best of him later.
We saw cairne having a pretty good time with fnatic earlier in the tournament, in the LCQ. You were talking about English issues, and obviously now he's back with a full Ukrainian team. Do you feel like that's where he's going to fit in a bit more?
Yeah, maybe if we had more time, the English thing would probably have gotten better. He does speak English. It's not like he... but you know how it is, with fast communication and understanding small micro movements on the map.
I think he's just for now, probably more confident in a Ukrainian-speaking team. And it wasn't a big issue, let's be real. But it does lead to some small things in the game. And I'm just happy to see him play good because he's a really good personality and he has really, really high skill.
Can you tell me about what's the next step in your development? There's been a lot of inconsistency from the team in terms of results and you're still struggling to break through. You have few opportunities now, so how do you think you can best utilize those opportunities?
Yeah, I think we have honestly suffered a lot from inconsistency with having a stable roster for a long time, also because dating back all the way to... well, we can go very far back. Like, cairne was pre-signed for a long time instead of arrozdoce. And then we ended with six players and had to make a weird decision after the Major. And then before that we had a lot of stand-in situations, two times with r1nkle with a visa. And then me and Richard became fathers, and then we had a r1nkle swap, a cairne swap, ewjerkz swap. It's hard to build consistency and actually build proper routines when there's constantly shifts. And I think that's been one of the bigger things.
But a lot of the time it also sucks because then when we have had the roster change, we go into the most important tournament straight away, and we actually don't get to build that consistency. So I just hope now that we'll obviously do a good EWC. We had some time now, so we should be playing pretty good here.
And then coming in, I hope we obviously make the Major and make a run there because ultimately that is what kind of decides the next season, because there's, what is there, like 10 teams that actually have the tier one invites, and the rest are kind of outside the circle, and we'll all have to fight for those, what is it, maybe, like three, four, five spots that is left, because FaZe is probably getting one of them in there, right? So yeah, it's going to be a lot of teams fighting for three or four spots, and if we get in there and we do a good Major, then you're kind of back in the game. And yeah, stability I hope is... is what I think we need, but we'll see.
One more thing that changed quite a bit over the past four months was a lot of the staffing changes that took place. Once stavn came in, you had spray go out of the team and DuDe take over as the assistant coach. THREAT has left the team, and I know that he had at least some level of insight into the strategy side. Can you tell me about how these changes affect the team and the processes behind the scenes?
Yeah, I think for us, we mostly worked with Troels Robl, the sports psychologist, and spray. And all these... we already had DuDe as an analyst, so he moved into an assistant coaching role. But it was really not a player decision or coaching decision, so I can't really comment much on it. I'm really happy with DuDe. I was also happy with Fred, Troels, and spray. But we are here now, and I can't really... I don't know all the details about those things.
I'm just curious whether it affects your job or in terms of how you're working on prep, game planning and things like that.
We don't have a sports psychologist now, so there's obviously more on the plate of, I guess, me, DuDe, and Xizt in order to control that side of things. But we just got one in, I think, that worked with other teams called Cat that we started talking with just now. But we obviously don't have a fully dedicated one. So that's the main change that has happened, because Fred was... I think Richard, Xizt worked a lot with him. But as a player, we didn't have as much contact.
Martin 'stavn' LundPast 3 months
Roman 'n0te' HamzePast 3 months
Ninjas in Pyjamas
Marco 'Snappi' Pfeiffer
Martin 'stavn' Lund
Rasmus 'sjuush' Beck
Roman 'n0te' Hamze
Kacper 'xKacpersky' Gabara
Richard 'Xizt' Landström
Legacy
Andrei 'arT' Piovezan
Eduardo 'dumau' Wolkmer
Bruno 'latto' Rebelatto
Vinicius 'n1ssim' Pereira
Santino 'try' Rigal
Alan 'adrrr' Riveros
BetBoom
Kirill 'Boombl4' Mikhailov
Aleksandr 'zorte' Zagodyrenko
Pavel 'S1ren' Ogloblin
Daniil 'd1Ledez' Kustov
Kirill 'Magnojez' Rodnov
Artem 'Fierce' Ivanov
Marco 'Snappi' PfeifferPast 3 months
Kacper 'xKacpersky' GabaraPast 3 months