A rip-roaring start from Linx Legacy saw them move past Bin Drinking at EPIC.LAN 39 in the opening round match-up in convincing fashion. Their next opponent, however, being the Welsh outfit Cardiff Pirates, stood firm against the ambitious mix team, claiming both pistols and subsequent rounds to land them 13-4 ahead. Leaving Linx Legacy a lot of work to do in the second half, which they managed to pull off.
After the intense match UKCSGO’s Josh “Joshampton” Arnup spoke to Danish coach, Steffen “LeffeN” Hyldgaard, to reflect on the incredible comeback. LeffeN gave insight into the mental resilience of the team, what they expected from Cardiff Pirates and the differences between Danish and UK LANs.
First of all, you had a dominant first game, 16-1, and then a close 15-15 against Cardiff Pirates, bringing it back massively from 13- 4, after losing both pistols. What was going through your head when you were down?
Well, I think, of course, we can still come back. We just needed to start getting it rolling. And also, if we won some rounds, they will for sure get nervous, because they’re in such a lead. If they’re throwing that lead away, they are getting nervous, getting panicked, and they will make some worse strats and maybe some more mistakes. They did that as well. There was a team kill a round where they were so panicked.
Do you think you relied on them not having that much experience and being able to take advantage of those mistakes?
Oh for sure, because some of our players also don’t have the experience like dupl0 from Germany, this is his first LAN. I think it is important to have maybe a coach to reverse the momentum and say “chill, we still got this. We end the game, we can still come back one round at a time.” So experience has a lot to say, for sure.
When we spoke earlier I asked you if you felt helpless as a coach. Does it frustrate you or do you feel like you have enough input into the game to help your team out?
It depends on the rules, right? In some tournaments, you cannot coach while in the game. But here, I think it’s fine. I can help a lot on the CT side in the round and also from round-to-round adaptability and also read the opponent and economy, but I don’t think I’m useless (laughs).
Mostly it is about the mental thing, to get focused, not to be nervous and also to take a breath when your adrenaline is kicking in, because adrenaline is going to kick in on LAN with clutches and when it’s close.
Did you, going into this game, expect this from Cardiff Pirates?
No, I don’t really know them. I tried to search them up to research what veto we should go into, of course, but like, I couldn’t really find much, we just played our game. But I didn’t really expect them to go so hard straight out the gates, basically.
I didn’t really expect [Cardiff Pirates] to go so hard straight out the gates
Are you happy with the 15-15, considering the comeback and everything?
I think my teammates are probably, some of them are probably happy, and some of them are not. I am mainly happy because we proved that we can comeback and we can still get our things together. We just need a little better of a start next time or maybe win a pistol round or two (laughs).
So now, what are your expectations? What’s the vibe with the team? Are you guys going to just see how it goes?
Top four would be nice. Like our expectation is not too high because we know our level and we know that if we had more time to practice, we would have had a higher expectation. But we didn’t have too much time, so it’s like in the middle, but we’ll see.
So do you see yourself as underdogs or like a dark horse?
I would actually say a dark horse more because we have some players that have no experience in LAN and then we have, chris0_0, who I have known since I played with him in Tricked Academy. He has some experience in LAN, but we also have like some momentum players, so we need the momentum if we want to go on. So I think we are dark horse for sure.
I don’t know if you could get them in your head, but those top four teams? Who are the other three teams joining you?
Yeah. I think 7AM is probably and then we have the the smooya and bevve team [The Neighbours] with Dobbo. Then probably us maybe (laughs). I’m not sure. And then the fourth team, I know Verdant are good. I think 7AM and smooya’s team are probably the favourites, I would guess.
Is there anything else you want to talk about?
That EPIC.LAN is actually really cool! It is really cool. There’s really cool vibes here and also a lot of shouting compared to Danish LANs like, of course they shout, but here in the UK, they go at it.
