Thomas “SinK” Laursen is relatively new to pro Counter-Strike at the age of 24. The Danes’ HLTV page started two months ago when he joined Preasy. Now he has guaranteed a top-three placement at EPIC.LAN 45 as they play Iberian Soul to contest for the Grand Finals.
SinKÂ understands that his team is fairly new to the pro scene, but he also knows that this constellation of players has what it takes to win this whole event. He knows his team has what it takes to take down the likes of Iberian Soul, and he wants to show it.
Talking to UKCSGOÂ SinKÂ talks about all things, from enjoying EPIC.LAN to only ever having played one LAN event before this. He mentions how the roster came together and also breaks down the win against UK hopefuls: 8Sins.
How are you enjoying EPIC.LAN 45 so far?
I’m enjoying it very much so far; this LAN experience is very new to me. I started playing CS seriously at quite a late age, and it’s been amazing so far. There were some heat issues yesterday that have been resolved today, which is very nice. The atmosphere and everything are very, very nice.
You haven’t played many LANs in Denmark, then?
No, I’ve been to one local LAN in Denmark, which was at the start of June with qx, who plays on my team. Before that, he was on a team called Invicta, which was four Danish guys and one russian AWPer. Im an AWP myself, so they asked me if I wanted to step in and play that LAN tournament with them. Which we won.
SinK playing or AaB at EPIC.LAN 45
What kind of expectations did you have for this event then? Did you come here to win it?
We’re definitely here to win it; we are a very new roster. qx and I joined from Preasy. Viggo played in the First Division in Denmark with one team, as did Boye, and stesso didn’t play with any of us. We knew that we were the underdogs coming into this, I mean, compared to Alliane and Iberian Soul at least. We definitely expected to come into the playoffs and contest and try and get into the final. I’d say it’s been a huge success so far.
With all that roster chaos, how have you managed to find such good form straight off the bat coming into this event?
We might be a completely new roster, but four of the people playing for the team have history on Preasy, with the same in-game leader. A lot of us know a lot of the same strats, we might have different names for them, but we all have an idea. If I call, we are doing Virtus.Pro, they’re like “oh right, I know what to do actually.” So even though we haven’t played before, we have some knowledge together. So we good headstart at least.
Earlier in the upper bracket, you made a massive comeback against 8Sins in the first map. What was the feeling in the team whilst you were down, and then as you began to bring it back?
We know our Ancient is very, very good; we just need to get the ball rolling on our CT side. The vibes were honestly still good. Obviously, we weren’t happy about being down, but we were still believing we could come back and win this map. We just trusted in ourselves.
Do you feel like the comeback in map one helped with steamrolling map 2?
As well as giving us our confidence boost, it also demoralised them. being 11-6 up and then losing seven rounds in a row, even though it’s not their map, it’s always going to get you a bit. It also gave us a lot of extra confidence because we are very confident in our Nuke. Doing that comeback definitely gave us the momentum going into the second map.
Your next match is the upper bracket final against Iberian Soul. Are you confident you can take the win and get into those grand finals tomorrow?
I would say, and I think everyone would say, that we are the underdogs of the match. We played them earlier in the group stage, and we lost in overtime 16-14. We were 12-11 up in regulation, then we had a 5v3, which we played very, very badly, and we ended up losing the round. And then lost the match. I feel like we can beat them, I feel we can beat any team here if we just play our A-game.
Obviously, as well, they are the favourites, but that also gives us the advantage; we know more about them than they know about us. It’s easy for us to anti-strat them. And they might sleep on us a bit.
SinK’s teammate Viggo celebrating at EPIC.LAN 45
Do you feel like people underestimating you has helped you at this tournament so far?
I wouldn’t say it’s helped us. Obviously, it’s nice to come into a tournament with no outside pressure. People expect you to go far because we can just do our own thing, focus on ourselves and go match by match. I understand why people might not have us as favourites going into it because we are a relatively new roster. With relatively unknown players.
Boye on our team has played for Apeks before, which is the biggest organisation that any of our players have been at. I have played for two very low-tier teams in Denmark, and then I played for Preasy for a month. So I’m completely new to this kind of thing. So we have four very, very unknown players who all of a sudden are here doing good stuff.
You’ve mentioned Iberian Soul a few times now. Do you think they might be the hardest roadblock at the event? Do you think they’re the favourites to win the whole thing?
Going into it, I think they are the favourites. Alliance came into the tournament with very, very good form; they won against everyone they played. They played against ENERGYULTRA in European Pro League season 26, I think. They won a best-of-five 3-0, very convincingly. Iberian soul will still be the favourites, they’re the best team here, I would say.
