Hello everyone. Before talking about the event, did you enjoy your stay in Sweden aka "The home of Counter-Strike"? What’s your appraisal of the event (regarding organization, the venue, the stage, etc)? Do you have any opinion concerning the trailer, by the way?

KIOSHIMA: We have a good appraisal regarding all aspects, the organization was very good, whether at the inferno Online (the first day) or in the Ericsson Globe, it was a beautiful stage, just as we like it! The only problem was the wait during the final because of the connection issues but fortunately there was music, which allowed us to dance around to kill some time. 
A trailer? Which trailer? :o

NiaK: We enjoyed our stay in Sweden a lot. We attended the tournament with only a few training but since we were mentally ready, our victory eventualy made our visit in Sweden even more enjoyable. Calling this country "The home of Counter-Strike" makes sense when you realize that your team is recognized anywhere you go. Besides, products such as the McNiP, the McHeaton or the McFragbite show how hyped CS is in Sweden... Concerning the movie clip, it made me smile, especially since it was playing repeatedly before the final!
About the tournament, everything went well until the final and the DDoS issue. There had already been a similar problem at the Dreamhack Invitational that we had won in February and it seems that the staff still hasn’t learned, I find it surprising that the matches aren’t played on LAN servers in such a competition... Nowadays, it is crucial to have protection against DDoS, since it has already spoiled a number of matches.

Cobblestone and Overpass were both in the map pool but weren’t played during the competition. Do you have an idea why? Does the elimination of these maps in the "classical" veto system show that the teams didn’t really want to play on these maps in Cologne? Do the players definitely have a sulk against them or is it just temporary?

Happy: I can’t give you a definitive answer, since we are quite a new team, we chose our competitive maps very recently and we made a "safe" choice. Personally, I haven’t played on Cobble or Overpass since Cologne. Maybe pro teams don’t have enough time to prepare strategies on these new maps, knowing that they will probably be vetoed anyway. Or maybe the teams don’t like these maps, I don’t know if it’s temporary or definitive, we will see in a couple of months if they also get vetoed in the next major competition, then we candraw conclusions.

KQLY: Our choice was not to prepare to play on these maps. We took a chance by playing against Fnatic and LDLC but we managed to beat them. Back in Cologne, when we played against LDLC, we really worked out our strategies on Overpass and we didn’t get a chance to show what we got... As I told you previously, I find it good for the game to add new maps and we will play matches on them as soon as we can.

The inevitable happened: the final was 100% francophone, that was a surprise considering what happened at the last major event and the "youth" of both teams. Were you surprised, or even proud of it?

NBK: A totally French victory makes us proud indeed, it proves that France is an important competitor on the international CS:GO scene, thanks to the passion of its community and the skills of its competitive teams. We were in the same lot than Titan, NiP and Alternate during the group phase, so we were unlikely to make it to the final. But we made it, to the delight of French viewers!
Yes, I would call it a "surprise". Titan and us are two new teams who haven’t had enough time to develop our potential to its full extent, and we work relentlessly to be at our best. Reaching the two top podium steps in Sweden wasn’t foreseen by the organizers. "Welcome to Sweden"?

Ex6TenZ: The DreamHack Stockholm gathered the majority of the best teams in the world and we managed to take the lead, mostly on BO3. It’s clear that we’re proud for the victory, it’s a surprising trophy added to our shelf, but nothing has been done.

- Questions LDLC -

We knew that NBK was your in-game Leader in the first place before giving this role to Happy since they knew each other well. But we eventually noticed that Shox was the actual caller. Can you explain why you decided to change and how it affected your organization for the event?

shox: We started with Nathan (NBK) as the caller, he wanted to play this role personally and to do his best. After about two weeks of scrims, we realized that despite his good ideas, there were noticeable flaws concerning the general organization of the structure and also in-game. Then we decided to make me the new caller (Happy hasn’t been the leader of the new structure yet) just before the first BO3 against Nip so roughly one week before the DH Stockholm. This choice seemed to be the most logical for the good of the team, since Happy didn’t wish to retake the lead and felt more at-ease as a co-leader, a job that he does perfectly. Of course, everything isn’t perfect yet and I have only a few months of experience as an in-game leader but I’m confident regarding the future, we can only improve, we just have to find the perfect balance.

During the group stage, you beat Titan then you won comfortably against NiP, even though they were playing in their home country. You finished first of your group, how were you feeling at this precise moment?

KIOSHIMA: We felt that we had achieve something, that the few time spent together was constructive, but concerning the competition nothing was done yet, of course we made it through the group phase but we still had to win our semifinal.

You played against 3DMAX in semifinal, which was a surprise for everyone. How did you apprehend this match and how did you prepare it?

SmithZz: We won’t hide the fact that we were surprised to see them at this stage of the competition, but during the preparation of the match we didn’t underestimate them, Richard (Shox) watched some demos during the night and analyzed their game style. In spite of that, we underestimated them in-game, which made us lose crucial rounds. I hope that it won’t happen again if we meet a “weaker” team in the upcoming competitions.

A promising start for the new LDLC's line up

During the final, you played on Mirage, on which you won during the group phase 16 to 12, but nothing went as expected and you lost 16 to 4, what happened on this map?

NBK: We weren’t prepared enough on Mirage. The match during the group phase was shaky on both sides, but thanks to certain important rounds that we scored, we won the BO1. About the final, the match on Mirage went rapidly, despite the pauses. Titan caught us unaware on every zone of the map, their tactics and skills were better. We couldn’t make a difference and the final score is quite representative of what happened.

You eventually finished at the second place of the competition, which is quite promising for the future. What were you missing to win during this event?

Happy : We didn’t lack a lot of things for this tournament, we managed to show a good level with only a few time to setup. Nevertheless something that nobody mentioned yet should be noticed : the screens used during this LAN were very different from the "standard" ones that are usually used. From my point of view, I’d say that those screens weren’t adapted to rifle players and more in favor of AWP users. Anyway, even without that I think that we simply lacked lucidity and focus for the final, we weren’t the same team as during the group phase; even during the match against 3DMAX we started to notice that we were weakening. We discussed these problems and I hope that they will be resolved soon.