Aleksei: Hi guys, Aleksei from GosuGamers here with “zonic”, coach of Astralis. Zonic, how are you man?
Danny “zonic” Sorensen: I’m better today. Yesterday, even though we didn’t expect anything from the match against Virtus, we were a bit disappointed because of the result. We came really close and we actually believed we could beat them, so it was a bit disappointing yesterday, but we’re good now.
Aleksei: I think it would be appropriate to ask how “dupreeh” is doing. How is his health? How is he recovering?
Danny “zonic” Sorensen: Me, “Xyp” and “Kjaerbye” visited him today at the hospital and he’s doing a lot better than the day before. We had a small walk with him, he complains a little bit about the pain, but he should definitely be ready for ELEAGUE in a little bit over one week.
Aleksei: It’s good to hear that he’s recovering, man.
Aleksei: Astralis as a whole, you guys got “Kjaerbye” recently, how is he, from the perspective of a coach, how is he integrating, how is he getting on?
Danny “zonic” Sorensen: He has surprised me positively, extremely, a lot. He has been playing all the time and he even came to the boot camp, boot camping with “gla1ve” and pretty much helped us integrate “gla1ve” into the team. We only had five days so he has been nothing but motivating for us and the way that he just takes the roles that we give him is just phenomenal, so we have nothing but positives to say about “Kjaerbye”.
Aleksei: You mentioned “gla1ve” as well, Lukas, how did he perform, do you feel, at this event?
Danny “zonic” Sorensen: I think he sold himself pretty well. He played extremely well against Virtus, played alright in the group stage, but he surprised me a lot in the playoffs and I’m pretty sure that teams will start looking for him. I’ve even heard that a couple of teams have already approached him to figure out his future plans. I’m pretty sure that he’s gonna play for a team now, a decent top 20 team.
Aleksei: Yeah, absolutely did a fantastic job.
Aleksei: In terms of your mind-set when you found out that, in fact, you would have basically two stand-ins at the event, how did you go into it? What was the team’s mind-set?
Danny “zonic” Sorensen: The team’s mind-set for this game was, like I was at the hospital till 2 a.m. with “dupreeh” when the doctor told us that he was going to go through surgery, so I just pretty much wrote to the guys on Facebook, they were probably already asleep, so I just wrote them that we’re gonna play with me tomorrow and we just met at breakfast and just started talking a little bit. When we prepared with “gla1ve” we only prepared two best-of-ones, which mean that we had three bans. We only prepared for , or we didn’t prepare for Cache, Cobble and Nuke, so we knew that it was going to be tough in a Bo3 and Dignitas they chose Cobble against us, same with Virtus.Pro. We actually expected them (Virtus.Pro) to pick Cobble, but it was alright.
Aleksei: We saw a few Nuke picks during this tournament, what are your thoughts on the map?
Danny “zonic” Sorensen: I think it’s getting better. We haven’t played it ourselves, at all, mainly because we, in my opinion, attend too many events, so we don’t get this time at home where we can start practicing for new strats and start practicing Nuke. I think it’s nice that people are actually playing it now and we need to do that as well.
Aleksei: You obviously played with the team, what was it like sitting down and playing CS again, man?
Danny “zonic” Sorensen: To be honest, I hated it. It was difficult because I’m a full-time dad and I have a wife as well, so it was difficult for me to play when I’m not with the team, because Astralis is taking so many hours of my schedules. Whenever I’m home I don’t play, so the last time I even touched CS was at ELEAGUE, over a month ago, where I also had to stand in for Astralis. I didn’t like it because I’m pretty much used to being a good player when I play, back in the days when I was playing, so to go onto the server now and be the absolute worst is hurting me a little bit. I guess I did it for the team, they asked me and I can’t say no because yeah, you have to do what the team needs and that was the only option.
Aleksei: We just witnessed SK Gaming knock out V.P out of the semi-finals. Next up is Fnatic vs. Liquid. What are your thoughts on the match?
Danny “zonic” Sorensen: I think that Fnatic will beat Liquid, but I think its gonna be a much tougher match than Fnatic expects. Some of their players tend to underestimate their opponents and it could be their strength, but it could also be a weakness. If “s1mple” and “Hiko”, if they step up and have a decent game, then I think Fnatic will have a tough game and maybe they could even surprise them, I don’t know. It’s gonna be tough for Fnatic I think.
Aleksei: Looking at the grand finals who would you say would be in the grand finals and the result for that?
Danny “zonic” Sorensen: On paper it should be SK vs. Fnatic in the final. In terms of the results, I think that SK will win against Fnatic. Fnatic has been a bit too unstable, so I think that SK will win the major even though it doesn’t matter if it’s Liquid or Fnatic.
Aleksei: Cool man, thank you very much for the interview!
Danny “zonic” Sorensen: You’re welcome!
Headline image courtesy of DreamHack Flickr / Adela Sznajder
