sjuush: "Back then [with cadiaN] it was pretty hard for us to even say something"

The playoffs of IEM Dallas 2024 are in full swing, and after the match between Heroic and Team Vitality, we had the opportunity to talk with Heroic's rifler, Rasmus "sjuush" Beck.

sjuush shared some interesting details about this tournament and their team.

How are you feeling today? How did you sleep after the last game? 

I slept pretty good. We have to change our sleeping schedule because we have a 15-hour flight and the time difference is nine hours, so we're waking up at five in the morning up until two in the morning to try to change it so we can get those extra percentages for the next tournament. 

Do you not like Dust, or was it just something going wrong yesterday?

I think we all like dust, but I don't think anybody has had that much experience on it. Also, we had two maps in the practice before the event. So it's like, what do we do? We choose what to practice, and we didn't practice Dust II, so it was a risk to play it.

However, Dust II can also be a good pocket map where you can play more freely. But against a team like Vitality, they can punish mistakes pretty easily, and if they play the right way as a team, then there's not much you can do against that. 

TeSeS has been in great form during this event and has stepped up in this new team, why do you think that is? 

I think in general we have a lot more to say now because in the previous team, we were fully Danish and we had a lot of voices. So I think me and TeSeS were quieter so we didn't have too many voices because too many voices was going to create too much chaos. Plus, if we try to follow one way of playing, because cadiaN had a certain way of playing, and we all bought into that. 

So back then it was pretty hard for us to even say something, whereas with this team, we can say pretty much whatever we want, and we can try to implement new things and make the younger guys that don't have the experience that we have and try to teach them a lot of things. But I think just playing more freely, it's a lot easier. 

How has it been building this new international team and the chemistry and mindset within it? That was always a strong asset to the previous lineup, are you trying to do it in similar ways?

We're not going to make the same team as the past team because we have different personalities and it's an international roster who grew up in different countries, so the way you think is just different. We have to accept there are some things that will change and some things that still have to change. But definitely, we are trying to create strong mindsets and also just play smart as well.

You recently added degster but unfortunately, he couldn’t travel with you to this event; he had a big break from the game before joining, do you think it will take him time to get up to speed?

I think it will take time to get him into the team because of our tactics and how we think of the game. We don't know exactly how he thinks because of the lack of practice, but I think his individual level is really good. He's grinding a lot, when we were in Serbia for the BetBoom event he was watching demos and playing DM for four hours every single day. So he was playing constantly. You can see that he really wants it.

You’ve been playing with your former teammate nicoodoz in Dallas, he described it as, travelling on the train with your ex-wife's relatives. What do you think about this statement?

I told him that it was a funny statement. He's a really nice guy, and we just enjoy the time together because as a team, we really liked each other and had fun together. It just didn't work tactically or in the game.