In the laid-back atmosphere of the PGL studio in Bucharest, Romania, HLTV.org had the opportunity to sit down with Philip "⁠aizy⁠" Aistrup and René "⁠cajunb⁠" Borg who are representing North at the HTC 2v2 tournament.



Four North players will move to Copenhagen soon to be closer to their offices

The two Danes opened up about the current state of competition, North's issues, future plans and more:

How did you guys pick who was going to come to the 2v2, did you guys get invited directly?

aizy: Before the event I think it was supposed to be k0nfig and Magisk, but they didn’t want to come so me and cajunb came.

cajunb: Yeah, we wanted to be here because we like this kind of tournaments and we think it’s fun to be here. It’s different, it’s nice.

You played Secret yesterday. Did you expect they would take a map off you?

cajunb: Right before the match both of us were a bit nervous. We felt some pressure because it’s against girls and if we would have lost that game the whole community would have…

aizy: We all know what happened to cadiaN, and we didn’t want to go through that. They played well. They shoot hard, you can’t underestimate them.

So they’re good aimers.

aizy: Yeah, definitely, I don’t know where the limit lies and why they can’t reach the level of male teams, but they can aim. That’s for sure.

With a lot of teams playing full time, it seems the competition has been getting harder and there isn’t the same dominance that has been seen in other periods. Do you think it has to do with an increased amount of teams going full time, or maybe something more along the lines of the current meta?

cajunb: I think it does have to do with teams investing more resources into the scene. It’s a full time job now. So yes, the answer is yes. It’s because so many teams are full time now.

How do you feel about having an academy team now? Or academy teams in general?

cajunb: I think it’s nice. We have been talking to them for some time now and they’re really nice. I hope in the future they get better so we can practice against them more often and use our strats against them instead of against teams we’re going to play in upcoming tournaments.

But not good enough to take your job?

cajunb: I hope not!

aizy, what has been your struggle coming into North? Are you not finding your place in the team yet?

aizy: I don’t think it’s about not finding my spot. I think I’m just in a slump right now. I have my games, but I also don’t have my games. It’s very up and down right now. I think I fit into the team pretty good now.

At first I had to get used to the Danish communication again, a new playstyle, new spots, new everything. I’m used to it now. it’s more about getting myself out of a slump.

Why do you think you got into that slump, and what can you do to get out of it?

aizy: It’s hard to say. It’s probably about motivation, playing too little. For example, when I went to Australia for IEM Sydney I didn’t have that many hours, because we were trying something else, but besides that I think I just have to play more and get my motivation back.

cajunb: And your confidence, I guess.

aizy: Yeah.

cajun, what do you think it will take for the team to return to the end of 2016 level when you were doing really well and getting to the top?

cajunb: I think we need to put more hours into the game. What’ll flip the coin for us will be that four of us are moving to Copenhagen and we’ll be close to Parken, the stadium we practice at, where we will go a lot. I’d like to go there every day. I don’t think we will, but we’ll be there quite often.

So it’ll be like going to the office.

cajunb: Yeah, exactly. I hope that it will help us a lot, and that thanks to it we can get an edge on the important games.

Do you think, perhaps like Astralis before they hit their stride, the parts of North are better than the whole?

cajunb: It’s easy to feel that the youngsters aren’t hitting as hard as they were at events like EPICENTER, for example. I think they’re in a bit of a slump at the moment, and I think it has to do with confidence.

For instance, I don’t think Magisk has ever been in a slump before, but I don’t doubt he’ll come back because he just has that winning mentality.

Do you think going so high so fast could have gotten into the heads of the younger players? Maybe they got a bit cocky?

cajunb: I wouldn’t call it cocky, because it’s not like any of us has said we’re the number 1 team. Even when someone said we’re a top 2 team, we still practiced hard and didn’t relax. So I wouldn’t say they got cocky.

You guys both played in dignitas/Astralis back in the day. What would you say are some of the similarities or differences?

aizy: It was so long ago for me, and with another caller, that it was completely different. It’s hard to compare.

cajunb: From my point of view we’re two different teams. In Astralis they have so much more experience than we do. When I came into this team it was easy for me to see that we were making a lot of mistakes, comparatively.

It seems when we had momentum we won because our firepower was our main strength, but I think over the next few months or years the younger guys will gain more experience and it will be easier for us to have confidence in bigger matches. We’ll know what to do because we will have faced these situations before.

And while we’re on the North/Astralis topic. How big is the rivalry?

cajunb: Of course there’s a rivalry…

aizy: I think it’s pretty big. I think they really hate losing to us.

cajunb: And we also hate if we lose to them!

More than against other teams?

aizy: Yeah, Astralis is the worst team to lose to. I can’t say I don’t care when losing to other teams, but Astralis is definitely the team you don’t want to lose to.

cajunb: But it’s not our main focus, we’ll take losing to Astralis if we win a tournament.

The ESL Pro League finals are coming up at the end of the month, how are you guys going to prepare for it?

cajunb: We’re going to bootcamp starting next Sunday, and then we’ll travel to Dallas.

aizy: Yeah, practice when we get home and bootcamp.

And what are your goals for the event? Do you think you can take it?

cajunb: I think we can take it… Of course we can take the whole thing! In the past few tournaments we lost to underdogs, and if we don’t lose those matches I think we can really do it. I don’t feel like we have big problems against the bigger teams. When we play against the underdogs... I don’t know if we’re underestimating them, but I don’t feel like we play the way used to.

So what will it take to play like you used to?

cajunb: I think it’s just about experience. Now that we lost a couple times, at some point it will switch. It’s just time and experience.

And what about the 2v2, are you going to win this?

aizy: We’ll try, at least!

cajunb: Yeah, we’ll try! Our goal for the event was to make it to the final, but it’s possible!

If not you, who?

aizy: I think XANTARES and Calyx, Space Soldiers. They’re looking really, really strong. They’re strong aimers and they’ve been destroying everyone so far. I think they’re the favorites right now. Before the event I would have said G2.

cajunb: Yeah, same!