Esports
After a nail-biting finale, BIG failed to win their group, but still qualified for BLAST Premier. We speak to the Counter-Strike: Global Offensive stars about their remarkable run in 2020.
BIG's year has been nothing but stellar: they've once again proven that they represent the very top of European Counter-Strike: Global Offensive by qualifying for BLAST Premier: Fall 2020 a while they lost 2–1 against Team Vitality in a very close series, it's still a great result considering that they had to win against Complexity and FaZe Clan to get to the finals.
Just two weeks ago, at the DreamHack Open tournament, BIG looked like they were on track for a deep run again. However, they were defeated early in the knockout stage by Team Vitality. We caught up with Tizian 'tiziaN' Feldbusch and Johannes 'tabseN' Wodarz to find out what they think about their year so far and how confident they were going into the BLAST Fall finals.
BIG are currently ranked as the sixth best team in the world by HLTV.org. However, it's important to note that around this time last year, they were ranked 24. As a matter of fact, BIG hasn't left the top-10 since this June. To say that they have had a fantastic year is an understatement.
Long-time BIG player tiziaN contributes the team's great performances to the organisation's reaction to the global situation in 2020: "We're a well structured team and have good aimers in our ranks. We were also the best in adapting to the whole online-only situation in my opinion."
In-game leader tabseN agrees and the German says that the team put in an enormous amount of work over the past few months, even with the shift away from LAN tournaments "making it more difficul." The results speak for themselves. "Our current setup and team atmosphere is great and that translates in-game as well," he adds.
Losing is, of course, part of the competition, but losing consecutive series' against the same team can be very draining for a team. Luckily, BIG are well prepared and not scared to face fierce competition in the next few months.
Asked about the competition that BIG will face in BLAST Fall, tiziaN says he isn't worried: "I think we're stronger than all of those teams when it counts."
In-game leader tabseN agrees: "I know some people would call it a fluke, or call us 'onliners', but the truth is that we beat all of those teams."
The reasons he gives are their big map pool and the tactical depth of their gameplay being on the same level, or even higher, than some of the other top teams in the tournament.
Mind games
Mentality has also played a big role in BIG's success in 2020. Most teams often have a hard time bouncing back in a best-of-three or best-of-five after a single game loss. It's not easy to mentally reset after getting wiped from a map. However, tabseN thinks it's not really an issue for them.
"We're quite good at adapting after we lose to a team, so we know that we can always come back, even when we're down in a series," he said. Mental fortitude is also one of the reasons why BIG has remained at the top and why they were able to adapt to online play with relative ease.
Of course, BIG now face larger challenges and their attention turns to the draw for the last top tier tournament of the year and their potential opponents. BIG hasn't played an official tournament series against global heavyweights Astralis since October 24, 2019 (which BIG lost 2–1) and tabseN would love to play a series against the current number two team in the world: "We would love to play against them in a final."
Meanwhile, tiziaN wants to face Natus Vincere and play a series against the best player in the world, Oleksandr 's1mple' Kostyliev. He also adds that Na'Vi are one of the only teams that they haven't yet beaten in a larger tournament this year.
We'll have to wait a while until BLAST Fall begins, but before that, BIG will have to face the top of Europe again in IEM Beijing Online: Europe. If they win their first-round against mousesports, tabseN will have his chance to play against Astralis in the group stage. Let's consider it a warm-up.
