cadiaN on Mirage overtime: “One or two years ago I definitely would have crumbled”

cadiaN spent years of his career as a pariah, an unpopular figure within the scene for his outspoken nature and often-bombastic presence. He had to fight for his place in the top-tier of Counter-Strike, and since joining Heroic he has slowly earned the respect of many.

Here at the BLAST Premier Fall Final he finally secured the big LAN trophy that had eluded him, the achievement that pushed him from good player to a true winner. The fact it was won in front of a raucous home crowd made it all the sweeter.

After defeating FaZe in a nail-biting grand-final, cadiaN took some time for an interview with HLTV to reflect on how much this trophy means to him, what Heroic needed to push them to the top of the mountain, and how this high-pressure moment was different from others in his long career.

cadiaN, it feels like this has been a long time in the making, with you having been in the wilderness at certain points earlier in your career. How does it feel to finally see the fruits of your labour?

It feels good, it feels really good. I didn’t end up winning the Major but I think this was the second best for us, to win here in Copenhagen on home turf. It’s been a long ride for me as an individual, it’s been a long ride for us as a team with a positive trend, always getting better and better, but there’s always been that FaZe, there’s always been that NAVI, always been that team that had that extra gear that we didn’t. To see our practice and effort paying off, it’s exactly how I hoped it would end up being.

How much do you think jabbi is responsible for you finding that extra gear?

He has a huge part, but I also think the other ones have become better. If we look at the first tournaments with jabbi, I’ve said it multiple times, it’s not his fault, us four others who are the core need to live up to some higher expectations, we’ve been playing together for a longer time. What jabbi does is he is not afraid of, in the right moment, taking the initative and saying “let’s go here and lets do this.” That’s something we’ve needed because sometimes if I’m on the other half of the map or stavn is, or someone is not feeling the information, he will take that initiative. With the way we play, the Heroic way of playing Counter-Strike, it’s all about decision making and initiative, so he fits right in.

Mirage went down to the wire and you are a young and inexperienced team, outside of yourself. What was the atmosphere like within the team?

I learned through my losses in my career that panicking when things get a little bit out of hand is not a good idea. For example when we were down 0-5 on Overpass, arguably the hardest T side of the game, and we didn’t get more than two or three kills in those rounds, I still said “guys, calm down, we’re making the right moves and communicating good, this will turn in our favour.” I felt the same on Mirage, we needed to keep fighting for every round and keep looking for that extra good plan. One or two years ago we definitely would have crumbled under that, I definitely would have crumbled under that, but this time I have grown a little bit older.

A lot of people have said historically that maybe you’re not an AWPer that a team can win trophies with. What do you have to say to those people?

I’m not going to go the full hampus route and say stuff like that (laughs). I think if you look at the last three to four tournaments maybe my ratings have been 0.05 lower than the elite AWPers, but still like 1.10-1.12 I think is super good for an IGL. If you look at the gap between me and rifling IGLs, which are like 0.90 or something, I have a plus 0.20 gap, which my rifle counterparts can suffer a little bit from. I’m proving through better and better results that the style of calling and way of thinking about Counter-Strike is super efficient.