Degster on EPL S20 group stage

HEROIC’s Abdul "degster" Gasanov discussed his team's performance in the 20th season of the ESL Pro League for Counter-Strike 2 during an interview with HLTV.org. The Russian esportsman admitted that the Snap Tap incident had a significant impact on their performance.

"It’s hard to give a specific assessment because we started the first game with issues related to Snap Tap. Then, I think we played well against Sangal, but we let them come back into the game. Sangal’s comeback was tough for us, but it was manageable. After that, we recovered while playing against NIP.

It has been difficult for us, especially with the Snap Tap situation. This is the first time in my career that I’ve come to a Tier 1 tournament and lost the first map because of something like that. I would have liked to play against FaZe after the NIP match, for example, but we didn’t get that opportunity.

Overall, we are doing a good job. We started in Serbia in August, played in the IEM Rio qualifiers, and then at BetBoom, where we were unlucky. However, when we arrived here, all the work we did in Belgrade began to show, and we are building our game on that. I’m very pleased that we are progressing. It would be unfair to judge us until we’ve at least finished the tournament."

Gasanov also commented on his next opponent in the playoff stage, MIBR. According to degster, HEROIC has not yet prepared for the match-up.

"At the moment, my main focus was on the game against Virtus.pro, and I am still recovering. It seems we’re playing against MIBR, but I’m not sure if they have changed their roster. I played against them in my first official game for HEROIC. We’ll need to look at them, see what they are doing, what they have improved, and prepare accordingly. I always approach each game in the tournament step by step and don’t focus on other things until the current step is completed."

It’s worth noting that degster’s team secured a victory over Virtus.pro in the ESL Pro League Season 20. The championship runs from September 3 to 22 in Malta, featuring 32 teams and a prize pool of $750,000.