The Heroic coach spoke highly of his rifler following his team’s 2-0 win over NIP at the IEM Rio 2023
Following an invincible run of wins at the European RMR, Heroic headed to IEM Rio with high spirits. Jakob “jabbi” Nygaard’s illness and the Danish team’s tight tournament schedule, however, have presented a daunting challenge for them in Brazil. jabbi’s sickness had a significant impact on their matches against 9INE, BIG, and TheMongolz, adding to their existing obstacles.
Cena rara: se sentindo mal desde ontem, jabbi foi substituído pelo treinador Xizt no meio do segundo mapa entre Heroic e TheMongolz. pic.twitter.com/eKwkGZDrKH
— Roque Marques (@roque_mn) April 18, 2023
During the match against TheMongolz, Richard “Xizt” Landström replaced the 19-year-old rifler, who had to step out of the arena after feeling sick. This was the first time Xizt had sat in front of a monitor since his last appearance for Gen.G against Envy in November 2020. The Heroic coach helped his team to beat the Mongolian side before jabbi returned to inspire a 2-0 win against Ninjas In Pyjamas.
HLTV caught up with Xizt after the NIP match, in which Heroic secured their place in the IEM Rio playoffs. During the interview, Xizt discussed the impact of jabbi’s illness on the team.
“It affects a lot, especially on Overpass, he plays a vital part on the T side especially. He’s the B lurker and I think he’s the best B lurker on that map in the world, so it affects us a lot not having him play. We’ve had very bad losses, the first against BIG and then against TheMongolz.”
Xizt also described how it felt to pick up the mouse once again.
.@Xizt is about to play his first official in 2.5 years 👀
The Swedish coach is replacing @jabbiCS on @heroicgg as the Dane is feeling unwell #IEM pic.twitter.com/vVIytyRRIq
— HLTV.org (@HLTVorg) April 18, 2023
“It felt really weird being back to play again. I mean, I am with the guys every day in practice so I know all of the strats, but it’s different when you actually play them instead of watching. Nade lineups and things like this are not where they are supposed to be, but luckily I’ve got to practice at least once with the guys when Jacob was feeling ill. It was also a lot of fun being there playing, and the guys helped me a lot with communication and telling me what to do. I got a lot of help as well.”
Xizt confirmed that he came in as a straight swap for jabbi. He did not switch with anyone else and kept things as simple as he could.
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