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2025-04-21 09:50:52admin

After Ninjas in Pyjamas booked their spot in the semi-finals with a 2-0 win over North, we grabbed Jonas "⁠Lekr0⁠" Olofsson for an interview.

The Swedes are now through to the semi-finals from first place in Group B after they defeated NRG in the opening round and North in the winners' match with a couple of convincing showings.

Lekr0 hopes to meet Astralis in the semis

After the second match, we sat down with Lekr0 to find out more about Ninjas in Pyjamas's successful first day at ECS and asked him about the team's improvement as of late.

Shortly going back to the last couple weeks - the online leagues have finished for you, tell me about whether, and how, that has affected the team's preparation.

Yeah, we haven't really prepared too much, we just mostly tried to fix our mistakes. Every time we practice, after every game. Some mistakes are bigger than others, but as long as we fix the mistakes, our preparation doesn't have to be as big, I think. It's preparing in another way, but I think it's affecting our gameplay more if we fix our mistakes than preparing for opponents, for example.

Coming into this, how did you feel about the group, with NRG, North, and Liquid, whom you have actually avoided in the end?

I'm really happy in one way that we avoided Liquid. I'm happy we made it to semis now, next up is aiming for the finals. But we're going to face Astralis, I think, at least that's what I hope for the semi-finals, that would be really nice, and then maybe play Liquid in the finals. That would be awesome.

I'm really happy in one way that we avoided Liquid. I'm happy we made it to semis now, next up is aiming for the finals. Jonas "⁠Lekr0⁠" Olofsson

You have looked quite confident so far, beating NRG convincingly on Nuke and now against North it was also quite a confident showing, did you expect things to go as smoothly? What has gone so well?

I think we're really lucky we had a good start on CT side Nuke, it's very important for the first game of the tournament. When we got that rolling, I think the confidence was good, everyone was feeling great, and that's the most important thing.

Going into the North game, everyone was confident, we just played our game. We're not scared to play any team right now because we're playing really well as a team and we trust each other in-game.

We've seen quite an improvement over the past couple of months from you, with your most recent placing being second place at BLAST, what do you attribute that to?

I think everyone's starting to understand their role. Sometimes I'm not really clear with what I'm calling, but I think everyone is picking up on it more easily with more time so I don't have to explain too much, they understand how I think without me saying it. I think that's a big part of why it's going really well. It's just some small sides on some maps that we have to fix, I think, to become really stable, but I think that's most of it.

Sometimes I'm not really clear with what I'm calling, but I think everyone is picking up on it more easily with more time so I don't have to explain too much, they understand how I think without me saying it. Jonas "⁠Lekr0⁠" Olofsson

Speaking about your calling, has your mindset as a leader changed in any way since you started, now that you've been doing it for a while?

Not really, I'm just going with what I started, sometimes it's good to go deeper, but trying to experiment with new rounds is what next for me. Right now it's more about surprising the opponent, just doing my thing.

More of a simple style?

Yeah, it's really simple. I'm not going to go to deep into it, but it's pretty simple, every player has a big part of it, as well, it's not just me doing it, I need every player to come with ideas, it's not just me.