Zonic: Karrigan gives teammates a 5-10% boost

Falcons opened the Thunderpick World Championship in Malta with a 2-0 win over Ninjas in Pyjamas. The team won Ancient in overtime before taking Dust2 more comfortably.

Coach Danny “zonic” Sørensen explained that Finn “karrigan” Andersen joined Falcons primarily for his leadership and experience, rather than his individual firepower. The comments followed criticism of the veteran’s recent statistics.

“It’s very clear to me, and also what Finn has been told and what the community should know, is that we never brought Finn into this team for his firepower,” Sørensen said. “So it’s about leadership.”

Falcons are working to improve Andersen’s individual contribution, though Sørensen does not view it as an urgent issue. The coach described the in-game leader’s main impact as helping teammates perform better, with Maxim “kyousuke” Lukin among those who benefit most.

“What people don’t see is that Finn is bringing five, 10% extra to some of the other players, especially Maxim, when things are going well,” Sørensen added. “This is what his role is. Firepower-wise, we should be pretty good with the rest of the squad.”

Falcons have lost to MOUZ, Spirit and Vitality during the Fall season. Sørensen explained that the team has sometimes become stressed on the big stage and is reviewing its communication and reactions in those matches.

He attributed part of the problem to the expectations created by Falcons’ victory at the Cologne Major. The team won the title about 60 days after Andersen joined. Sørensen acknowledged that the result led Falcons and the wider community to overestimate the team’s level of development.

“We put a lot of expectations on ourselves after that win, and then when we don’t reach those expectations, I think we start to get easily frustrated that things are not clicking,” he said. “The win in Cologne maybe made the community, but especially also ourselves, overestimate where we were as a team, and that hurt us when things didn’t go as we wanted.”

Sørensen identified the Counter-Terrorist sides, the map pool and the team’s performances against the strongest opponents as Falcons’ main areas of work. The squad has tested Ancient and Anubis after frequently relying on Dust2.

The coach described the map pool as less settled than it was before Falcons experimented with Ancient in Porto and Anubis in the ESL Pro League. He explained that playing those maps was necessary to measure the team’s level, even though the experiments produced mixed results.

Falcons are not scheduled to compete in Bucharest after the Malta tournament. Sørensen described a trophy as important for the team after a difficult season, while keeping his focus on the next match and the team’s progress.

Bookmark our site for CS2 news and access our CS2 marketplace whenever you want to explore new skins.