For the first time ever, the FnaticMSI.CS team won a DreamHack event, when they defeated Lions in the Grand Final of DH Winter 2011 on Sunday. Now the entire team speaks about their experiences and feelings during the event.

It has been a long fought battle to claim a DreamHack Counter-Strike championship for FnaticMSI, but after several attempts, the team got a win at DH Winter 2011. After an impressive group stage with victories against TeG, Na`Vi and Moscow 5, the Black and Orange boys took three straight 2-1 victories in the playoffs to secure the title and the SEK 100,000.

Now less than a week after the event, we gathered the players for an interview about the tournament, their feelings and what made it possible for them to win DreamHack!

Congratulations with your victory at DreamHack Winter, try to describe your feelings winning the biggest tournament on home soil.

Gux: Well it's hard to describe but loads of happiness of course. Right after the victory I had so many emotions and the crowd just made them even more noticable.This is definetly one of the greatest victories ever for me. Even though I have won alot over the years this has to be up there with the World Finals victory we had in 2009. I was realy happy to finally bring home a DreamHack victory to FnaticMSI.

Xizt: I am very happy to finally win DreamHack. I have been there several times and got a 2nd and 3rd place but never placed first before, and it feels even better to win it for FnaticMSI since it's one of few title the team was missing.

Judging by the stats you were only the 5th best team at DreamHack, and you only had one player in the top 10. Yet you still won the event, why do you think that is the case?

Pita: I think this stats-thing shows that it's not something that should be connected with the game too much. Yes stats say something, but they don't say everything. And I hope all the people looking after stats should realize it's not about the stats, it's about winning. And our team didn't care about the stats, we played as a family, one for the another. That's why we won.

Going into the tournament you weren't among the top 3 favourites to win the event, how does it feel to shut the doubters up?

Gux: Well we have always felt like we can beat every team out there and our teamspirit is really one of the greatest I've ever felt. We have so much fun together. So that we are able to win this tournament just feels amazing and it feels really great to prove to everyone that we are definitely among the top teams in the world.

Xizt: It feels awesome, especially after going out early at ESWC and failing in the Grand Final at MSI Beat IT Russia. It has been a really long time since we won a major title and you forget the feeling.

Xizt: "I am very happy to finally win DreamHack"

Many people questioned your pick up of Friis and claimed that communication issues would be haunting you. Do you think he has proved them wrong at DH Winter

cArn: He has not only proved them wrong winning Dreamhack, but also throughout his entire time in Fnatic, where he has been showing a very solid performance.

You had a fantastic event, culminating with an astonishing 2nd half display against Lions on de_tuscan; do you feel that you have showed that you belong in FnaticMSI now?

Friis: We had a fantastic tournament, but I feel that I can get better and work more on my weaknesses, now that I'm 100% settled in FnaticMSI. I also hope that the four others feel I've done well enough to remain on the team, as we try to continue the roll we are on.

Michael 'Friis' Jørgensen, MVP of the Grand Final against Lions

Before the event a lot of teams deemed you quite bad on de_tuscan, but after going undefeated on the map in 5 matches at DHW some consider it your home map now. What exactly has changed since your 16-0 defeat against NaVi?

cArn: I have to admit it's quite funny how well we have been playing on tuscan recently since it has not been our main priority. It's worth to mention that the 16-0 game versus NaVi took places many months ago with a different lineup, who had one day of practice going into that certain tournament.

Pita: I think the reason why we got better on tuscan is that we have rotated the system of defending the bombsites. We have better communcation, we have put people to watch the areas where they are comfortable at. Alot of tacticts that cArn made are implented into our game, and these tacticts we have been trying out for a longer while. So now we know what work and we need to make new tacticts together to be able to keep a high standard on this map.

It has been a rough year for FnaticMSI, but with your last two victories you are finally showing some consistency. Is FnaticMSI back in the World's top 3 - and who else do you see up there?

cArn: In my world we are indeed top 3 along AGAiN and SK. Sometimes I think people forgets that we have won as many events in 2011, as we did in 2010 with f0rest and GeT_RiGhT. In fact, I'm very proud of how things have turned out in 2011. Compared to the other teams we went into 2011 with a very young and unproven lineup, who now can consider themselves players of the very finest level.

You dropped the first map in every single playoff match at DHW, and you almost lost the game against TeG in the groupstage. Pita went as far as to say "the first map is almost like warmup for us", but do you have some sort of general problem at the beginning of a day / series?

cArn: It seems like Pita is accurate saying so, as we have been fairly slow starters, especially in morning matches. This is something that will improve by time I'd say as it's much down to inconsistency and inexperience.

You have long been considered the 2nd best - if not the third best - team in Sweden. Have you reclaimed the title as Sweden's best team now, or will you have to beat SK to do so?

Gux: Haha well not just yet but I think we're definetly close. I think that a rematch between us two would be good to see how far we have come since our last meeting.

How does it feel to win the biggest event in your home country?

Xizt: It's very nice, the audience in the final was cheering for us so hard and it kept us motivated even when we were down with big numbers where they gave us the power to pull such a comeback. It feels even more special to win because all FnaticMSI teams did so amazing, which makes it FnaticMSI's best DreamHack ever.

#WINNING!

You said after the groupstage that you would love to win DreamHack again, how did it feel to stand up there as champions?

Pita: I can honestly say it is my greatest victory ever in my career. Yes I have won as an underdog, yes I have won bigger events, but this final had so many factors that we wanted to achieve. For example, we have not been playing good before the summer, that was something that we wanted to change. FnaticMSI also had a fantastic event, Dota2 placing 2nd, and the HoN team winning the event. So of course we didn't want to be worse than any other FnaticMSI team. Also having almost the whole Fnatic family at the event made us want to perform better and make them proud.

Roughly a year ago you said to me that DreamHack was one of the events you would love to win the most; why is the event so special?

cArn: DreamHack is the biggest event on Swedish soil, and somehow it has been the tournament we have had the most trouble performing at in the past. Going into the 2011 Winter event I had yet to win a gold medal here so of course it's a nice feeling to finally being able to win in front of the Swedish crowd.

What kind of emotions ran through you on the stage when you won that last round on tuscan?

cArn: Many emotions went through my head, but the most apparent one was happiness and relief to be able too finish off 2011 in a winning manner. I have played numerous Grand Finals in the past where we have literally walked over our opponent, these ones has of course felt nice, but there is something special with comebacks, such as the ones versus Lions.