A past member has returned to the roster and his name is Jesper "Tenzki" Mikalski. Tenzki returns a more mature and skilled player, sitting currently at 1.03 (HLTV rating). The team has been on an upswing, surprising many spectators and analysts alike with their deep run making it to the major qualifier and almost to the major itself. Tenzki has been steadily proving his critics wrong as he has significantly shown improvement over his form in the previous Team Dignitas line up.

We spoke with Tenzki about some of the difference he has experienced playing part of the old and new Team Dignitas line up as well as Rogue, the deep major qualifier run and Ruben "Rubino" Brødreskift's in game leading.

First and foremost, welcome back to Team Dignitas, could you tell us how you were invited back and why you chose to join the international roster?

Tenzki: Thank you! It all started with Rubino inviting me into Teamspeak after the departure of pita and maikelele. I then got to talk with the other players too, and we discussed what we wanted from each other. I played with Rogue before, and spoke English there too. For me, I actually feel more comfortable playing in an international team.

You spent over half a year in Rogue after departing from the team. How was your time on Rogue, what did you learn from your time playing with them?

Tenzki: My time in Rogue had both ups and downs. We had a lot of different things going on, like language barriers and such. Even though we had hard times, I learned a lot. I learned so many things about myself, realizing my own mistakes, developing myself, realizing what I am capable of.

How would you compare the player play styles and overall team dynamic with the previous Team Dignitas roster you were on and Rogue?

Tenzki: Comparing the previous Team Dignitas roster and Rogue, I felt a lot more at home on Rogue. It felt like people wanted to play with one another and didn't tilt each other. Everyone always tried to offer support and spread hype for whatever was to come. The playstyle was a lot different as well: in Rogue people were allowed to do stuff, while back then in Team Dignitas we were too robotic which meant it was easier to predict us, too. They have obviously changed now in North.

It has been a tiresome two months for the team and as a result, to a lot of people’s surprise, the team almost made it all the way from the open qualifiers to the majors. As a team how do you feel after this run?

Tenzki: We have been taking big steps, but we also have to be careful with thinking too much about it. We need to keep developing and taking things step-by-step. If we take too many big leaps at once, we might end up having to go back some as well. As a team, we were surprised by ourselves, but we all wanted to qualify for that Major. Unfortunately, with so many mistakes in the last match it just couldn't happen.

The team started the major qualifiers off with a very close 16-14 loss versus Godsent. If you could go back to a few key rounds, like the smoke push in monster at the end of the game, which rounds would you go back to and what would you do differently?

Tenzki: Yeah, the smoke push round on monster was very much our own mistake and a missing flash, which cost us the match in the end. But to mention other things, our CT side was never strong: me and cromen had a hard time on B, and their B execute was simply too rough for us.

Your second match was up against Immortals. You had a poor first half losing 13-2 but then almost completed an incredible comeback, narrowly losing 16-13. What inspired the comeback, did the approach to the second half change from what you had originally planned?

Tenzki: Normally we don't have bad T halves on Cache, but that day we just didn't match up at all. We started off really sloppy and sleepy. Then we almost managed to come back on CT: we got the pistol round and from there we started to hype each other up, which also might have affected them. We played really well, we talked, we felt we could win. In the end, it wasn’t enough and a few mistakes were made, but if our T side wasn't that awful, we could've won that game.

For your third match (0-2 match up) you faced Tengri and won your first game 16-7. How’d the team feel coming into this match after two close loses?

Tenzki: Against Tengri we knew they would be able to shoot back, they're good aimers. But we also went into the game with so much confidence and we knew we would win that game. Everyone just felt it.

Renegades was up next. The probably toughest match up you could’ve drawn. Personally, how did you prepare yourself for this match?

Tenzki: I didn't prepare any other way than I would do for any match. All matches are the same, and to be taken equally serious. I actually felt Renegades was a good fit for us when we drew them.

After being up 11-6, the team managed to only pick up one round 1 out of the 9 rounds. What were you guys talking about and how was the in-game leader, Rubino, trying to adjust to the comeback of Renegades?

Tenzki: We started to struggle on our CT side. They did some "yolo" pushes here and there, unexpectedly went to positions we weren't prepared for at that moment. All of us tried to come up with ideas, and we wanted to try to stop them from getting that mid control, but we didn't manage to do it correctly. So we ended up letting them sandwich us on the sites.

Walk us through round 26 (12-14), what did you do to finally break the comeback of Renegades?

Tenzki: I don't think we changed much, that we hadn’t already tried earlier in the game. It was just purely up to us, doing multi kills and throwing good flashes for each other when they started to move closer.

The victory in round 26 inspired the mini-comeback for you guys and you went on winning 16-14. How did this victory feel? Are you happy with the overall performance of the team despite it coming this close?

Tenzki: The victory was great, we were ready for the next match. On the downside, we had to sit for a long time and wait for the next game. We had a super early game that day, and it was a tough one, people were tired. Our overall performance was what I would call acceptable, but with so much bad stuff going on in our gameplay, it just wasn’t perfect enough.

The final match and perhaps the most painful one was versus the CIS side of Vega Squadron who ‘NIPed’ you 16-5, on Inferno. What went wrong for the team here? Do you think the same happened to you guys as it did to NIP back when they lost to Vega 16-2?

Tenzki: Against Vega everything went completely wrong for us. We couldn't manage to do anything at all on our T side, which we once again struggled on, like many of the other matches during the qualifier. We just couldn’t out aim them, because we walked up stupidly or just didn't execute correctly onto sites. What happened to NIP back then I actually don’t know - it's probably a feeling of having no chance in the moment, and that everything is just against you.

After the two months in the team how are you feeling about the team and yourself in the team? How about Rubino’s in game leading?

Tenzki: I feel this team has a lot of potential to do great things, and I believe with time we will show what we really can do. As for myself, I feel good in this team, but obviously more work has to be put into things like communication and such, which on my previous teams have been a lot better. So it will take some time. After the loss at the qualifier, we all felt something was not quite right in terms of the roles in the team, so we will try to mix some good spices together and see what we can create!

Do you have any shout-outs you would like to make?

Tenzki: I would like to thank everyone out there who is cheering for us, and hope you will stick by us, because sooner or later we will rise and we will shine! Thanks to Team Dignitas and all their great sponsors for making this happen.

Thank you for your time Tenzki!

Twitter: https://twitter.com/tenzkiCSGO
Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/tenzki