Who says fairytale stories don’t exist in real life? Far up North in Jönköping, Sweden, they certainly do. Where five college students were set to play Counter-Strike: Global Offensive and League of Legends in the BYOC (Bring Your Own Computer) segments of DreamHack: Winter, a completely non-serious signup for the Rainbow Six: Siege qualifiers saw them invited to the main event.
Safe to say, this is a level of participation the five -- who are not even regular, casual Siege players -- would never have expected. The teams they will be brushing shoulders with include world champions G2 Esports, Season 7 winners Team Liquid, as well as the newly promoted Team Empire. We sat down with one of their players, LimeFFS, better known on Reddit as EmilBerglund, and had a chat with them about their DreamHack: Winter appearance.
Hey guys, let's start with introductions. Who is part of Minigolfgutta?
Our in-game names are LimeFFS, Konnoth, tonaexd, Ikuratheweeaboo, and we are captained by a30-10-2018a.
Where are you guys from and how old are you?
We range from 18 to 21 years of age. We're from all over Norway, but we currently all attend the same school where our main course is eSports.
Where did the name Minigolfgutta come from?
The name Minigolfgutta was made as a joke. We started as footballboys and handballboys, and it snowballed to the sport we thought was the funniest -- minigolf.
It is absolutely incredible for this to happen, so we'd love to hear about it. How did you guys end up being invited to DreamHack: Winter?
We were attending DreamHack: Winter as a school trip, and were supposed to compete in just CS:GO (Counter-Strike: Global Offensive) and LoL (League of Legends), but decided to also register for the Siege qualifiers for fun. An hour after we registered our captain got a phone call from Sweden and we were told the qualifiers were cancelled and we had to play on stage.
How does it feel to have been invited, and how does it feel to have so many people behind you as -- and there's only one word for it -- fans?
The amount of support we've gotten in just one day is incredible. We've had people wanting to meet us and hundreds that are looking forward to watching us play. It's an unreal experience, really.
Are you guys regular Rainbow Six: Siege players? When did you pick the game up?
Four of our players main CS:GO and one plays LoL. We attend this school to get better at those games. None of us play Siege regularly, we just play it sometimes for fun. We have no insight into the metas or the esports around it.
What are the key differences are in competitive CS and competitive Siege?
In CS:GO you have to plan for the whole game because of the economy, while in Siege you select a class, or operator, with a set loadout. This makes every round in Siege a bit more even. There won't be rounds where attackers have full gear and defenders only have pistols like in CS:GO.
Who are your favourite CS:GO players and teams?
Personally, my favorite team is Astralis, but my favorite player that I look up to is Twistzz from Team Liquid or Ropz from mousesport. The rest of the team really loves the old Cloud9 (I guess Old Guys Club now).
Who are your favorite teams in competitive Siege?
Even though we hadn't really heard of anyone up until yesterday, I have to say G2 Esports is my go-to Siege team now. I still don’t really know who plays though!
What are your goals for DreamHack: Winter?
Our goals for DreamHack: Winter have changed drastically the last 24 hours -- now we're going to put on a show and have the time of our lives. And of course we will do our best in the CS:GO tournament. CS should still be our main focus, even though that is kind of hard at this point.
How are you preparing for the Siege portion of your DreamHack appearance?
We don't really know how to prepare right now. We played some casual games and watched hours of videos on YouTube yesterday.
Are careers in pro gaming in the offing following this?
Hopefully we'll be on stage for the games we actually play one day. That is still the dream.
Do you have anything to say to all our readers?
We greatly appreciate all of your support! It has become unreal to us. We love you all!
Catch all the action from DreamHack: Winter live on twitch.tv/rainbow6 on the 1st and 2nd of December, with a chance of seeing Minigolfgutta on stage.