Zonic’s book discusses Astralis roster moves, feud with Fnatic

Astralis head coach Danny “zonic” Sørensen has released “The Brain Behind Astralis,” a new book that gives fans an inside look into life through a coach’s perspective. The book covers both his life and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive career.

According to Reddit user /u/Temporal_Bellusaurus, the book contains some interesting tidbits about CSGO’s best team. While the book is currently only available in Danish, /u/Temporal_Bellusaurus gave the Global Offensive subreddit a summary of the best parts.

These range from the team dynamics inside Astralis to a previously unknown two-year feud with rival CSGO team Fnatic. The post says that the book mainly focuses on zonic’s early life, but his four-year tenure with the Danish CSGO squad is also included. 

Why Astralis added Magisk over k0nfig and dennis

Kristian “k0nfig” Wienecke, Dennis “dennis” Edman, and Emil “Magisk” Reif were all possible replacements when Markus “Kjaerbye” Kjærbye left Astralis in February 2018. Zonic was tasked with finding his replacement, eventually choosing Magisk due to the coach’s first impression of the player.

When Magisk first met zonic, Magisk was clear that he wanted to prove to North that they had made a big mistake by cutting him. Zonic loved Magisk’s determined attitude, and that proved to be a big reason for why he was chosen.

As for dennis and k0nfig, they’re different stories.

The post explains that Zonic didn’t want to sign dennis because he wasn’t Danish, believing that bringing in someone that wasn’t from Denmark would ruffle the team’s chemistry. Predictably, k0nfig was passed on for his penchant for social media explosions.

Fnatic vs. Astralis beef lingered for years

Something that might come as a bit of a surprise is a discussion on a longstanding beef between Astralis and Fnatic.

The poster states that the bad blood stemmed from Astralis calling for a tactical pause, seemingly to mock Fnatic just before a lopsided series win. Though it was not specifically referenced, this most likely came during the semifinals of MLG Columbus 2016.

Astralis was up 15-2 on Cache and leading 1-0 in the best-of-three series before calling for a surprise tactical time out. Casters James Bardolf and Daniel “ddk” Kapadia were stunned and called the move “BM,” short for bad manners.

Cameras showed the Astralis players laughing and joking during the timeout with a smirking Andreas “Xyp9x” Højsleth in the foreground, while Fnatic were visibly upset over how the game was going.

During the postgame interview, Finn “karrigan” Andersen was asked about the pause and confirmed that it was meant to taunt them.

“Well, first of all. we took a time out to calm down our nerves, just to think about what to do. And second of all, we heard Fnatic say they don’t fear us and they thought they have an easy game against us. So they had two minutes to think about and respect us as opponents and that’s why we took the time out.”

According to zonic’s book, the two teams didn’t scrim or give postgame handshakes for almost two years after that.

The book continues offers far more than just those two stories. Thankfully, zonic revealed there is a planned English translation for “The Brain Behind Astralis,” so English speakers won’t have to learn Danish to get all the juicy details about the Astralis and their coach. An English release date hasn’t been announced.