Last weekend Team Dignitas won the ESWC UK National Qualifier and have therefore booked themselves in this year's Grand Finals.

Many ESWC Qualifiers took place last weekend and in the UK, upcoming team Dignitas took the top spot, defeating the local number ones, Four Kings.

The UK Counter-Strike 1.6 scene has never been very strong, with 4 Kings being the only team to compete regularly at an international level. Recently 4 Kings have had many roster changes which as a result has weakened them significantly. Team Dignitas, who won the WCG 2006 UK Qualifiers, were able to capitlise on this weakness and take the top spot. The team is completely reformed from WCG 2006 after what can only be described as an embarassing performance.

I caught up with Luke "KritikaL" Green to find out about his thoughts on his team's recent achievment and how they plan to tackle the ESWC 2007 Grand Finals.

Lets start off with you introducing yourself and your team to our
readers...

Hi my names Luke "KritikaL" Green im 19 years old, I live in St Albans in Hertfordshire, I have been playing counterstrike for about 6 years now and im part of team-dignitas counterstrike squad.

Congragulations for your recent win at ESWC UK. How does it feel to know you'll be particpating at the Grand Finals against other recently qualified teams such as mousesports, attax, emulate and goodgame?

Thanks, and it feels absolutely incredible to know we`ll be going to France to compete with the best teams in the world, especially after the match vs 4kings and how down we were after the first map i really thought we had thrown it away, so it was even bigger shock when we finished the game and knew we were going to France.

How much preperation did the team have prior to the UK qualifier and were you happy with your overall performance?

We put in a lot of preperation for 3-4 weeks prior to the event we were playing as much as possible whenever we had 5 on we were pcwing so that works out 30+ hours a week i guess, Our overall performance was really good apart from the first map vs 4kings and first half on dust2. We really felt we played awful in those parts of the final, we didnt play our usual style and we played with no confidence but the best performance came straight after the worst performance, which cancelled it out i guess, the come back on dust2 was the most insane thing ive ever been part of.

4Kings are obviously your main rivals and have dominated the UK scene for so long, how does it feel to beat them?

It feels GREAT finally beating 4kings, after having to sit behind WOLF and watch them beat them in 2k4, i was kinda jealous as anyone would have been in that situation. But for me to finally beat them its incredible, especially after the last time ive played vs 4kings ive played really bad, to finally prove myself as an individual against them and to finally do my team justice by playing well vs 4kings, it feels really good.

The performance of the dignitas team that went to Monza, Italy (WCG 2006 Finals) was dissapointing. Why do you think this is and what are your expectations for ESWC 2007 Finals?

Erm im not really sure why the dignitas team who went to monza( which i wasnt part of ) was soo dissapointing, maybe it was the calibre of players dignitas had in at the time. Dignitas have brought in 5 new players including myself into the team since then, and in my oppinion it was a good move cause look at us now :D. But our expectations for Paris are anything respectable, i think top 10 would be a GREAT achievement for us and we would definately be happy with a top 10, anything more than top 10 will be incredible.

Who would you most like to play in Paris?

I would really like to play vs mibr and SK, simply because MIBR 13-0d us at ESWC 2k4 when i was in WOLF as a merc, the reason for this was the lack of preperation before the event as i had 2 days knowledge that i was going to attend the tournament, so i would really like some revenge against them and prove what i can do with a real team with real preperation. Id also love to play against SK because after we played them in a show match in 2004 and drew 12-12 a lot of people said that we wouldnt do it on a world stage in a big tournament, but i dont believe this. I think on our day we could beat anyone, and lets hope we can prove that in France.

What are the team's plans now you've qualified for this event?

We are planning to bootcamp in sweden in the near future prior to ESWC, were also gonna just play as much online cs as possible keep pcwing, keep the practise regime to a high, study demos get new ideas and tighten up on some of the little mistakes we made vs 4kings in the final which will improve us greatly. Everything is still a learning curve for me and my team we havent really done this before so we still have a lot to learn and now its time to learn fast :D.

No UK team has ever managed to win, or even come close to winning the ESWC. Why do you think this is and what chances do you think you have of changing this?

Hmm, good question. Im not really sure exactly why no UK team has come close to winning ESWC, i guess its just bad timing for 4kings as everytime they have seemed to go to the event they have always had roster changes, and when WOLF went it was a huge loss to bring me in 2 days before the event because Kae dropped out. So i guess no UK team has had the time to prepare for ESWC like we have got now, because we will not be changing our lineup prior to the event and we have been a team for quite some time now. I think our chances are quite high, we definately have the potential of beating some of the best teams in the world, people dont know us and that might work in our favour as people will underestimate us i think. We also have a very unpredictable style so i think this will work in our advantage in France as well.

Good luck to the team, any last words?

Thanks for the interview, i always love doing HLTV.org interviews so nice to be on the site again. Thanks to ODEE and all the management in dignitas they doing great job, all the people who were supporting us at the event. Thanks to all our sponsors, Intel, Creative, Corsair, XFX, Scan and ABIT.

Well there we have it. Luke seems to be full of confidence and although the team will be definite underdogs at the ESWC Grand Finals it will be interesting to see how they cope against the likes of the holdersmibr.

The Grand Finals will be taking place in Paris, France from the 5th - 8th July. HLTV.orgwill be there bringing you live coverage but till then, stay updated with all the ESWC qualifiers by heading to our coverage thread.