phzy: "HooXi will be the guy to step up and say the hard things to say"

Jeffrey "Mnmzzz" Moore of Dust2.us had the opportunity to talk with Astralis AWPer Love "phzy" Smidebrant at BLAST Rivals 2026 Season 1 Media Day in Fort Worth, Texas.

phzy went over his transition from Wildcard to Astralis, HooXi's qualities as a leader, and their finals run at Bucharest.

Find the video interview below with a full transcription underneath. All questions and answers have been slightly edited for length and clarity.

How has your year been so far playing with HooXi under the Astralis banner?

No pun intended, but it's been a blast. Maybe we didn't expect these results that we've had, but we're glad for them. It feels like I fit into the team well and it's been kind of an easy chance to go international for the team. It's been really fun.

Has your past experience on international lineups been useful for some of the Danish guys who haven't done that before?

Yeah, for sure. Playing international, you always get a lot of views of CS. Maybe some players from different countries have one way to look at CS. I guess I've kind of collected them all now. For me, it's been pretty smooth in that way and I'm comfortable speaking in English.

The philosophy with HooXi and all the other guys like Staehr and jabbi and ruggah, they still have the same philosophy. They've played with HooXi before. They know how he wants to play. They haven't had to change in that way. Other than just speaking English.

What kind of qualities does HooXi bring in his leadership that you appreciate, especially compared to stanislaw?

HooXi and stanislaw are a little bit similar in how they want to call. They want to give a lot of freedom to their players. They want to win as a team and let everyone have their input, so that's great. It's something I'm used to, I like that. He's a good leader. If we do something wrong, he will let us know so we can fix it for next time.

When we're down by a bit or he's noticing that we're not playing like we usually do, he'll be the guy to step up and say the hard things to say to try and save the map. It's very nice.

Have you had a chance to talk to stanislaw about his recent move to Metizport?

I haven't met him, sadly. I talk to him sometimes, both him and vinS, our coach in Wildcard, are there now. Happy to see that.

How do you feel the recent bo5 finals against FUT went? Do you think that tournament is a good sign for the rest of the year?

It is definitely a good sign that we got there. Both the final and semifinal, we're not really happy with how we played. I don't think we played our A-game. A second-place finish is always good, and you're always gonna be a bit happy about that. But you also want to win, of course.

What is the mindset that you're taking into your G2 game tomorrow? Do you see yourselves as the favorites?"

Yeah, of course. They don't have HooXi anymore; we have HooXi now, and the rankings flipped. Hopefully, we will put up a good showing tomorrow.

Astralis start their Fort Worth campaign tomorrow against G2 at 01:30PM.