There's a real presence to STYKO nowadays that wasn't always there.
A much-maligned, often unfairly, player back in his time on MOUZ, STYKO continued to do all of the things he always knew he did well - and that made him such a valued teammate.
It's that that makes him such a natural leader - he knows what it's like to take the flak, and to sacrifice oneself for the greater good, and so you feel like if he can do it, so can you.
Albeit, he isn't the in-game leader. But he certainly appears to be their out-of-game leader.
Now he brings a swagger, a real, genuine belief in this Apeks team.
"First of all, this is for sure the best iteration of Apeks out of all the lineups. I'm really happy to be a part of it and how we got here through trial periods, I think it was a diligent time for the team to double up".
Having seen their performances at the Challengers Stage - and now at the Legends Stage - one would be hard-pressed to disagree.
"Right now we are definitely playing the best Counter-Strike we've ever played tactically and individually. Where's the ceiling for us? We never know, we have two or three players that are in heavy development in terms of IGLing for kyxsan, AWPing for nawwk, and being a star player for jL.
"How they develop is up to them and how they take the challenge, jkaem, mithR, kuben, and myself will all be here to share experiences to help them develop. If we manage to continue like we are doing so far our skill ceiling should be far above the Legends Stage, this is just the beginning for us."
Confidence in oneself is expected - but this level of confidence in your teammates is the mark of a true leader.
When pressed on how he uses his vast experience to help, STYKO explains that he values 'composure and consistency" and that's what he tries to pursue.
"That basically applies to communication, dealing with problems, and finding solutions in game. I think we all play better when we do things in a calm way without too much emotion, being able to reflect on things a bit always helps. This is what I found works best in international teams previously. It's really important to talk about stuff, I've been a part of teams where we weren't talking and it kind of imploded."
STYKO told BLAST.tv he was surprised by Apeks' performance in the Challengers Stage, but "in a positive way".
"It's not like we feel we shouldn't even be here, we believe in ourselves. I just think that we're taking a good step forward when it comes to how we practice and how efficient we are."
He also mentioned that the first Major was "just another tournament", even if retroactively he's sad he missed out, but reminded us that this was his fourth Major, all with completely different line-ups.
It's as though after all these years of disrespect, he feels he has to defend himself - even if now it's pretty obvious how valuable he is to a team.
Their opening game win over Into The Breach wasn't a huge shock to STYKO (who referred to is as "one of the most boring games in the opening round", amusingly), joking that "it's quite different when it's Thomas running around the server compared to NiKo running around the server".
Well, maybe it was a joke.
The following result might have been slightly disappointing, but STYKO isn't too bothered about results, instead opting for a zen approach to analysis.
"The expectation is not really result orientated, I don't want to be disappointed or whatever, result orientated things are not really for me. The expectations are mostly performance orientated I would say, I am hoping to not give up in any game that we have comms wise, individual wise and mentality wise.
"I'm hoping that the team will fight until we qualify for the next stage or we lose in the last round, I'm hoping for a good mood and atmosphere so we can be productive in our evaluations of the games. This is a stage where we are probably going to face much better teams than we did throughout our journey here so far. Those games are very valuable because they will show us our mistakes and the meta so we can see how we are adapting or not adapting".
There's that trademark calmness shining through.
It's an admirable approach, and one that should pay off in the long term. In the short term, though, they sit in the 1-1 bracket.
Even if STYKO doesn't want to be results oriented, that's what really matters tomorrow.
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