m0NESY: "I'm going in the right direction [to be the best]"
Considering his status as 'the baby GOAT', some might consider it to be a shame we didn't even get to full years to watch m0NESY play CS:GO. That doesn't bother the Russian AWPer, though, he just has a new game to play and is determined to become the very best.
Having claimed trophies at BLAST Premier World Final last year and now IEM Katowice and IEM Cologne this year, the G2 youngster knows he's well on his way to becoming everything he dreamed about.
Photo: Michal KonkolCurrently playing in the BLAST Premier Fall Showdown 2023, we got the chance to speak to m0NESY about CS2, the importance of winning Showdown, and what it meant to lift the trophies he has thus far.
Interview with m0NESY
At Cologne you guys said that you felt like you were still at a bootcamp during Fall Groups, how are you feeling now that you’re a couple months of the season?
It was the start of the season at Fall groups so it wasn't that crazy. Our focus was to just play and be ready for Cologne. I'm feeling good, I've been grinding CS2 a lot and I'm getting ready for the upcoming tournaments.
How important is making it to Fall Final?
I think it's very important for us to make Fall Final because of the new game. We have to play more and more to get used to everything, to the new mechanics and stuff in the game.
How much of a boost was it to start off the season with a win like you did at Cologne?
Winning Cologne was amazing. It gave a lot of extra confidence for the team and myself. For me personally, it is another big experience, another opportunity to be better in the future and just getting better and better and better individually. It is the historical tournament in CS:GO, and I'm so happy I won it in my career.
Did you ever expect to win both Cologne and Katowice this year? How did it feel?
I don't like to play with expectations, I have no expectations before a match. I only expect myself to fight until the end during a match no matter what happens. Expecting myself to win these tournaments, no, but they have always been in my goals. After I won Cologne I realised I had won two of the biggest tournaments in CS:GO, tournaments whose trophies I always dreamed about lifting.
You’re having a very strong year individually, how do you feel your development is going now that you’re 18 months into your pro career?
I'm don't forget how I started playing at the start in G2, because I always try to compare myself to how I have improved from that moment. I still have a lot of room to improve, I don't think I'm in my peak right now. Also CS2 is out now, so I've started practicing a lot, and I will try to use all my free time to be the best.
With CS2 now released, those first 18 months will be the only 18 months of your career played on CS:GO, considering you’re called ‘the baby GOAT’, what do you think your legacy in CS:GO will be?
As I said before, I will use all my free time to be the best. Now I've got a lot of experience from the past game, it will definitely help me. I think I'm going in the right direction.
How are you feeling about CS2 and your future in that game in an individual sense?
It still needs a lot of work, if I was going to say the things that they need to fix, I would have a long list [laughs]. The most important is just to fix the sound in the game, because I think that on LAN game it will be difficult to hear everything on a map. That being said, I love the game, I love that they made a big update and obviously in the future it will be an even better game.
What do you think about CS2 as a game?
New game - new opportunity. The game is amazing, even if it is still raw.