huNter- on MATYS: "It’s not easy nowadays to find a player his age who will sacrifice that much in his first year in tier one"
It was all change for G2 over the off-season as they welcomed three new faces, as well as a new IGL to their team.
All things considered, although they may have narrowly missed out on playoffs, their first event at IEM Cologne went exceedingly well.
After their elimination and ahead of BLAST Bounty Season 2, we caught up with the teams new IGL, huNter-, to discuss their start as a new team, their newest face in MATYS, and his transition to IGLing.
"He’s a perfect fit for this team"
There’s a lot of change for G2 coming into the new season, how are you feeling about it? Do you expect it to take a while to get to your peak level as a team?
For now I feel really good and looking forward to play more events with the boys. We just need more experience playing official games. We had maybe 12-13 days of practice overall since the beginning of the season, a lot of new roles, new players, that’s not enough and will definitely need some time to reach our peak level individually and as a team.
The biggest change for you personally is that you will now be IGLing, how have you been finding it so far?
I feel good in the new role. It’s a bit hard at the beginning, but I’m getting used to it and I would say that I’m happy overall with the progress and will work hard to be better every day together with the coach and teammates.
Photo: Stephanie LindgrenIs it a transition you’ve been preparing yourself for for a while?
I’ve been asked many times in my career to become an IGL and I didn’t want to accept it. I knew it will come at some point, but it’s not an easy decision to make. I was kinda preparing myself for that and I knew it will happen at some point.
I worked with so many good and different IGLs in my career, like HooXi, Aleksib, Snax and I learnt a lot from them. Also, I had a lot of good teammates throughout my career that I could learn from and I thought this is the right time to say yes.
Your first coach as an IGL will be sAw, given the reputation he’s earned for himself in the past few years, how do you feel about working with him?
I think he’s amazing coach, he has a great work ethic and even though he didn’t win many trophies in his career as a coach, when you talk to him, when you see the way he’s talking to players and doing things overall, feels like he’s been winning for many years.
He never had an amazing team who was aiming for trophies throughout whole his career, he needed to build from zero many times and he was making every team better and from decent players he was making solid players.
So far I’m very happy with the way we are working together and looking forward to work with him more.
You’ll also have to bring two new players into the team, is that a bigger challenge than just managing your own role change or do they combine into one?
It’s actually both. I would say for now it’s a bit harder to manage my own role, because new players are great in game, also outside of the game. They are working hard, listening to everything that coach and me are saying, following plan, trusting the process and both of them have great game sense. They are helping me a lot as well.
One of those players is MATYS, who comes in to fill a spot a few players were rumoured to be filling, are you happy with the player you ended up with?
I'm really happy with MATYS. He can play many roles on both CT and T sides and he’s ready to do anything for the team so that we can succeed together and I can tell you, it’s not easy nowadays to find a player his age who will sacrifice that much in his first year in tier one. He’s a perfect fit for this team and he will show it in the future, I believe there's a bright future ahead of him.
huNter- is now tasked with bringing back the success he enjoyed on G2 with NiKo. Photo: Shaun LeeSadly you just missed out on playoffs in Cologne, given how new the team is, are you still happy with the results and the form shown?
I’m happy with how Cologne went overall. I’m just sorry that we didn’t manage to secure playoffs and play in front of the crowd at the end. We need that experience as a team as soon as possible, to play in front of the big crowd, it will help us in a lot of aspects.
We just need to play more games, do things, make mistakes, because in official games things are happening that we will never experience during practice.
After Cologne you’ll play in BLAST Bounty, how are you feeling about it? Do you think we’ll see a different G2 once there’s some more experience together as a team?
I’m looking forward to play BLAST Bounty. I think every event is different experience when you are a new team and our goal is to be better in every next game.
We have full support from the organization and there’s no pressure from G2 that we need to do something immediately, because we need to be realistic. Everything we need right now is for all of us to work hard and everything else will come itself if we deserve it.
