NEO: "I was thinking more like a player than a coach"
After an unceremonious end to his first coaching gig with FaZe, legendary figure NEO is back in CS, this time as the coach of Astralis.
A team who ended the first half of the year out of sorts, he is tasked now with helping them rediscover their form, and ultimately finding their way back to the top of the COunter-Strike pyramid.
At BLAST Bounty season2 2026, we sat down with NEO to discuss what he learned from his time on FaZe, the form of Astralis star phzy, and how he can avoid any controversial clips with HooXi.
“[FaZe] needed more changes”
You're back in CS and on a new team. How does it feel to be back?
It feels great. I'm back on the road again; that's the toughest part these days. That was my biggest concern in the decision to join a team again, but I'm happy to be back.
We guess no one can shake the CS itch for too long.
Yeah, but it's the kids I have at home now, leaving everyone makes travelling a bit more difficult. I still love it, but it's just more complicated.
You've just got to teach them, and then one day you can coach their team instead.
[laughs] I think at this point my daughter will hate games because of me travelling so much.
Looking back on the departure from FaZe, it seemed like the players didn't want you to leave, so can you explain what happened from your perspective?
I don't want to go into it too much, but I'll say that it was the org's decision that changes were needed and there wasn't an obvious pick. The team needed more changes, I think, and I can understand what's happened and why they made the decisions they did. It's all good.
Given how it went towards the end of the time with FaZe, do you feel like you have something to prove as a coach?
I don't think the FaZe situation changed anything. There's always something to prove to some degree; even when I was on FaZe, the constant development was there.
Maybe it was good for me to learn the lesson the hard way, to wake up and change some things from my side as a coach. I'm still new to this job and getting to know how to handle things as a coach rather than a player.
What would you say are the big lessons you learned then?
I've been looking at things from a player's perspective a little too much. As a coach, you need to expect more and push the team to work harder. Every team is a little bit different; you have different IGLs, different team members that bring different things, some lineups have players that bring strats themselves, so I just learned there's more than just the game itself.
There's more work around the game and with people. In FaZe, I never really had support from a performance coach, but that's a little different in Astralis. Now I'm not the only person fighting with the players.
You're now on Astralis who had a tough end to their season. What are the things you identified that you want to work on early?
Most of all, I think it's the stability or consistency in the game. They have huge potential, but it was the same with FaZe; things change very fast and very quickly. With the performance coach, we can work on that faster. I've also discovered some things inside the game structurally, so there's work to be done.
phzy's form has been one of the bigger issues in recent months. How do you plan to help there?
We still have to remember it's a team game, right? Sometimes it's the roles, sometimes it's the support from teammates, and sometimes it's the individual level.
He's had some good games; he's saved us a couple of times; against HOTU, he on a 1v3 in an important situation. So far, I haven't seen much; it's only been online games. I really like how he is as a person, though. He's a nice personality for the team and supports his teammates, so we'll see. I need to see more to have more to work with.
There were a few controversial clips of disagreements between HooXi and ruggah. How do you avoid that from happening now you're the coach?
Actually, I haven't seen those; maybe I need to look them up [laughs].
Each player has his own personality, and he's the captain of the team, so for sure, he cares a lot. Maybe that's why he sometimes gets emotional. We've had some talks already, and this is something to work on, but we'll see; I haven't really had the chance to have an offline game with him yet. Maybe we'll see some clips on Friday.
What's it been like working with him so far?
It's different than with karrigan. But you can see he cares a lot, and he works hard. It's only been a couple of weeks; these will be our first offline games, and I'll get to know him more from that, but it's been nice. We're just trying to figure out our way of working together.
Astralis is a legendary org in CS, but maybe the current players, on paper at least, would be below the likes of the top five teams. When you come into a team that expects to be at the top, but hasn't been there for a while, how do you define expectations and create healthy goals?
We have to remember it's a team game, and if the team is working properly, then the level of individuals starts to shine. You wouldn't have donk without one of his teammates jumping out for him, okay, maybe he's just full-swinging anyway.
But you need to get the team working together, and then I think people will shine. If we focus on that with our performance coach and work on the mental side, too, we'll play good CS and be the best we can be.
