NiKo: "I see myself more in kyousuke than donk"

BLAST.tv

January 01, 1970

12:00 AM

Falcons are hitting peak form at exactly the right time. With the StarLadder Budapest Major on the horizon, they've now pushed past their third-place at BLAST Rivals Hong Kong with impressive displays against both Spirit and Vitality.

At the event, we sat down with their veteran fragger NiKo to discuss the growth of the team, losing unloseable rounds, and if he sees himself more in donk or kyousuke.

"I think people are really focusing on our team, and they think it's crazy at every event where we lose."

It feels like the roster has picked up steam now, how are you feeling about recent results?

I would say that our results since Cologne have been pretty good. We've gotten at least top four constantly, so in that regard I'm pretty satisfied with how we've progressed.
We've worked a lot on our playbook and on making sure that our map pool is wider. I think the players are feeling more and more comfortable in the roles as well, so we feel pretty good with what we've done so far this season. Everything we're doing is to make sure we're as ready as possible for the Major.

seized said on Twitter that he feels you’re too reliant on the firepower as a team, what would you say in reaction to that? If it’s true, is it the percentages that come with it that is separating you from lifting trophies?

I would say that there are a lot of smart people out there who think they know better than us in terms of what's happening in the team and why we're losing. So it's a bit frustrating.
So I don't think it's true, I think that one of the issues that we've faced the most is on Inferno, we've struggled to win some games against some teams there. I think we also just need more experience as a team in these important games, when we overcome that challenge and become more confident, we'll be beating them.

Photo: Michal Konkol

TeSeS also said in a recent interview that he doesn’t want to see any more radar screenshots of unloseable rounds, what do you think has been the cause for them this year?

First of all, I think people are really focusing on our team, and they think it's crazy at every event where we lose. If you look at the other teams, it happens so much that you lose a 3v5 or a 2v4 from time to time, but people focus on our struggles, which is fine.
With some of them I agree that we should never let it happen, but with some of them there are some explanations as to why it happened, or it happened way too fast and people kinda over exaggerate the situation.
Some of these rounds, the reason why we've lost them is because we have new people in new roles. We're working on closing out the rounds because now we don't really have a proper closer, me and TeSeS are now shifting into this role, so it's been on our radar to improve on this.

You’ve now had a good few months with kyousuke on the team, how do you think he’s developed as a player in that time?

I think he's been growing a lot as a player and he can still grow much more. He needs to get more experience, there's still a lot of room for improvement and he's still figuring out how to play against some of these top teams.
I'm really happy with how he's been so far. He's had some really good tournaments and matches, won some really important rounds for us. But it just takes time for him to feel more comfortable with the team, but there's no worry there.

Given your status as the greatlest rifler in CS history, players like donk and kyousuke are compared to you a lot, but do you see yourself in them?

I'm not really sure. I think I see myself more in kyousuke when it comes to the way he plays, I think donk is just a killing machine with really strong aim, whilst kyousuke has a bit more of a similar playstyle to me.

Photo: Stephanie Lindgren

In some side content for Chengdu you said that you had been watching demos of players to see how they play Mirage Connector, but interestingly you didn’t mention donk. Is there a reason why you would choose to not watch his demos?

I did watch him, but I watched him less than others because he relies a lot on his aim and I can watch other players to learn tricks and plays and stuff. Obviously, I watch donk as well to see which duels he takes and the positions he gets multi-kills from, but that's why I watch others more.

With the Major coming up, narratives will now - as always - switch towards you not yet winning a Major. When you joined Falcons, you spoke about how you wanted zonic to help you prepare better for Majors, how are you feeling about that now as you approach your second with him?

Obviously the first Major was a bit disappointing for us, it wasn't how we imagined it to go and I think we learned a lot from it.
I think that for this one we want to make sure that we go well rested. Last time we had two events back-to-back, then we went straight to our bootcamp and straight on to the Major after that. That was a bit too demanding for us.
For this one, we're going to skip the bootcamp and just spend some time at home to make sure we get that rest. We've made sure that we're prepared beforehand, so it's going to be a bit different and we'll see how it goes.
We haven't started our official preparation yet, that's going to happen after we're done here in Hong Kong, but I'm confident that we will do much better than the last one. We're a stronger team now than we were in Austin.