zonic: "In modern CS you can't build a team from scratch"

I think we're satisfied, except for Pro League. Coming into the start of the year, we didn't have that much practice, we played BLAST Bounty and IEM Katowice, and given the teams we went up against, I was satisfied that we made it competitive. At the same time, I had a realistic approach, it could've gone both ways, but I still went in without expectations.
We did really well at PGL Cluj-Napoca by reaching the final, and I do believe that if we showed up on that final day then we would've had a pretty good chance of winning the trophy, so I'm satisfied with that.
At Pro League, we never really got a foothold. It was rough from the beginning to the end. It was disappointing.

Some of the explanation definitely lies there, yeah. It's still early days, but we set the expectations slightly higher after our run at PGL, and some of the rounds that we lost were unacceptable based on what we've shown previously.
I've had it with all of my teams, sometimes the communication is just a bit off, you have misunderstandings or key rounds where you fail a kill or some utility. It just seems like everything went against us.
We were there mentally, we never gave up, so I'm very happy about that for the future. If we can just get some of these things fixed, then it can be a very quick fix.
But I will say that we're playing a lot of officials. Sometimes it can be a bit of a jungle to find out where we are as a team, you don't get a break to go home and fix some of the things or add a bit more. We've played Dust2 so many times this year, and it was a good map in the beginning, but now we are starting to see some flaws.
We'll have some days before BLAST, so hopefully we'll be able to look at some of our games and look at where we're at and what we can add or change to become better.

I think that if we had that approach to it, it would be a very uphill battle. In modern CS, you can't build a team from scratch, and last year is living proof of it. It's tough to build a team and expect everything to run from the beginning.
I know we can do a lot better, but to come out and think that by now we should already be able to compete with the likes of Spirit, Vitality, NAVI, that would be overshooting a bit too much.
We want to see improvements, and we know that for the first five months it will be a process. As long as I see improvements from the guys and how we play, then I'm satisfied. So far, I see these improvements.

It's been nothing but a pleasure. I have been very privileged as a coach to work with some of the finest players the game has ever seen, I had prime device and ZywOo, so to have a rifler of this calibre, it's hard to explain, but it's kinda similar.
You just have an aura around these types of players. They have leadership, they can definitely boost their teammates individual level and understanding of the game, just by being there and having their opinions.
He has matured a lot over the years, but retained his individual level as well. I think that now it's time for us as a team to keep focusing more on his and setting him up more. Right now, he's been in charge of our CT side, and in that sense, he's been the best player I've ever worked with for seeing how it is on that side. But, he needs to be more selfish and focus more on himself rather than having an overview of the entire team.
It's now my time to try and also activate the other guys, having degster take more peeks with the AWP so that NiKo can focus on himself.
It's been a pleasure working with NiKo, he's super professional, and you always had these rumours about him and his past, but I have nothing bad to say about him at all. He's a joy to work with.

With degster, first and foremost at Pro League, it was by far not just him. Overall, as a team, we lacked a lot. He's more in focus because he's on the AWP, but none of us are satisfied with our performances at Pro League, and that's not just him.
I think that when it comes to degster, it's a little bit connected to what I said before. NiKo is in charge of the CT side, and I think degster was used to calling a bit more himself in HEROIC. From what I've seen from him, he has one very big trait that I like, he usually shines in big games on stages. That is a very skilled trait to have nowadays, especially as an AWPer.
When it comes to him, he just needs to take more space. He needs to be more proactive when it comes to what he needs to do, and what he wants to do, I think that was very clear at Pro League. It can't just be NiKo calling, it has to come from degster as well.

Yes, I think it is less, for several reasons. Having MR12, if you win pistol and then lose the next round, you could go a whole half without being able to afford it.
Some maps are designed where you need to have an AWP, Dust2 in particular, but even with the peeker's advantage, I'm seeing a lot more AWPers getting destroyed by riflers swinging on a good timing.
I think that life for AWPers has been a bit tough, and I think that the requirement for AWPers being able to rifle is more valid in CS2. You need to be able to do both, because you aren't always guaranteed to get an AWP.

I think that we are definitely looking to continue that. He has been used to being this player that always did what was best for the team, whether that was buying nades on pistol or sacrificing himself and running in first.
What I'm trying to do here is make him into the secondary star rifler. He can go and take some peeks that he wants, I want him to be a bigger voice on the team alongside NiKo. NiKo has a much more aggressive role here, so I want to have a secondary weapon in TeSeS. He is absolutely insane, and he just needs to know it himself.
Throughout his entire career he's been this supportive player taking bad positions and he is extremely talented, so we need to make him understand that he is really good at the game and put him into some of the better situations where he doesn't need to sacrifice himself. He's too used to doing it and it makes him quick to do it where he isn't supposed to.

I've been very positively surprised with him. One of my initial concerns bringing the team together was that you have Magisk on one side and NiKo on the other, they're two big, experienced guys with a lot of trophies and opinions on how the game should be played.
It was very important for me to distinguish the hierarchy when we got together, and that was to put NiKo in charge of the CT side and kyxsan in charge of T. Those two are in charge, and I established that we didn't have time for the outside voices. Now we are moving into a period where we can start adding these things, like how I said before with the CT sides.
When it comes to his leadership, what I was so surprised about is that he is not afraid to speak up. When you see him from the outside he seems like a very quiet guy, and he is, but he's just communicating his mind in a very calm way. This can be a very important trait going into the future, that we have this voice of reason as we also had with gla1ve back on Astralis. Maybe he was more flamboyant at times, but whenever he told people calmly that they needed to listen, everyone listens. It's the same with kyxsan.
He's a very underrated IGL, maybe not so much because we always talk about him and siuhy as the next big things, but I can see why he's getting all that praise. He has a very good mind for the game, and he's not afraid to speak it. That's two very good qualities.

There's a bit of mixed emotions facing MOUZ. Part of me wants to get revenge, it's now 2-1 in their favour, but it's also annoying playing the same teams over and over again. I guess it's just because of the rankings.
We have good expectations for what we can expect in terms of maps in the game, and we now have some days to adjust to those things, which puts it in our favour.
I would say that usually it's a bit annoying when you're the winning team in a close game. You continue to do the things that work, and also the losing team will adjust to those things. That's the mind games, and I look forward to it and to the tournament.

I hope that we are fighting for the Major, and by that I mean playoffs and hopefully deep in the playoffs. That is how we have started out this team, we had two weeks before our first event and we went out on all six maps because the end goal of this season is to be ready for the Major.
The vision for Falcons is to be the best team in the world, and if you want to be the best team in the world you have to win Majors. It might not be this time around in Austin, time flies and we're already in March playing a bunch of tournaments, but as long as I see improvement, this is what Falcons us all to do, to win Majors.