Luis “peacemaker” Tadeu spoke to Skin.Club about some of the biggest storylines in the current CS2 scene. The experienced coach shared his thoughts on NAVI’s struggles and possible roster changes, why FUT players may be turning down bigger offers, Spirit’s chances of staying on top, YEKINDAR’s future as FURIA’s IGL, jL’s impact on Vitality, r1nkle’s first months in G2, Falcons’ drop-off after winning the Major, and the current state of the VRS system.
What is going wrong with NAVI right now?
B1ad3 said in an interview that people change rosters too much and that he believed in this roster. Then, shortly after that, they went ahead and underperformed in their last couple of events — EWC, BLAST Open Porto.
I think it is fair, what he said. To some extent, I even cracked a joke about it, because there are multiple teams with a lot of problems in their rosters. And they go ahead and hear someone like B1ad3 say that you have to give longevity to a roster for it to mature, for it to perform, and all of that.
But come on. This roster from NAVI has been together for a relatively long time now. And it’s not because he said that other teams have to go ahead and not make changes if they feel like they should, right? And this is the moment that I think NAVI… b1t has hit probably one of his weakest periods ever for NAVI. I think something definitely happened with his role or his confidence, because he’s such an amazing player.
And to see him not playing as well as he’s capable of, I think that’s massive for NAVI. I think w0nderful is a very talented kid, which I think B1ad3 did develop, but he still has a lot of potential to be developed. And I think makazze has been very, very underwhelming. I think they brought makazze with the intention to increase firepower, bring a young gun with a lot of motivation, a lot of things to prove.
And he did what? He did one or two good events, and then after that, he’s just missing. And he’s supposed to be the firepower with this team together with w0nderful and b1t, right? And he just hasn’t been performing consistently. And that is a massive issue for them. Right now, to compete on a high level, you need to have good riflers. And you need to have sort of a star…
Not sort of. You need to have a star player, just like ZywOo, donk. Or you need to have a really good, consistent team, kind of like what MOUZ is doing right now, where everybody is playing well. Tactically, they are improving. torzsi has been performing better as an AWPer. So everything needs to click. And you can still see how hard it is for MOUZ to lift trophies on a consistent basis. So right now, you have Aleksib not playing very well individually.
You have b1t underperforming individually. You have makazze, the star rifler, underperforming. And then, on top of that, you have iM, who’s been in this team for a long, long time. And you know he’s reliable. But you also know that he’s not going to pull crazy numbers. He’s not going to do anything crazy. So I think it’s just too much. I think they need to go and probably bring one of those younger… I don’t know if you’re going to ask me about this.
But I think they need to go and make roster changes for sure. And they should try to acquire probably that guy from… If I were them, I would go for Davy. The Inner Circle guy. I think he’s really, really talented. Or someone else. Like a young Ukrainian player. There are multiple options on the market. I know they probably wouldn’t consider Russians.
But Ukrainians, Europeans, they speak English as well. So they could go for English-speaking roster changes. They could try and grab someone from FUT, for example. The dem0n guy. That could be massive for them as well. dem0n, Davy, whatever. They should definitely aim for those young kids who are proving themselves to be very good players right now.
James Banks reported that dem0n, Krabeni and dziugss declined offers from NAVI. Why do you think they decided to stay with FUT?
I think that probably it is surprising to some extent, because they are in an organization right now where… Well, certainly it’s a big organization. They’re probably getting paid very well for what they accomplished so far. Otherwise, they wouldn’t decline. But I think they have very good chemistry together, this FUT roster. They proved to everybody that they haven’t reached their full potential yet.
I see their run kind of like what we saw from The MongolZ over the last two or three years, where they were constantly developing. They were constantly getting better and better results. They were also a young roster. And everybody was excited to watch them play. I think they have a very unique, aggressive, proactive, nice way of playing Counter-Strike that everybody loves watching. And I think they just believe in the roster. I think they’re getting paid well.
I think they believe that they can beat the likes of NAVI. They can beat every team in the world if they stick together. Which is probably the main reason why they all renewed their contracts and decided to give it a go. And obviously, let’s say they follow the same path as The MongolZ. Where they start making playoffs, but they cannot win events. And they cannot beat the likes of Vitality, Falcons, Spirit and those guys. If that becomes an issue, I would say, for the next six months plus.
Then I think the next time they have to renew contracts, they’re going to consider offers. Because it’s just going to get to a point where they will start feeling frustrated. And perhaps their performance will even drop, because they’re going to have that feeling in the back of their minds, like: well, we renewed contracts, we believed in this. And now we’re just incapable of fighting against those guys. And I also heard that there is a rumor that they will replace their AWPer, right? So let’s see how that one goes.
If FUT replace their AWPer, what kind of player do they need: someone experienced like SunPayus or broky, or a younger, more aggressive AWPer?
Here’s the thing. I think they have a very inexperienced roster, so they could definitely benefit from a little bit more experience. But at the same time, I think the way they like to play does require a proactive AWPer. Because I see Krabeni as an IGL. From what it looks like, it’s either very, very set, but I don’t believe that from watching the way they play. I feel like the players have a lot of freedom to do the stuff and plays and things that they like.
And because they are a very aggressive team who can also play passively, but they mix the styles a lot, I think they would benefit a lot from having an aggressive AWPer. Could you imagine a guy like m0NESY in that roster? Where he’s going to be constantly making plays, which are going to be followed up by dem0n, by dziugss or xfl0ud. I think they would benefit a lot from having an AWPer that would create even more space for the riflers to shine and for them to play better. So I think that’s the type of style they would benefit from.
I think that from the names I saw, broky definitely has a little bit of that. The problem with broky has been consistency over the last few months. But when he’s having his day, he is that type of guy. He’s reliable. He’s very good at clutches. He’s a smart guy. And he will go and make plays just like he did in FaZe a lot of the time. Maybe playing for a younger roster would activate that in him again. And maybe it would work. Other than that, SunPayus, I feel like he’s a more passive AWPer. Consistent, but passive. Way too passive lately. So it’s a tricky one. It’s a very tricky one. But I would definitely go for an aggressive AWPer.
broky has been out of competition and inactive on social media. What do you think is going on with him, and when do you expect to see him again?
broky has always been a very low-profile guy, right? You can tell from his interviews. He’s a very introspective guy. Funny to some extent, has his own charisma, but he’s a very low-profile guy. And I think that when he got benched from FaZe and then he came back, he really believed that he would play better. And that they would give him time. That he would be capable of coming back to his roots and playing as well as he did in the past. That happened for very few matches.
And then once he got benched again, I think that took a toll on him. I hope he’s doing fine. I hope he’s not in a dark place thinking about retiring or anything like that. Because I think he has a lot of potential. But he needs to be put in a system where, first of all, he’s going to be the experienced guy, where people will respect him because of his experience. And also a team where they trust his full potential. And I think that in FaZe, because of everything that happened, because of him being so many years in the team, they already started questioning him. And that affected him. So I hope that’s the case, because I think he’s a good AWPer.
Spirit currently look like the strongest team in the world. How long do you think they can stay at this level?
As long as donk keeps putting up that performance, I think they’re going to be really strong. Jokes aside, I think you’ve got to give credit to hally again, and magixx as an IGL. And in the last event, we saw sh1ro, everybody doubting sh1ro. Rumors about molodoy performing, perhaps joining Spirit at the end of the year. I heard that, at least. And then everybody is doubting sh1ro, and he goes and does what he did in the last final.
I think he proved to everybody that he has what it takes to be a great AWPer. Sometimes I feel like he’s way too passive. But when he’s having his day and hitting his shots, he’s just insane. Probably just as good as ZywOo in terms of his ability and his consistency with the AWP. He rarely misses shots. He positions himself very well. He rarely makes mistakes. He rarely overpeeks.
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Really good with utility. He’s just a very smart guy. And sometimes he’s just not hitting his shots as much as he did in the last final. But they have a very good roster, I think. And it certainly helps that you have donk putting up a 1.40-plus rating pretty much every single game and being undoubtedly the best player in the world right now. Playing as consistently as he does. And he’s probably not even at his top performance yet. He’s such a young guy. So who knows what the limit is for this Spirit roster? And the only team that I see right now that could potentially challenge them on a good day, and they already did, is MOUZ. I think MOUZ has the tools.
They have the firepower. And tactically, they could challenge Spirit on certain maps, just like they already did at BLAST Bounty. Other than that, you could argue and say Falcons and Vitality. But right now with Vitality and Falcons, I feel like both of these teams would need that specific day where ZywOo is incredible. And then donk is not playing as well as that. And everybody on the team is performing at a very good level. And then you have someone like sh1ro not playing as well as he normally does.
magixx not putting up good numbers. And then maybe another guy, zweih or zont1x, not playing well. If you have sh1ro plus two more guys not playing well individually, then yeah. Then Spirit can lose to any of those teams. But if not, if they play well individually and they only have magixx putting up bad numbers, just like it was in the last tournament, then no. I think Spirit have a very good tactical understanding of the game. And they have a lot of firepower.
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YEKINDAR has already been FURIA’s IGL on several maps. Should they keep him in that role or look for another captain?
I think they shouldn’t keep him as an IGL, even though I think that maybe in the future he could become one. But he already stated himself in interviews that he doesn’t want to IGL. He knows that it’s going to — it already took a toll on his game. You can tell that he’s not playing as well as he did last year. And that is, first, because they’re not winning events again. Once you start losing, you start questioning your plays, your decisions. There are mistakes. And you lose confidence and all of that.
But I think he has surprised me in a positive way on the maps that he’s calling. From what I understood, he’s calling on Anubis, which they rarely play. But he’s calling on Cache and Ancient, right? And I think, surprisingly, they have been playing well on those maps. I like his play on those T sides. Most of the time, it does work. But again, for FURIA to win events, they need firepower. And once you have molodoy with health issues, inconsistent as he is right now, he could drop 30 kills like he did today in a game against G2. Or he could just be completely missing like he was on the last map today against G2.
So he goes from dropping 30 kills to being completely missing on a map. Then you have KSCERATO, who is probably the third- or second-best rifler in the world right now after donk. And he has been the only very consistent, reliable guy on that team. And last year, for them to win the events they did, they had KSCERATO playing well, molodoy being one of the best AWPers in the world, and they had YEKINDAR playing just like he was in Virtus.pro back in the day: a very aggressive rifler, creating space, calling for the team on the CT side.
And once you have YEKINDAR playing badly and calling, it doesn’t matter. Then you have FalleN not putting up good numbers. yuurih is there, but doesn’t do much damage. And then you have the problems that I mentioned. I think it’s just not going to work in the long run. So I would recommend them to get YEKINDAR back into his role comfortably, where he’s going to help with the firepower, where he’s going to create space on the CT side, and also help with calling as a secondary caller on the T side.
And then they need to get an IGL. Whether that’s going to be a Brazilian, whether that’s going to be an experienced guy — as far as I understood, they’re going to keep FalleN in the organization. Get a guy, get FalleN to teach him how to IGL. I don’t know. But they shouldn’t keep YEKINDAR as the IGL, in my opinion.
How do you rate jL’s performance for Vitality at BLAST Open Porto?
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I think that was pretty good. I think that it is very hard for him to join a team that probably has a system that they developed over many, many months, many, many years, which has been very effective. And can you imagine the amount of theory that they did prior to becoming as good as they are right now? A lot of mistakes, a lot of things that they had to discuss, how to play in certain situations. And jL completely missed all of that, right? So it is very hard for him to join such a mature team and then just be kind of plug-and-play and do his best.
He has a very good level. He’s a very good player. He has a lot of charisma. Very funny guy, very nice guy to be around. You can tell that going from mezii, who is a very introspective guy, to a guy like jL, you can benefit from the atmosphere, the hype, the good vibes that he brings to the team. That also helps the team to perform better. Everybody knows how important the mental aspect of the game is. So I think he brings a lot of that to the team, a lot of excitement, a lot of: “I want to prove myself, I want to do as well as mezii, I want to win with you guys.”
And that motivates a team that has been together for such a long time with the same roster. Bringing new vibes can be positive, but it also can hurt, which is the reason why it is hard for them to compete on a very consistent level against the top dogs. But jL is going to be there, in my opinion, in terms of numbers. I don’t see him underperforming firepower-wise. I think the challenge is more about winning events with him when you have MOUZ and Spirit, and potentially Falcons on their best day. For Vitality to beat those guys, I think that’s the biggest challenge. But they’re still going to do great and make the majority of the playoffs, in my opinion.
Falcons won the Major, but their results have been much worse since then. What happened to them?
I have a very strong opinion about this. I think that everybody hyped karrigan after the Major and all of that. And I respect that, I respect him a lot as an IGL. I actually saw apEX talking about this on HLTV Confirmed last week, and I completely agree with him. Falcons right now have a bombsite with karrigan that is just the weakest bombsite for them right now. And karrigan hasn’t been playing well individually, and everybody is trying to abuse that. This sort of reminds me of back in the day when NAVI had Zeus as an IGL.
I remember this very specifically because I was calling against him back in the day, and I was coaching as well and playing them many, many times. And we all, not only me, but everybody, were trying to abuse Zeus to a point where s1mple had to…
For example, B on Mirage. He had to start going B with his AWP so many times because people would just go and pop B on Zeus. And he would maybe get a kill, maybe he would just die, and they would easily lose the round, right? And I feel like that’s kind of the scenario with Falcons right now, where every team tries to abuse karrigan. karrigan hasn’t been playing very well individually, and that is a problem. He needs… There’s no excuse. He needs to play better individually, even though he’s calling great, even though they won the Major.
Yeah, sure, but they won the Major, and people just forgot that m0NESY had probably one of his best tournaments ever. NiKo literally had his best tournament for ages with Falcons. They had TeSeS playing really well individually and being as good and as consistent as he was. And for them to win the Major, they needed to have every single player on that team playing really well individually. And once that doesn’t happen, then that’s a problem. Then they start losing to teams that they shouldn’t. Then they start struggling. Then they rely completely on m0NESY. They need m0NESY to pull crazy stuff for them to win.
And I get the feeling that that’s what happened at the Major. I don’t want to take anything away from them, but for them to win again, they would need all four players, plus karrigan, doing at least decently for them to win consistently. And I don’t see that happening. So unless karrigan starts playing better individually and they also continue to develop strategically, I don’t see them creating an era or anything like that.
How do you rate r1nkle’s performance in G2 so far? Has he adapted well, and does his style fit what G2 need from an AWPer?
I remember r1nkle from NIP. I watched him a couple of times. He’s very young, and he does have that aggressive, proactive style that G2 could benefit from. The last few AWPers they had have been passive AWPers who didn’t really create much space for them. It’s been how many months that he’s been in the roster? It’s been since June, right? So not that long yet. I think it’s too early to say. His numbers haven’t really impressed me so far in G2, but G2 haven’t impressed me so far either.
I don’t think that it’s r1nkle’s problem. I think it’s more about the way that they play, their inconsistent map pool. I think that team has more problems than just the AWPer, just r1nkle. Once they start getting more confidence, once they start getting a stronger map pool, and he feels more comfortable and gets more repetition with his team, and gets confidence, just like he’s doing right now. They are in the semifinals at FISSURE. Maybe they win the event, maybe they lose in the final, whatever. But the more repetition he gets, the more time he has, I think he’s going to play better.
But one thing that we all need to keep an eye on is whether he’s going for those aggressive plays, whether he’s trying to create space. Because if he doesn’t, if he’s just one more guy there and isn’t playing aggressively as an AWPer, then I don’t think he’s going to last long. I think probably by the end of the year or the start of next year, they’re going to change again. And G2 do need that type of style from an AWPer.
Do you think VRS has improved the professional CS2 ecosystem, or has it created new problems, especially after the recent September ranking delay?
I saw what happened. They released the ranking a day later, and then the TOs didn’t know what to do. They had to use the August ranking or something to invite teams. That was a one-time thing because it was a holiday in the US. It shouldn’t have happened, but it did happen. And I think that in that scenario, TOs should just email Valve and ask: “Hey, what’s going on? We’re waiting for your ranking. What should we do?”
This never happened before. I don’t think they should create panic and release invites without asking Valve. If Valve is wrong and didn’t update the ranking and something happened, they shouldn’t panic about it. They should just wait a day or two, email Valve. They have direct contact with Valve and just check what’s going on. And I’m sure Valve is going to be reasonable if the issue is on their side. But besides that, I think that VRS created… I know there are many downsides for smaller organizations.
It did create a bubble in Counter-Strike where it’s very hard for upcoming teams to break that bubble, to be in the biggest events in the world and all of that. I know that sucks. But together with that, it does make organizations invest more into their rosters. It did create excitement because there are all these other events happening, these smaller events happening on LAN, creating opportunities for younger rosters, for younger players to play on LAN, to show themselves, to perhaps join their first professional team by playing those LANs.
And there are so many opportunities right now. Back in the day, there were just a bunch of online tournaments. There would rarely be LAN events. And now we have a bunch of LAN events. Just in Portugal, where I live, they’re hosting events every single month, pretty much LAN events with top teams having to play those smaller events because of VRS. So I think it did create chaos to some extent, but it also created a nice environment that I missed from back in the day, with a lot of LANs, a lot of new players showing up, a lot of new teams trying to fight for VRS. So there are always upsides and downsides to everything in life, and to VRS as well. But so far, I still think that they’re going to make changes. I still think that Valve will, with time, change things and try to make it better for everybody. But so far, I wouldn’t complain that much. No, I think that it’s fine as it is.
