![\"Vitality\u2019s](\"https:\/\/community.skin.club\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/Background-1-5.jpg\")
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It comes down to what are the other maps that you could try to beat Vitality on. For most of them, that could be Mirage, Inferno, or maybe Overpass if you feel like you\u2019ve got some crazy advantage there. That\u2019s gotta be the grand storyline here. Is there even anyone that\u2019s gonna be strong enough? Who\u2019s gonna have the firepower? Who\u2019s gonna have the stuff to do it? I think that\u2019s probably the most exciting part of this Major in some sense.<\/span><\/p>\n If Vitality win the Major, does it become a dynasty conversation? Do you think they become the greatest team of all time?<\/b><\/p>\n I think they already are. But yes, 100 percent. If they win the Major here, then it closes. Then we don\u2019t have to ask people any longer if they are the greatest team of all time. We can just say, \u201cYeah, of course they are.\u201d <\/span>What they\u2019re doing right now is amazing, and I have no idea why people say it\u2019s boring. I\u2019m not on board with that. I don\u2019t think it\u2019s boring. I think it\u2019s sick to watch them play Counter-Strike to this awesome level. They are really awesome.<\/span><\/p>\n How close do you think Falcons are to becoming a team that could take down Vitality?<\/b><\/p>\n I\u2019m gonna be super biased here because I have such a stake in NiKo winning a Major. I have followed NiKo\u2019s entire Counter-Strike career. I love watching him play, and I think he obviously has an enormous mental thing that he has to overcome in the big games when we get late in the tournament, maybe especially grand finals. <\/span>But my faith in NiKo is still there. I still think he can do it. I don\u2019t think I will probably ever give that up. I admit the bias there.<\/span><\/p>\n With the rest of them, especially with kyxsan, with a little bit more time, they seem happier. They seem to be in a better space for most of it. They seem to be laughing a bit more. They have the firepower. They have everything they need to beat a team like Vitality. What they don\u2019t have is the mental victory over themselves. If they can get that, then it\u2019s on.<\/span><\/p>\n Talking about FURIA, they were obviously a lot better last year compared to the level they have shown recently. What do you think has gone wrong for them?<\/b><\/p>\n I don\u2019t really know. They\u2019re still putting on interesting fights, right? I think they\u2019re taking maps off Spirit and Falcons and stuff like that. In Astana, I believe they did that a couple of times. So it\u2019s not like it\u2019s the end of the world, but obviously there is something that\u2019s kinda missing.<\/span><\/p>\n I think molodoy isn\u2019t the shock-and-awe AWP player that we saw last year in Astana, or towards the end of last year as well. So there is something there that\u2019s not really working. I don\u2019t know what it is. I wish I had a better, more precise answer to that question. <\/span>But I\u2019m not gonna count them out. I feel like FURIA are well aware that things aren\u2019t at a hundred percent. And the storyline obviously with FalleN, this being kinda his retirement year, it couldn\u2019t be a better storyline if this is when they turn it around. I\u2019m not gonna even pretend to be surprised if that happens. I have a lot of respect for FalleN and his time in the game, so if anyone could, it would be him.<\/span><\/p>\n Speaking of retirement year, we had the news today that KRIMZ would be parting ways with fnatic after ten years. We are seeing a lot of players kind of passing on the torch. How does it make you feel, given that you have watched them and worked with them very closely for almost a decade?<\/b><\/p>\n It always feels kinda weird, but there\u2019s always gonna be a time when you have to say, \u201cOkay, this is not what I\u2019m looking for anymore.\u201d <\/span>KRIMZ has got to be one of the most consistently great players. If you took an average of his performance and divided it by however long he\u2019s been playing, it\u2019s just amazing. He\u2019s so consistently good. Never one that\u2019s gonna be in a million frags or highlights, because a lot of the work that he does is not gonna be contributing in that sense. But he\u2019s getting the kills.<\/span><\/p>\n I think we always used to say, sometimes you just see KRIMZ with 30 kills on the scoreboard, and you don\u2019t really know how that even happened. But he\u2019s just getting there. <\/span>I have so much respect for him. His contribution to the game, and maybe especially to fnatic as an organization and Swedish Counter-Strike as a whole, is awesome. It\u2019s always a mixed feeling because you always want the story of one more go, one more go. But for KRIMZ, I feel like this is not a bad time to say, \u201cYou know what? I\u2019ve done enough. I\u2019ve done so much.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n We are entering a stage where a new generation is coming up. The average age of players is much younger compared to maybe five or seven years ago. Do you think CS is shifting into a younger era?<\/b><\/p>\n It would make sense if we could get there. There\u2019s probably a huge benefit to training people earlier, to getting them used to what it means to play high-level Counter-Strike, to the travel, to the stages. The earlier you can get that experience, the better.<\/span><\/p>\n And I think we\u2019ve got young players now that are legitimate inspirations. Someone like donk, right? You see donk being able to become perhaps the best player in the game at the moment. I think that\u2019s a great inspiration for a younger generation. <\/span>So yeah, I think it\u2019s gonna be happening more. Hopefully that will encourage more people, more academy teams, more all these things. I still think it\u2019s an underappreciated part of the circuit. I wish we had more of that stuff.<\/span><\/p>\n Coming to FaZe, they are in a very interesting situation right now. They have an AWPer who has been underperforming, an IGL who does not have that much experience, frozen\u2019s future with FaZe is uncertain, and jcobbb has had a lot of questions raised. If you were the GM of FaZe, how would you rebuild them?<\/b><\/p>\n If I ever end up GM-ing any team, the number one thing that I\u2019m always gonna care about is what are our expectations and when do we wanna meet those expectations. <\/span>For me, the important thing is: are FaZe trying to build a roster that\u2019s gonna win the Major at the end of the year? Is that the goal? Then we need to make really quick progress in a bunch of different ways. On the leadership front, we need to work on the map pool, we need to work on broky\u2019s consistency. There are just a lot of things to solve in a pretty short amount of time. It\u2019s not impossible, but it\u2019s a very, very hard job.<\/span><\/p>\n But if we say instead, \u201cWe wanna be a 2027 competitive team, and this year is about finding the right constellation between coaches and fifth players, and we\u2019re gonna be reworking everything, and maybe even rebuilding the identity of the team around Twistzz and everything else,\u201d then if that\u2019s the case, if he\u2019s gonna keep being the leader, the level of expectation for when we are doing these things has to be the same for all players on the team, or this is not gonna work at all.<\/span><\/p>\n They still have some insane players there. They could build something behind this. It\u2019s just that the downfall of FaZe, with karrigan leaving and everything, left such a weird taste in everyone\u2019s mouth. But they still have some great players.<\/span><\/p>\n With the amount of criticism these players have faced, do you think broky or jcobbb deserve a spot in the team?<\/b><\/p>\n I always find it tricky. For broky, I\u2019m almost more critical. I feel like most of the community disagree with me on this. <\/span>But for jcobbb, I feel like he was thrown into this team in such a bizarre way. For one, he\u2019s replacing rain, which means everyone\u2019s kinda gonna hate you right off the bat because everybody loves rain. People are gonna be like, \u201cOh my God, why? This is not good enough.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Then he joined the team, and rain actually was back playing a tournament randomly because I think jcobbb couldn\u2019t make it or something. Then jcobbb is back. Right at the start of him joining this team, there was so much weird, crazy back and forth.<\/span><\/p>\n jcobbb never had that experience of playing with the real FaZe, where you had epic comebacks and the whole team was flowing and karrigan was laughing and everyone was like that FaZe feeling that everybody loves. jcobbb never had that. For him, you just don\u2019t even know what the good side looks like. You\u2019ve only seen the negative side where everyone is struggling, broky is not contributing, the whole thing is crashing out, and everyone is kind of like that.<\/span><\/p>\n So I have a lot more sympathy for jcobbb in that sense. But whether or not that means he deserves a spot in the team, those things don\u2019t really correlate. If I\u2019m the manager of that team, I\u2019m thinking, \u201cDo I think he can come back and reach high levels? Yes or no?\u201d And that\u2019s the only thing that matters. I think the \u201cdeserve\u201d question doesn\u2019t apply that well to professional teams.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" With the IEM Cologne 2026 Major Stage 3 just around the corner, the storylines are stacking up fast. Vitality\u2019s dominance, NiKo\u2019s pursuit of the one title that has escaped him, a changing of the guard as veterans like KRIMZ step away, and rebuilding projects like FaZe trying to find their footing. We sat down with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":61,"featured_media":397641,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[1690,459,457],"class_list":["post-397500","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-iem-cologne-major-2026","tag-niko","tag-team-falcons"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/community.skin.club\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/PGL-Bucharest-2025Group-Stage-Day-1.png\")
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/community.skin.club\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Kyousuke_at_IEM_Cologne_2025.jpg\")
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/community.skin.club\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Jcobbb_at_BLAST_Open_Fall_2025.webp\")