Author: Sebastian "Horizzon" Lalic

As Valve usher us into a new Counter-Strike era, they’ve taken the liberty to completely overhaul the Matchmaking system. MM in CS:GO used to be very simple, play the game, get a rank, get the rank higher. You could pick the maps ahead of time and queue no questions asked.Then during Operation Broken Fang a new form of Matchmaking was introduced, Premier mode. The gimmick was that it’d let you ban maps after you get into the game, similar to how pro teams pick/ban. This mode was then retained after Operation Broken Fang ended, becoming an alternate mode, but serving…

As Counter-Strike: Global Offensive winds down, G2 has left a legacy for the ages. The international roster joins an elite group of only two other teams who have won IEM Katowice and IEM Cologne in the same year. Those teams are Fnatic and FaZe— not bad company.Whilst the Cathedral of Counter-Strike celebrated G2’s victory, one man specifically had a party going, that man being G2’s coach: Jan “Swani” Müller. Swani became the first German to win IEM Cologne, so we asked him about it. As well as NiKo’s Nuke performance and the roster’s future in CS2.Sebastian “Horizzon” Lalic, BLIX: How…

ENCE has been the surprise package of IEM Cologne 2023, showing the same star power they had back in IEM Dallas 2023. A key portion of that star power has been Guy “NertZ” Iluz, who has shown that some players are just made for the upper echelons of Counter-Strike.Following their win over Heroic, Sebastian “Horizzon” Lalic of BLIX spoke with NertZ about his transition to tier one, the dynamic on ENCE and the team’s smooth communication.Sebastian “Horizzon” Lalic, BLIX: You’ve now finished a full season in tier one with ENCE, how has the transition been, and has anything surprised you?NertZ:…

Shortly after Vitality’s emphatic win against Cloud9, we got to speak to Shahar “flameZ” Shushan about the team’s performance. Here’s what he had to say about CT-side Mirage and why they struggled on Inferno.Sebastian “Horizzon” Lalic, BLIX: Talk to me about CT side Mirage, you guys were in their heads and took perfect space. Was it great preparation or great vibes?flameZ: You can’t really prepare for this type of game. It was mostly done by [apEX] having really good reads and by telling us “If you deny that, they are not going to have anything on the map.” That’s what…

Roster moves being leaked are part of the course in esports, but rarely do they leak as early and drag on as long as Victor “Staehr” Staehr’s move to Astralis. Jaxon reported that Astralis were interested as early as October 2022, with Staehr’s then-team Sprout rejecting any advances.Nearly one year later, the move materialized along with the restructuring of the Astralis organization and the departure of legendary IGL Lukas “Gla1ve” Rossander. We asked Staehr about newly appointed IGL Benjamin “blameF” Bremer, the team’s structure, and Ancient.Sebastian “Horizzon” Lalic, BLIX: So far, in this event, you and the team have played…

When G2 won BLAST Premier World Finals 2022 and IEM Katowice 2023 back to back, most of us assumed they’d be the team to beat for the year. But it hasn’t panned out that way.After months of middling results, G2 seemed a long way away from the squad that had seemed unbeatable earlier in the year. As a result, many fans and experts were surprised when G2 were one of only a handful of teams to not make changes over the recent off-season.Despite a shaky start to the new season at BLAST Premier Fall Groups, it now seems to have…

Back in Katowice, we got to chat with Vitality’s Magisk shortly after their disappointing loss to Liquid. Vitality have been up and down in recent months, but Magisk seems to believe in the future of the roster:Sebastian “Horizzon” Lalic, BLIX.GG: You guys have been looking better recently, is there more to come from this roster?Emil “Magisk” Reif: “I think so, we’re on the right path as a team. We are looking better, we are finding solutions on how to play better, both individually and as a unit. So, even though it’s disappointing that we didn’t get to play in the…

After G2’s win against Heroic in the IEM Katowice 2023 Grand Finals, we sat down with G2’s star man NiKo. We discussed the feelings around winning alongside his cousin, his thoughts on HooXi, and the mental side of the game.Sebastian “Horizzon” Lalic, BLIX: Congratulations, obviously. How does it feel to win with your cousin by your side?Nikola “NiKo” Kovač: “Yeah, it’s a super nice feeling, we have been in a couple of finals together, and we have lost most of them. I think now we’re on the right track as a team, so this means more to us. But yeah,…

BLIX.GG sat down and chatted with Liquid’s Jonathan “EliGE” Jablonowski yesterday morning before the IEM Katowice 2023 Grand Finals.Sebastian “Horizzon” Lalic, BLIX: Despite your result yesterday (against G2 in the Semi-Final), you’ve had some good results in this event, beating FaZe, Vitality, Spirit, and the upset kings IHC. What is your main takeaway from this event?Jonathan “EliGE” Jablonowski: “The takeaway from the event is that we had a lot of improvement really quickly. So we’re all really happy about it. We started the year with not the best start, we didn’t have enough practice and we wanted to change our…

Image: BLAST | Michal KonkolCounter-Strike careers are quite fickle, you could go from the top to the bottom in a blink of an eye. No one knows this better than jks who, one year ago, won IEM Katowice standing in for FaZe Clan only to end up teamless for a good portion of the year.We spoke to him about this and more here at IEM Katowice 2023.Sebastian “Horizzon” Lalic, BLIX: Between February and August, you came off the high of winning Katowice and then you were off a team for a while. Did you at any point panic?Justin “jks” Savage:…