Hugo ‘TheSwedishJoker’ Nilsson Meier, BLIX.GG: Anubis came out not too long ago in November and was played at the BLAST for the World Finals. What have your thoughts been on that map so far in practice?
Fatih ‘gob b’ Dayik: I was thinking after playing Anubis for two or three practices, I said I felt like they need to bring in more maps like this because it’s a good map. I don’t think anyone would say it’s not a good map. I don’t think in practice everyone loved it and everyone who I talked to was also very happy with the map compared to Ancient, which is, I think, a really bad map. But yeah, I think it’s good to have a map which I don’t like. Maybe others like Ancient more. But I think Anubis is a more well-rounded map, which is also, I think, fun to play and fun to watch.
So, I thought after a few practice games, they should bring more maps because it’s so nice to be back on the server and search for new stuff. Searching for new stuff, theory-crafting, coming on the server, coming up with ideas, it’s fun. Maybe when we play like this, what if they do this? And if you compare it to Mirage, it’s like everyone plays perfectly, with perfect timing of pushes and it’s getting boring, which I liked when I played there on a team but not now. It was like searching for new stuff, creating new meta and it is just how the map or how the game should be.
It’s more exciting and like oh, ‘this team has this idea’, what can we take out of it? It’s like mixing every small piece of a good cocktail together and that’s why we need more maps like this. The map pool should be challenging, even with ten maps in the map pool, where you can cycle seven maps and have ten good maps. Valve needs to be changing things all the time because it’s so much fun. Making small changes on Ancient alone helped to create a new meta and all this more stuff. It’s more exciting and I hope they will keep doing it.
BLIX: You’d rather them bring in new maps by the community than bring in the old maps reworked?
gob b: Yeah, most of the time the rework didn’t work so far. Before the reworks, Cache was such a good map, so was Cobble. Of course, they weren’t perfect, they could have changed a few things, definitely, I agree with that but overall, what came after couldn’t be played competitively. So, that’s why I’m afraid about what will happen to Dust 2.
That’s why bringing in new maps is also nice because you need to guess what the meta is going to be. One will set up the meta and then it will be interesting to go from there. At least searching for new stuff on the server was fun again and I love it. So, they should bring in more maps here.
BLIX: What do you think is needed for German CS to produce more talent and more German top teams, like we saw with nex, denis and Spiidi back in the day and with MOUZ as well? Now we just have BIG and Sprout but now they’ve gone international.
gob b: Yeah, this topic comes up a lot in chat on Christian Lenz’s streams, but I think it’s very hard. I don’t know what to do because it’s like there is a player base and there are hungry players but there are no organizations right now and maybe we need an influx of money or something so that the organizations have the money to have full-time teams. I think there are two full-time teams now in German CS, it’s like us of course and our academy team. Everyone else is not full-time. They cannot do it full-time; they don’t get paid that much.
So, it is very hard. The only way for young players in Germany is to go to BIG right now and they should have at least more options. Maybe in the end their dream is to come to BIG but at least they should have other options. I guess you could go to ALTERNATE aTTaX or something like that and from there, maybe even international or whatever but at the very least we need something like this. I think it is a very hard question to answer. At least I don’t have the answer right now and I hope we will find it together in the future.
BLIX: Sweden has Esports programs, for example, in high school and then in Denmark also. Do you think that could be an option?
gob b: Yes, definitely but I would ask why should a young player now start with Counter-Strike? This is the question we need to ask ourselves for every country. Certain countries have more stars, like maybe the Ukrainians, as s1mple is closer to them because he’s not that old, right? And he’s having an era, for example. My era is a bit more in the past and the young players don’t have stars to look up to, at least in Germany, that much. Of course, there’s tabseN and the BIG players but the young players need to have stars to catch on. And yeah, why should they start playing CS?
Why should they not start playing Valorant? This is what the schools need to ask themselves and I think the one answer to that would be also that CS brings out a new game. It’s been a very long time since CS:GO was released. Eleven years ago, I think, and I think it might be time for a new CS. To be honest, I think it would be fun. All the new streamers would play it. A lot of this whole new TikTok generation would play it, which is very important for the future. It is what it is.
And yeah, I think something like this could also help to revive the scene, at least in Germany because in other countries Counter-Strike is still a catch. Maybe with a new game, this could also be the case in Germany.
BLIX: You guys went 2-0 at the Legends Stage of the Rio Major and then lost the remaining games that you had there. Now, looking back at it, what do you think went wrong for you guys?
gob b: We had the fnatic game. I think we should have won that game, to be honest. I think they didn’t play that well in that tournament. I think we definitely could have beaten them and then we had Na’Vi and we played a great game against them, but they were just a little bit too strong right at that time. That’s why it was okay even after we had this lead to go out but overall, we were very happy with our situation.
Also, we had like three practice days with Elias, with s1n, and after that, we still got like top-ten. It was still okay. We would have loved to play in front of the crowd again but the game against FURIA was also like one for our lifetimes, I would say. So, it was a good tournament, but we could have done a little bit better with maybe a little better preparation or a little bit more time.
BLIX: Valve recently announced a ranking system for RMRs. Was it the right way to go with how the seeding went in the Rio Major?
gob b: It’s always hard to say with the RMR and the whole system. It is interesting if top teams play against each other. Sometimes a team has an easier route than other teams. Sometimes they have a harder route and I think it doesn’t matter how you change it, there will always be some teams that are complaining, so at least they try to change and make everyone happy.
I’m very curious if this is going to work out but yeah, sometimes I’m a soldier. I just take the rules as they are and accept them.
You can read more from gob b in part one of our two-part interview with him at the BLAST Premier Spring Groups.
Image: Copyright BLAST | [@jakhoward]
