Episode 57 — lauNX on FUT's Victory at PGL Bucharest 2026 & Professional Struggles

[Banks] It is episode 57 of the All About Counter-Strike podcast.

[Banks] We've got a lot to cover in here, as always.

[Banks] And in a few moments' time, we'll have a special guest joining us.

[Banks] We'll get into that in a second.

[Banks] But as always, Devon, let me do it.

[Banks] It is the 13th of April, 2026.

[Banks] I Am Rio has just started.

[Banks] If you guys are looking for stuff on iMbryo, we did that in the last episode.

[Banks] So go back and watch that in case you missed it.

[Banks] We did all our predictions, all our thoughts.

[Banks] For me right now, it is 3.44 in the afternoon, which means it's 4.44 for Devil.

[Banks] All the fours across the board.

[Banks] DW, how are you doing?

[Banks] How's your week been?

[Devilwalk] Good.

[Banks] Or last week from between the last episode?

[Devilwalk] I've had, obviously, last episode we filmed was on my birthday.

[Devilwalk] And that was in the middle of the week.

[Devilwalk] So I've been doing, you know, a little bit of celebration with my girlfriend during the weekend.

[Devilwalk] So we...

[Devilwalk] Checked into a hotel.

[Devilwalk] We went to some restaurants.

[Devilwalk] Got a little bit hammered and slept good and had a good, you know, breakfast at a hotel.

[lauNX] you you

[Devilwalk] So it was cozy.

[Banks] Are you recovered?

[Devilwalk] I'm recovered, yes.

[Devilwalk] I'm fully recovered from the shenanigans of the weekend.

[Banks] You recovered?

[Banks] okay that's good then that's good you recovered and you're ready for this one well i have been doing nothing but whole baby duties still no streaming no gaming nothing else i was watching a few of the games i was watching some of the bucharest matches a baby on my chest you know it's a new experience of playing cs but at least he's getting into it early on now

[Devilwalk] Yeah.

[Banks] normally when we have a guest on it's normally a focus just on that guest it's all about that particular person but for this one we want to do something a little bit different we wanted to bring our special guest in

[Banks] a little bit to ask some of your questions get a bit of background on him obviously he's very well known by this point he's doing all the interviews for his team but we're also going to talk about bucharest what it was like the whole event for him as his team went on to win the whole event and

[Banks] Some of us got this prediction right quite well.

[Banks] We went in the right direction with it.

[Banks] So let's not wait any longer.

[Banks] Let's get straight into it.

[Banks] It's going to be our PGL Bucharest 2026 review with Foots Lounce.

[Banks] Lounce, thank you very much for joining us, my friend.

[Banks] You got a big smile on your face already.

[Banks] How are you doing?

[lauNX] I'm doing good.

[lauNX] Thank you for inviting me, guys.

[lauNX] It's an honor to take this podcast.

[lauNX] I'm doing good.

[lauNX] I'm still thinking about the win.

[lauNX] As I said before, I feel...

[lauNX] I still cannot believe it, kind of, you know?

[Devilwalk] Yep.

[lauNX] I mean, for me, it's been seven years of started playing professional CS and only now I won my first trophy, right?

[lauNX] So all these years, all these struggles are like going above my head and I'm thinking like, wow, it actually happened.

[lauNX] And yeah.

[Banks] you know what i love about this as well right is i'll be honest with you because i'm always honest with you we have quite a few chats on instagram or at events together i remember when you were on sprout and you remember the the manager daniel

[Banks] German guy.

[Banks] Yeah.

[Banks] He told me he was like, this guy is so good.

[Banks] Like he's going to be the next best thing.

[Banks] Like you need to watch this player.

[Banks] And I remember telling him at the time, I said, I see him and I see it looks good.

[Banks] But I said, he's not there yet.

[Banks] Like for me, he didn't have that special thing at that moment in time.

[Banks] right but your development your growth your your persistence as going as a player and and what you've been able to do how you've matured and kind of the

[lauNX] Thank you.

[Banks] the career trajectory you've taken you know it's so different compared to what a lot of other players who are fighting for the top has been like so just let us start with that is you obviously knew you were always good but how did you actually now make it work when you've had so many up and downs

[lauNX] yeah I mean I think first it's all coming from my mentality right because I think like the most two important things is one is that I have a big ego on myself and two I'm very self-critical on what I do and what I want for my life

[lauNX] So, like I said, some expectations kind of from an early age and I just couldn't sleep on them.

[Banks] Yeah.

[lauNX] And it's also because I don't know how to say it, but like my mom is a warrior and she kind of raised me alone.

[lauNX] And having her as a role model in my life, it's I don't know, I just cannot give up on something she fully trusted me on.

[lauNX] Right.

[lauNX] It's like something I want to fight for me, but also for her, because she put like kind of her future, the family's future in me to, you know, go further and do is good for us.

[lauNX] So this is like the biggest points kind of.

[Devilwalk] that's obviously like incredible like just having such a role model but I was wondering a little bit actually on that question that Banks posed

[lauNX] um right now

[Devilwalk] you in Sprout like because right now you're kind of an emotional leader you're driving you know the players you're screaming a lot you know you're vocal and and

[Devilwalk] I can see that you're giving motivation, you know, when someone does a good play, he's not, you know, left alone to just having that good play.

[lauNX] Thank you.

[Devilwalk] You let him know how good that was.

[Devilwalk] Is that something you did in Sprout or is it something that you've kind of developed and felt comfortable in this team comparably to back then?

[lauNX] I used to do it also in Sprout but not as much because I was a kid and I didn't I mean I'm still young but I don't see myself as a kid yeah but I don't I just don't see myself as a kid yet anymore I mean so yeah I mean I was doing it in Sprout but not a lot

[Banks] You are still young.

[Devilwalk] Were you a bit of a rager back then?

[lauNX] Because back then I had so many problems in a mental way.

[lauNX] I was always thinking about stats.

[lauNX] I was always thinking about what people will say.

[lauNX] And I was always getting up in my head.

[lauNX] uh not rager on the team but i was raging on myself a lot like i never i never raged like never in my career and i can ask anyone for my teammates all teammates i never reached to anyone

[Devilwalk] Okay.

[Banks] Mm-hmm

[Devilwalk] Yeah.

[lauNX] inside the team or directly to a teammate and the only biggest problem with me and still is sometimes I expect way too much from myself and when I fail it hits me so hard that I go like

[lauNX] very crazy sometimes, but just on myself.

[lauNX] And then of course it affects the team.

[lauNX] So that's why I'm working so much on it because I know if I can stop this mental thing in my head, then I can make it work even better.

[lauNX] So, yeah.

[Devilwalk] It's a superpower.

[Devilwalk] Like, you can look at all the, you know, great players that we've had.

[Banks] Definitely.

[lauNX] um

[Devilwalk] You know, if you look at Apex, emotional leader, you know, he has had his struggles and, you know,

[Devilwalk] throughout his career with dealing with that.

[Devilwalk] But if you can harness it and use it for good, like you're doing right now in foot, it becomes like a superpower.

[Devilwalk] You become super valuable for a team.

[lauNX] Thank you.

[Devilwalk] You can change the mood.

[Devilwalk] You can shift moods from, you know,

[Devilwalk] from going from the bottom to the top obviously you can you can do the reverse as well but you at least have the power to control it in some sense

[Banks] Definitely.

[lauNX] yeah i mean for me it's also a bit lucky because i got the chance to play with such young players right because

[lauNX] I feel like if I would have played in another more experienced team, I don't think I would have had the same results.

[lauNX] Because I feel with these guys we connect in so many different ways and we got so close to each other in such a short time that...

[lauNX] I don't think it would have been possible with someone twice my age.

[lauNX] And that's just the reality of things.

[Banks] yeah and that happens by the way for so many players i think i remember talking to you guys inclusion of poker and i remember talking to coolio and some of the other players on your team and i just said the best thing you guys can do is stay together because if one player gets taken from this and breaks this up

[Banks] that player probably won't end up so happy on another team because he won't be given the same voice, the same freedom, you know, like what you guys have built.

[Banks] I know people joke and meme on the fact that people say family in a team, but I mean...

[Banks] There are a lot of teams that say family, and we already know they're not a family, right?

[lauNX] I mean... Yeah, Misuta replaced my cause and I replaced Misuta.

[Banks] You can see it from how they behave and act.

[Banks] But you guys are a different breed.

[Banks] And the thing I wanted to look at with that is you were the last player into the team.

[Banks] Obviously, Mikazi goes out, you come in, right?

[Devilwalk] It was my foot, wasn't it?

[Banks] Um...

[Banks] Was Masuda on full?

[Banks] But he was never full for the roster, if I'm right.

[lauNX] No, he got signed in the beginning with the main roster and he played for one month.

[Banks] Yeah.

[Devilwalk] Yeah, it was like a month.

[Banks] Ah.

[lauNX] Yeah.

[Banks] It was so short, I thought it was like a loan.

[lauNX] Yeah.

[Banks] They weren't happy with him, and then he went.

[Banks] Okay, so he even got signed.

[lauNX] He got signed, yes.

[Banks] So Masuda was signed, then he went, and then they found you.

[Banks] But...

[Banks] What was it like for you coming into a team where, including the coach, five people have been together for so long, and then you are like the outsider stepping on into the team?

[lauNX] I mean, not a big problem because I feel all my career I've been going around teams, joining new people, new lineups, old lineups.

[lauNX] I've been in all the scrambles possible in the national scene when I was young.

[lauNX] I played in every itineration lineup possible, so...

[Banks] Mm-hmm.

[lauNX] I think on that side, again, I got a lot of experience and personally it didn't affect me in any way.

[lauNX] If anything, it made it easier because it's only me who has to get close to them.

[lauNX] It's not them to me, right?

[lauNX] So I can get used to everything very fast.

[lauNX] Also in real life, I don't have problems with...

[lauNX] Learning new stuff, learning new people, getting to know the culture, getting to know the rules.

[lauNX] I like it.

[lauNX] It's a new challenge.

[lauNX] Why not?

[Banks] That's nice.

[Banks] It's a positive mindset to have of it all as well.

[Banks] And how quickly, if you're being honest, did it come together where you felt so close with the other individuals and

[Banks] Like, how did that process work?

[Banks] How were you all able to do it?

[Banks] Because obviously, it's not just your work.

[Banks] It's the team's work, the coaches work, you know, it's everyone around you.

[lauNX] I think the moment we kind of glued together it was winning Drakulon I think prior to Drakulon we won some online tournaments but that's nothing because when you win a LAN tournament even if it was a small LAN tournament

[Banks] Yeah.

[lauNX] Like just the feeling of winning a trophy together, like everyone is feeling the emotions, like smiling, you know, it's good.

[lauNX] It's a crazy feeling.

[lauNX] I mean, Deville, you know for sure, you did it many times.

[lauNX] It's like you can't get enough of it.

[lauNX] Every time it's the same feeling, but it's so nice.

[Devilwalk] Yep.

[lauNX] And I think that moment, it's when we kind of got very close together.

[lauNX] And then from there, we just jumped.

[Banks] Yeah.

[lauNX] Like each tournament we went by, it was the Jim Hextall home.

[lauNX] There we lost in the grand finals.

[lauNX] But again, our style, we choked the finals, but we got to run.

[lauNX] And then with bigger tournaments, it was just the same beautiful story.

[lauNX] We fail, but we learn, we fix, and then next tournament we do better.

[Devilwalk] So would you say that this has kind of been you know because you've always hovered you know around the top 20 mark you know you've you know competed in that kind of I don't know gateway towards tier one for quite a while even before you joined the lineup.

[lauNX] Hi.

[Devilwalk] But the Dracula, was it like a springboard of belief for you guys that you can do it even at bigger scenes?

[lauNX] I think so because it was a LAN tournament again it was like that was the biggest question mark with this lineup like biggest what if I think for anyone like can they do it I mean can we do it on LAN like can they actually do the same stuff on LAN than online and yes we do it but

[Devilwalk] Yeah.

[lauNX] Actually, we do it even better.

[lauNX] We are much more confident on LAN.

[lauNX] We feel much better on LAN.

[lauNX] The mental is much more positive on LAN because we are next to each other.

[lauNX] If someone is sad, we can lift him up.

[lauNX] There is no problem with that.

[lauNX] We try to be there for each other.

[lauNX] But when you're at home, it's not the same because you can't see what the other guy is doing right next to you.

[lauNX] You can say nice try and then next moment you mute and you just slam everything in your room.

[lauNX] And that's not good, but I can know it.

[lauNX] So that's the good side about playing with us, because we see our flaws.

[lauNX] We see when we tilt.

[lauNX] We see when we don't feel good in the game.

[lauNX] And then we can just, okay, look, on the vote, you did that.

[lauNX] Why did you do that?

[lauNX] Why did you feel bad?

[lauNX] Like, what happened?

[lauNX] Tell me.

[lauNX] I can fix it.

[lauNX] Or maybe Kuljo can fix it.

[lauNX] Someone can fix it.

[Banks] Yeah.

[lauNX] There is always a fix.

[lauNX] We just need to speak about it.

[Banks] And do you think it's quite actually good, the dynamic you guys have in the team, where it's a European team, but it's kind of like an Eastern European team overall, yeah?

[lauNX] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Banks] Like, all of you are from that side of Europe, where the mentality, like, I live in Ukraine, right?

[Banks] I understand...

[Banks] how some of this mentality works and the differences between say, the Western Europe teams.

[Banks] Do you think that's a very important factor of how you have these conversations?

[lauNX] Yes, totally, totally, because I feel like for sure there are some people in Western countries that have been living a bad life from the start, like, you know, but I think dominantly us Eastern Europeans were more used to getting the shovel, you know.

[Banks] Yeah.

[lauNX] with the dirt yeah you need to get the potatoes out of the dirt and stuff like this so I mean we're used to this as Eastern Europeans right so when it comes down to mentality and struggles I think we are more

[Banks] A bit of a hard slap every now and again.

[Banks] Yeah.

[lauNX] dominant in this way at least that's how I see it I don't think someone at least me I didn't have a beautiful blossom life from the get-go you know like my mom struggled to buy me stuff when I was young but she did her best so yeah and

[Banks] It's interesting because when I make the comparison, right, and it's nothing against people who had a better condition, but if I look at some of the Western European players, they can be quite soft where I've seen a team manager or a team coach say to them, this wasn't good, yeah?

[lauNX] Yeah, of course.

[Banks] And they're like, oh, no, I can't take it, that kind of thing.

[lauNX] That's not good.

[lauNX] No, that's not good.

[Banks] And, you know, it's like, if that bothers them, then how can you have those open and honest conversations?

[lauNX] I don't know.

[Banks] And from what I see, obviously, I know Coolio pretty well.

[Banks] I speak a lot more to you, but like, I try to just observe what happens in your team.

[Banks] And it seems like everyone, from when I've been at events with you guys,

[Banks] takes the bullshit with no problem no one's sat there in a corner crying they may not like it all the time but everyone gets on with it yeah

[lauNX] yeah i think that's the good thing about our team and i think maybe sometimes it's too much because like i'm not used to it because

[lauNX] In my past teams, like Falcons, Bleeds, Proud, Revenant, like these guys were just trying to impose the professionalism and pro whatever stuff, but they didn't even do it themselves, so whatever.

[lauNX] But here, what I like is that you can feel...

[lauNX] It's full friendly and full family because it feels like I'm talking to a friend and we're just taking shit to each other.

[Banks] Yeah.

[lauNX] And yeah, maybe, I don't know, I will be very mad on you and I might think about throwing something at you in the night.

[lauNX] But the next day when we fix the mistakes, we'll be completely happy about it.

[lauNX] And that's the good thing about it.

[Devilwalk] Yeah.

[lauNX] And they say it very directly, like sometimes like mid game when everyone is completely chill, we are winning.

[Banks] Yeah.

[lauNX] I hear someone like full flaming the other guy and I'm like, hey, no, no, don't start.

[lauNX] But then I'm thinking that's how they got used to it and it's good.

[lauNX] I should let them have it.

[Banks] Yeah.

[lauNX] Because that's how they fix their mistakes.

[lauNX] And they do it even in-game.

[lauNX] Like... Most of the time they fix it like... If I... I've... Mostly it's not me.

[lauNX] It's usually Kraben.

[lauNX] Telling us that we... Fuck up some rounds.

[Banks] Mhm.

[lauNX] But...

[lauNX] Yeah, I think everyone is taking it good.

[lauNX] We might get offended by it.

[lauNX] We might talk back to each other.

[lauNX] But in the end, we dispute it and it's fixed.

[Banks] and we got to look at this right just getting more on to Bucharest and what happened I'm not going to go into details about the events you you've had with foot because you guys have had some really solid events but I I want to just talk quickly about the development before we get to Bucharest is that like

[Banks] you guys started the year by getting tier one events right you had blast bounty top 16 you then have crack out you make it to the main krakow event right 9th to 12th clues 9th to 11th but you could have made playoffs like everywhere we're looking we're seeing growth and development

[Banks] Then Pro League, fourth place.

[Banks] Okay, there wasn't the Vitality and Falcons there, but there was still a lot of other really good teams there.

[Banks] Obviously, the Mals game, for example, huge one.

[Banks] But then Bucharest, this level up, and you beat all the good teams that were there.

[Banks] Like, this was such a legit run from you guys, getting revenge on ParaVision, taking down Mongols, taking down Astralis, obviously, which was another revenge story at the same time.

[Banks] Did you guys come into the mindset of Bucharest that this was a tournament like we're going to win?

[Banks] Or how does Foote approach this?

[lauNX] Okay, first I'm going to speak on the team side and then I will speak on personal side.

[lauNX] So on the team side, on the team side, food, like this is what I like about food.

[lauNX] And this is why I think we do good.

[lauNX] Because in the other organizations, people...

[lauNX] not only that they push the idea that you need to win the trophy, but it's like, unless you don't win the trophy, then you know something bad is going to happen.

[lauNX] So then, so then at least that's how it happened in my past teams.

[Banks] Oh Yeah That's not good

[lauNX] Like, like it was always this, you know,

[lauNX] best results instantly instantly this and that but it's not like this once you start putting this crazy I mean maybe it's not crazy for the lineups we had or like lineups that were built with other players not only me and stuff like this but you can't just expect people you throw them some things on a note and you expect them to do it in six months

[lauNX] It's just not possible, and you'll make it even worse.

[lauNX] But FUT is not doing it.

[lauNX] If anything, FUT is going, guys, hey, go game by game.

[lauNX] You already made us incredibly happy.

[lauNX] Like, we went top three in our VRS, and I think not even them expected it, right?

[lauNX] I mean, they expected success, but not this kind of success in such a short amount of time.

[Banks] Mm hmm.

[lauNX] I think no one did.

[lauNX] Not even me.

[lauNX] And maybe not even them.

[lauNX] I think if anyone would say to us three months ago that we are going to be top three in the world VRS and like win tier one events and stuff like this, I would probably say like, no, you are crazy, man.

[lauNX] I get out of you.

[lauNX] You want me to go crazy also.

[lauNX] Team-wise, I think there is no pressure at any event.

[lauNX] If anything, they want us to go game by game and get experience so we can do even better in the major stages, right?

[lauNX] Because in the end, the major is coming and we need to do good there and give a good punch.

[lauNX] but on a personal side now i can say it because i couldn't say it in the tournament because again you can jinx it and stuff but i truly came up in Bucharest with the idea that we're going to win it i told everyone that was close to me like pro players family friends i told everyone if i'm not going to win this Bucharest then

[Banks] Thank you.

[lauNX] it's not me like I told them with the teams when I saw the teams I told everyone like hey we win this for sure like I know the current state of this lineup we have right now how we shoot how we play there is no way these teams can take us down if we fix our mental stuff

[Banks] Yeah.

[lauNX] and it happened we fixed our mental problems we stopped throwing stupid rounds of course there were still some silly rounds we lost but it's understandable but again we fixed what was the biggest problem and we won the tournament so I'm more than happy

[Devilwalk] So were you at a boot camp before?

[lauNX] I mean, we had a boot.

[Devilwalk] Because I think you released, you know, some kind of video recording where Symmetry said that he was going to be MVP before the tournament started in Bucharest.

[Devilwalk] It has to.

[lauNX] Say, say.

[Devilwalk] Yeah, it was the feeling always, you know, that you're going to win PGL Bucharest from within the roster itself.

[lauNX] you know

[lauNX] This is the thing.

[lauNX] I think everyone in this lineup thinks that we can win so many trophies and stuff, but everyone is so humble and so normal that we just don't want to say it to each other because I don't think it's also good.

[Devilwalk] Okay.

[Devilwalk] Okay.

[lauNX] I think it's nice how we handle it.

[lauNX] And how Coolio is telling everyone, like, okay, we won a tournament, but we are not the top of the world.

[lauNX] Like, hey, calm down.

[lauNX] We need to get back to the grind.

[Devilwalk] Yeah.

[lauNX] It's not like we won everything in one tournament.

[Banks] Of course.

[lauNX] so yeah but of course we make jokes because in the end like if you make jokes about something there is a bit of reality to it right and

[lauNX] Yeah, I mean, we believe it.

[lauNX] Of course we believe it.

[lauNX] I think if we wouldn't believe that we can make these good runs in tournaments, I don't think we would have been here.

[Devilwalk] I also have another question because I think a lot of people kind of categorize your team as, you know, they shoot really, really hard.

[lauNX] Yeah.

[Devilwalk] Do you feel like that's a kind of a mischaracterization of your team?

[Devilwalk] Like it's not only shooting hard.

[Devilwalk] I mean, Counter-Strike is so much more than that.

[Devilwalk] how would you describe your team if you got the chance to kind of like give yourself a description what you're good at why are you winning games why were you so efficient here at Bucharest

[lauNX] I mean for me I mean of course yeah we're insane shooters there is no doubt in that but one more thing that I think is helping us is

[Banks] Thank you.

[lauNX] I think with the fact that, again, we are all coming from the same region of Europe and we all kind of have the same path, you know, grind, face it, play your best, you know, grind for your dream and stuff like this.

[lauNX] We all have this very crazy chaotic playstyle.

[lauNX] And we got so used to it that I feel like most of the tier 1 pros, especially the veteran ones already in the scene, they're just not used to it.

[lauNX] I think now it will be a mixture of, how should I say it, more experienced Pacers and a lot of upcomers coming now, hard-shooting.

[lauNX] It will be like a mix of both.

[lauNX] But with us, what Julio is doing, this is what I like about Julio.

[lauNX] he's making strats and our notebook pretty structured like it's not like we're headless chickens if anything it's odd it's the opposite like we know what we want to do we have a prior plan like we know what the enemies are doing we know the weak points we try to attack the weak points

[Banks] Okay.

[lauNX] We know our flaws before the game, so what we shouldn't do, what we should change a bit.

[lauNX] We really try to keep it as structured as possible.

[lauNX] In the same time, we are trying to add from our individual mind, in the crazy situations, our personal plays.

[lauNX] Because most of the time, and I'm not even kidding,

[lauNX] The plays you see, the ones, like, the crazy shots and plays, like, we don't even speak about it.

[Banks] Yeah.

[lauNX] It's just happening.

[lauNX] Like, people are just going, like, Demon is just like, bam, bam, three Deagle headshots.

[lauNX] You don't understand what's happening.

[lauNX] He's not even talking.

[lauNX] He's just killing everyone.

[lauNX] And then you wander around.

[lauNX] And it's the same with everyone.

[lauNX] And I think that's coming from the grind we did when we were, I mean,

[lauNX] We're still young, but because we're playing for so long, it's kind of paying off because we got used to so many situations and we got so comfortable with the chaos that's happening in tier one games that for us is like a paradise.

[Banks] Yep.

[lauNX] When I see three smokes flying, four molotovs and flashes, it's like I'm back in face it with my friends.

[lauNX] Let's go.

[lauNX] Let's fight.

[Banks] Everyone's just going for it.

[Banks] Everyone's on the same idea, the same way of doing it, pushing forward.

[lauNX] Yeah.

[Banks] And that's what you want in a Counter-Strike team that's working and fluid and playing off each other.

[Banks] I also wanted to ask a bit similar to what Devalt was saying about Cemetery, is that...

[Banks] I look at both events, which you guys won, right?

[Banks] The Dracula and obviously now Bucharest being the big one.

[Banks] This is where he's been at his best, but he has had struggles this year.

[Banks] He's not performed up to maybe the same standard of what he would want himself to be at.

[Banks] What did you notice that was different in him for this event, right?

[Banks] Because...

[Banks] It's not just a great performance, it's an MVP performance.

[Banks] It's huge.

[lauNX] No, I think it's just, as I said, it's just he's gaining experience.

[lauNX] Everyone is gaining experience.

[lauNX] And with each tournament we play, I can see them growing confident and confident and confident, believing in themselves.

[lauNX] They want to take more risks during the match.

[lauNX] And that's why they get this crazy place and they get those MVP stats.

[lauNX] Because now everyone is willing to take the risk most of the times.

[Banks] Yeah.

[lauNX] Before, against good teams, yes, sometimes we were taking the risk, but if they started coming back on us, we were then kind of in a choke hold and then we stopped doing the moves.

[lauNX] But now, even if we get stomped, we are still trying to do the moves.

[lauNX] so it's good like we are working on it

[Devilwalk] Do you think your team is like, is better because, I mean, I look at your game sometimes and you love to contact, you love to go for space with like, you know, Mirage, for example, you can sneak up short all the way or sneak up con and you kind of just continue until you get a duel.

[Banks] And...

[lauNX] you know,

[Devilwalk] at certain points.

[Devilwalk] Do you feel like that just is something that you as a team are very good at and can make work because you have such skilled players that you feel you're confident if I end up in a one-on-one duel, I'm going to win it?

[lauNX] Truly.

[Devilwalk] And therefore you apply so much pressure on the other opponents, they can't really handle it.

[lauNX] Yeah.

[lauNX] Yeah, for sure.

[lauNX] I mean, I don't want to, again, it's not about having a big ego or because we won a tournament.

[lauNX] But I do feel like in Tier 1, we have like one of the strongest lineups aim-wise.

[lauNX] Like if I look at all the players, like us five, if you take like head-to-head role-wise,

[Devilwalk] Thank you.

[lauNX] There might be a better opard, there might be a better rifler, but in the end, us five all together, I feel we have such a strong firepower that we can take on everybody.

[Banks] Let me try to find it.

[Devilwalk] I completely agree.

[Devilwalk] I remember when Major said it in an interview that you guys have... I can't remember the exact quote, but he was comparing you to the vitalities and etc.

[lauNX] Ah.

[Devilwalk] in terms of firepower.

[Devilwalk] And he pretty much got, by the entire community, said he's a delusional...

[Devilwalk] idiot or something like and I agree with Major I said it in this podcast when that interview came out uh

[Devilwalk] Because getting kills isn't really about firepower, but if you look at your situations that you end up getting into, it's a lot about firepower, reflexes, and individual skill, comparably to maybe even vitality.

[lauNX] it's really about higher power but if you look at your situation

[lauNX] I mean, the thing is, of course, compared to Vitality, I think it's like the biggest difference because Vitality is playing so good and so structured.

[Devilwalk] Yes.

[lauNX] They just pick up kills by utility.

[lauNX] They molly you out.

[lauNX] They flash you.

[lauNX] You are dead in one second.

[lauNX] Goodbye.

[Devilwalk] Yep.

[lauNX] That's it.

[lauNX] They won the round.

[lauNX] But then, again, with us, if we don't find a kill, we do some smokes.

[lauNX] They are blind.

[lauNX] We are blind.

[lauNX] And somehow, out of a sudden, you just see someone, like, flicking fast.

[lauNX] Bam, bam.

[lauNX] And you have the advantage.

[lauNX] And that's the thing with us.

[lauNX] That's what's, like, that's our...

[lauNX] our card in the sleeve you know we have this fast reflexes everyone and we're kind of all on the same page most of the time and yeah yeah yeah yeah

[Devilwalk] it's fun definitely fun

[Banks] And it's beautiful.

[Banks] It's what you want.

[Banks] That's what you need.

[Banks] And what many teams can never build, yeah?

[Banks] To bring up that quote as well, right?

[Banks] This is where...

[Banks] It's a bit harsh on Magi, because HLTV only put part of the quote out and said, foot shoot better than Spirit, Vitality, or Falcons, right?

[lauNX] Yeah.

[Banks] It is kind of what he said, but he said, when I play Spirit or Vitality, or I play Falcons, foot are shooting better than all of these teams.

[Banks] Yesterday, they really shoot better than every opponent I've played right now, so really congrats to them, but hopefully next time we can get our revenge.

[Banks] this is where the community is a bit stupid because what they think is like oh well they have donk or they have nico right and like you just said louse it could be

[Banks] Donk shoots better, yeah.

[Banks] But if you're looking at it as a five versus five right now, look at even, look at Kribeni, for example.

[lauNX] yeah that's what i mean he's he's the craziest i've seen in my life i don't think i've ever seen and i'm telling you since i'm young i i liked watching

[Devilwalk] Yeah.

[Banks] This guy's an IGL.

[Banks] He is, he's shooting harder than any other IGL.

[Banks] Any other IGL.

[lauNX] 1.6 clips, source clips, like every CS itineration clip, highlights and movies just to get the confidence, the feeling of being professional.

[Banks] Yep.

[lauNX] But I don't know, like Raben is something from the outer world.

[lauNX] I swear, even with calling and shooting, he's like something else most of the time.

[lauNX] I don't understand how he's doing it.

[Devilwalk] I feel like it's an Albanian slash Kosovo thing.

[Banks] It's definitely, yeah.

[lauNX] Yeah, exactly.

[lauNX] You don't know how he's doing, but he's doing it.

[lauNX] So you don't ask how, you just let him do his job.

[Devilwalk] Yeah.

[Banks] Yeah, yeah, definitely.

[Banks] And and this is what's impressive, right, is I feel like any one of you could be an MVP of a tournament if you're going to go and win it.

[Banks] Right.

[Banks] could be drugs it could be you it could be cemetery it could be demon it's like it all depends on the day do you have that belief in each other that even say when it's a 2vx situation or 1vx situation like

[Banks] you don't see yourselves as having any weak links i'm sure right because if you look at every other team for example we look at spirit right yeah dong's alive it's going to be a problem but if you've got magic's alive everyone's going to think well we'll just wait for the next round to happen but with you guys there's that clutch potential almost in every single opportunity

[lauNX] Yeah I mean I don't know it's I don't like I want to say it's crazy that it's happening but I can't say because it's kind of expected like it has been so many years of CS and so many lineups so many players up and coming and stuff.

[Banks] Yeah.

[lauNX] Like it was expected at some point that there will be a team or some players that will kind of catch fire, you know, because it's just not possible.

[lauNX] It was just a matter of time.

[lauNX] of who can actually put the pieces together and make them work because all around the world like not only in europe america asia africa i'm 100 there are so many talented kids but it's just a matter of if you find them when do you find them and if you can keep them on the right track do it together and that's what

[Devilwalk] Thank you.

[Banks] Yeah.

[lauNX] coolio did with navi and these guys and food just picked them up and now they keep the streak going they just i don't know it's like everyone is putting some parts in the machine and the machine keeps working

[Banks] Yeah.

[Devilwalk] Do you think like if we go like VRS, do you feel like this was a blessing for your team in a sense that you could kind of get up

[lauNX] Thank you.

[Devilwalk] to these uh events compared to maybe you know the franchise leagues where it was very very closed off it was hard to get an opportunity to get to play tier one tournaments

[Devilwalk] And there weren't even that many tier two tournaments or tier three tournaments to some sense.

[Devilwalk] Do you think that this has kind of opened up the path for you as a team to get to the top?

[lauNX] Yeah.

[lauNX] I think it's not only for us, but I think for everyone.

[lauNX] I think if someone is saying now that this VRS is bullshit, I think they're out of their mind.

[Banks] Thank you.

[lauNX] If anything, this is the only system in CS, at least in CS2 and CSGO.

[lauNX] I don't know about the others.

[lauNX] Because I didn't have the age of playing it and living it by myself.

[lauNX] But at least for seven years since I'm playing professionally, I feel this is the biggest and the best system ever.

[lauNX] Because it's actually rewarding the guys who are playing the best in that point.

[lauNX] at that time not who played better two months ago three months ago and they had the wonder tournament because they got on your lineup oh no we don't care about that we care about the future and the present now what's happening now and this is what and i feel this is what vrs is doing

[Devilwalk] I agree with you.

[Banks] Mm hmm.

[lauNX] Of course, teams are up and coming, but this is what's happening everywhere in the world around the sports.

[lauNX] Teams are losing, teams are winning, new changes are coming.

[lauNX] Of course, it's going to happen.

[Banks] Yeah, definitely.

[Banks] And looking at this as well, when I look at this Na'Vi situation where they've come from Na'Vi Academy going into this, obviously you were not part of that, but do you see that that Na'Vi project and how the Na'Vi situation was run was like...

[Banks] a blessing for the young players like having that system compared to something that you did not have do you see the positives

[lauNX] but i feel there is a bit of misconception because i don't feel the guys full picked up the navi system i think i feel like julio just picked up some ideas from blade and navi and with the help of navi

[lauNX] Like people and organization, they made the Na'Vi junior system, which is, I mean, I mean, you can compare like there is like there is so few things similar to us and the Na'Vi lineup.

[Banks] Yeah.

[Banks] Okay.

[lauNX] Like they play so much structure.

[lauNX] They play so tactical.

[Banks] Yeah.

[lauNX] And we are on the other side.

[lauNX] I mean, we have a lot of structure and we have tactics and stuff, but we are much more crazy.

[Banks] But it's different.

[lauNX] Yeah, like we can go and do and try some crazy kills and if we die, it's okay.

[lauNX] But in Na'Vi, it's not like this.

[lauNX] At least from what I've heard.

[Banks] yeah and and then okay looking at that then not just in game but what about like how it's helped the players develop in their career like just being on an organization like that do you see a difference in them compared to other players you've worked with because that's what always interests me is that how these academy teams can help players develop

[Devilwalk] Thank you.

[lauNX] Yeah.

[Banks] In other ways, you know?

[Banks] Mmm.

[lauNX] I feel Na'Vi is one of the rarest exceptions of academies who are doing the job right, because I feel they are keeping the players not only on the right track with the game, but they're trying to keep them normal also, like not only kids sitting in front of a computer, you know.

[lauNX] Like they try to teach them stuff about life and stuff, which is very important because at the end of the day, when we finish the CS career, we have nothing, most of us, because I know

[Devilwalk] Heh heh heh

[Banks] Yeah.

[lauNX] Like 90-80% of the new players, they don't finish school, they don't do anything in school, they just quit, drop out and they go.

[lauNX] But it's not the way.

[lauNX] It's for sure not the way and this trend should stop because it's pretty dangerous for the upcoming future.

[Banks] Exactly.

[lauNX] But... No, but it's because I noticed...

[Banks] That's good advice from you.

[Banks] You always give good advice for everyone coming up.

[Devilwalk] It's a pretty low percentage of players who actually make it.

[lauNX] Yes.

[Devilwalk] You know, like it's crazy when you think about that and how many that actually commit.

[lauNX] Yes.

[Banks] And I agree.

[Banks] Do you know what's crazy?

[Banks] We're in this situation where if you go back to, say, when I was playing in anything esports-wise, it was such a low amount of people that were playing back in 2003, 2004.

[Banks] So...

[Banks] The people playing to the number that made success was still the same, but it was an easier opportunity, right?

[Banks] Now there are so many millions of kids who are growing up and not just in Counter-Strike, in other games, and they say, I want to be a professional.

[lauNX] Yeah.

[Banks] But now it's like, I'm not going to say it's the same number as football, but now it's almost like football in a sense where it's really that top 0.5%, not even a whole percent that could make it from any country into any situation, you know?

[Banks] And if you gamble your whole life on it,

[Banks] then you could mess up everything else and ruin it just off the fact you didn't like you might be good enough you might just not get the right team or might not get given the right opportunity yeah

[lauNX] It's...

[lauNX] You might not even get spotted because you're coming from... As I said, it can be even an African kid who's maybe as stonk, but he just has no chance.

[Banks] No one's looking there.

[lauNX] Maybe he's just playing in the school.

[Banks] Yeah.

[lauNX] Like in the school huts, you know, just playing it like in the info hours, you know, with friends.

[lauNX] And he's insane.

[lauNX] But there is no way you can see him, sadly.

[lauNX] There is just no way.

[lauNX] And you can't lie.

[lauNX] You can't sell lies to this kind of people because...

[lauNX] Me personally, I do think that if I sell this kind of lies to upcoming kids, I'm responsible for fucking up their future.

[lauNX] And I don't want that to happen.

[Banks] Yeah.

[lauNX] I think if we want to be role models for kids, we need to show the good side and the bad side.

[lauNX] Because in the end, this is a sword with two edges.

[lauNX] And if you get cut by it, you won't have a good life at all.

[lauNX] I heard very bad stories about ex-professional players who were good and threw away everything and now it's very bad for them and

[Banks] 100%.

[Banks] Oh yes.

[lauNX] And even myself, I've gone through so much with Revenant.

[lauNX] We had seven months of non-payment, no salaries.

[lauNX] I lost 20 kilograms, full stress.

[lauNX] I was not allowed to do anything.

[lauNX] It was very bad.

[lauNX] No money.

[lauNX] like i was lucky i won romanian esports league and i got like 2k euro to pay rent for three months to four and buy new pip specs for the computer so i can stream and i got back into fbl i streamed i got money it was a real struggle and i don't want anyone to go through such things because i know

[Banks] Yeah.

[lauNX] What happened with my mentality?

[lauNX] I felt I was going insane.

[lauNX] I was living alone, no parents, only my girlfriend.

[lauNX] Thanks God for that.

[lauNX] And I was just grinding, struggling.

[lauNX] I was, man, I need to make it.

[lauNX] Like, there's no way I need to keep pushing.

[lauNX] But I know that no one, like,

[lauNX] it's very few people that can do it like with this mentality because you have to be a bit crazy in the head and i am crazy in the head i always said it you have to be crazy in the head yes yes yes

[Banks] yeah exactly crazy in a good way though crazy in a good way and

[Devilwalk] I agree with you.

[Devilwalk] You have to be somewhat insane to even pursue a Counter-Strike career.

[Devilwalk] Many aspects.

[Banks] In many aspects of it, by the way.

[Banks] In many aspects of it.

[Devilwalk] I recognize that

[Banks] It does... Between all three of us here, definitely some craziness.

[Banks] You also just mentioned one thing about your girlfriend.

[Banks] If you're fine to talk about this.

[Banks] How long have you guys been together?

[lauNX] I mean, soon it's going to be cheers, but yes, I mean, yes.

[Banks] Because...

[Banks] Okay, so she's been she's been along for a lot of the wild part of the journey into where you are now.

[Banks] By the way, this is a relationship I already approve of because she was there before he was successful.

[Banks] There's many of these young players I'm always telling if you get a girl after you are successful or when you've already made pro don't just stay single just focus on the game because otherwise it can make too much problems too many headaches.

[lauNX] I know I I want to say it now like no like I was blessed personally because I found this girl and she's not even my age so there is that for sure they are not girls my age that think like her and stuff like this but like

[Banks] Yeah.

[Banks] Yeah.

[lauNX] We kind of met in my Falcons period when I was okay.

[Devilwalk] Thank you.

[lauNX] Like, you know, I was earning good.

[Banks] Mm-hmm.

[lauNX] I was doing good.

[lauNX] So it was that.

[lauNX] But then I fell down so bad.

[lauNX] Revenant, you know, like I lost my shape.

[lauNX] I lost my body.

[lauNX] I lost like I lost everything.

[Banks] Yeah.

[lauNX] But she was still there.

[lauNX] Like, she was still there.

[lauNX] She kept pushing me.

[lauNX] She kept telling, like, you show these motherfuckers.

[lauNX] Like, you got it.

[lauNX] Like, you're the most talented.

[lauNX] Like, do it.

[lauNX] Push it.

[Banks] Nice.

[lauNX] And when I have a woman like this behind me, then I have my mom as a role model.

[lauNX] Bro, I can't.

[lauNX] Like, I need to show I'm stronger.

[lauNX] Like, what's happening?

[Banks] Yeah.

[Banks] Yeah, that's perfect.

[lauNX] Like, yeah, yeah.

[Banks] That's exactly what you want.

[Banks] Because too many players get too sidetracked by this other stuff and it can go horribly wrong.

[Banks] There's many stories out there.

[lauNX] It happened to me when I was 17, 16 also.

[lauNX] I got caught in the love and the love sights and I didn't know... I didn't want to play CS.

[lauNX] I was just running after the fucking heels.

[Banks] Oh, no.

[lauNX] Sorry for the words.

[lauNX] I was just running after the heels of a 17-year-old girl.

[Banks] Yeah.

[lauNX] But it's just the age, you know?

[lauNX] And I hope...

[Devilwalk] Thank you.

[lauNX] everyone is realizing a bit faster because i did but if you don't realize fast then i mean everyone will take advantage of you even girls even even guys like it's yeah it's just like sadly is the nature of most of the humans you can't do anything about it that's reality

[Banks] Yeah.

[Banks] Good.

[Banks] Friends.

[Banks] Yeah.

[Banks] No.

[Banks] It is a sad reality of it all.

[lauNX] Yeah.

[Banks] So let's talk a little bit more about the Bucharest run that you guys had here.

[Banks] Because you start off with the win against Inner Circle.

[Banks] Ultimately, okay, you may have lost us too, but it looked like a pretty comfortable game for you guys.

[Banks] Then you only had to face NRG to go 2-0.

[Banks] NRG is not really a team that's going to give you much problems anyway, and it showed it.

[Banks] I'm not being disrespectful, but the levels are different, right?

[Banks] You guys are playing at a much higher level right now.

[Banks] But then...

[Banks] It's Paravision, Bait, Mongols from here.

[Banks] The Paravision one for you, I know, was an important one, right?

[Banks] And this was to qualify for playoffs as well.

[Banks] Not eliminate them, but it was to give you a big win.

[Banks] You also dropped a 1.44 rating.

[Banks] Was this a game where it felt personal for you?

[lauNX] I mean, for me, every game I lose and I get to take my revenge is personal because I don't like losing.

[lauNX] So if I lost against someone, then next time I have to win for sure.

[lauNX] And it happened every time in my career.

[lauNX] So there is that.

[Banks] Okay, okay.

[lauNX] But I told these guys, like, every time we lost and we faced someone else, I said, hey, look, we faced them again and it's the rule.

[lauNX] We have to beat them now.

[lauNX] And it happened every time.

[lauNX] Every time we lost to someone, the next time we faced them, we beat them.

[lauNX] Same with Furia, same with G2, same with Maus, same with Astralis.

[lauNX] And I think the list will go on.

[Banks] Is it because of what prep you're doing after losing to them and understanding how to play against them?

[lauNX] I feel it's more like, especially against top teams, we're a bit scared in the beginning or we feel pressure, then we lose.

[Banks] Mm-hmm.

[Banks] Mm-hmm.

[lauNX] And then we realize we lost because, again, we throw the rounds by ourselves and the difference is not that big between us and them.

[lauNX] It's just experience in the end.

[Banks] Yeah.

[lauNX] And then when we play them again, it's like...

[lauNX] yeah there is that we we got the skill so let's just show them what we got there is nothing to be scared of and then that's why we are winning the second game yeah

[Banks] Mhm.

[Devilwalk] Don't you think there's like a big, I've always felt like this.

[Devilwalk] It's a big advantage to be the loser of the last series going into a game because you know what to change, what to fix and how to approach it differently.

[lauNX] i feel like

[Devilwalk] While for the winners, it's more guesswork.

[Devilwalk] They don't really know what you will do.

[Devilwalk] keep doing change, et cetera.

[Devilwalk] So in terms of like prep work, I feel like there's a pretty big advantage being the losers of the last series.

[lauNX] Yes, especially when you are up and coming like us and we were facing upper teams from Tires, right?

[lauNX] Because they have no clue how we are playing at all and we know everything what they do because we take some stress from them, we watch demos from them, we watch some YouTube clips, some tricks from them, you know, so...

[Devilwalk] Yeah.

[lauNX] We kinda know everything about them, but they know nothing about us.

[lauNX] Of course, this will change in the upcoming near future.

[Devilwalk] Yep.

[lauNX] But in the same time, again, I'm not going to give a lot of insights, but Kulio is very smart in this regard.

[lauNX] And I feel right before every tournament, he changed minimum to two or three things in our strat book or how we approach maps.

[Banks] Nice.

[lauNX] So there is no way in this world that people will know how we're going to play from an event to the next event because at least two or three maps will be changed in some aspect.

[lauNX] And that's very smart from Coolio.

[lauNX] And I think very few coaches, I've known, do it.

[Banks] Definitely.

[Banks] Definitely.

[Banks] And then, okay, I've got to look at this, right?

[Banks] The playoff bracket run you had after obviously the ParaVision game, you make playoffs.

[Banks] It felt like to me that you guys had the much harder side of the bracket if you compare it to what Astralis had, right?

[lauNX] Yeah.

[Banks] You guys had Mongols or ParaVision you'd be facing.

[Banks] You started off against Bate and then...

[Banks] Obviously, Fate is obviously a team that's going through some learnings, but they certainly did push you a little bit.

[Banks] Were you surprised with how much fight Fate were able to be putting up against you guys?

[lauNX] No, not really.

[lauNX] I mean, I think it will be stupid for us who came from the same tier as them to think that a team of the same tier can't do the same thing to us.

[Banks] Hmm.

[lauNX] It's not a good way to think about it.

[lauNX] If we could do it, for sure another team can do it.

[Banks] Hmm.

[lauNX] It's not like we have been sent from heaven to save CS, how a lot of people say.

[lauNX] no we might be a bit unique for this specific time we are playing right now but I'm for sure in the future it will happen again so yeah there is that but yeah yeah yeah

[Banks] Hmm.

[Devilwalk] They played a lot better this tournament.

[Banks] Yeah.

[Devilwalk] Bait, they were definitely, you know, good.

[lauNX] um so

[Devilwalk] Still maybe a little bit iffy if, you know, CC is still gathering experience, getting better in games, finding consistency.

[Banks] Yeah.

[Devilwalk] obviously a tough kind of match because you're a scary team to face individually so yeah probably that's why you won in the end it was close it was close

[lauNX] that's why

[Banks] some close some close margins of it as well, at least potentially could have gone to a third at least potential.

[lauNX] Yeah, but that game was also like I told them and I was so mad after that game because I told them it felt one of my biggest off days in this career.

[lauNX] Like I was trying to smokes, getting killed through flashbangs.

[lauNX] I was meeting people from behind.

[lauNX] I was spraying three people down.

[lauNX] Everyone was left in HP and I couldn't kill anyone.

[lauNX] It was just that bad day.

[lauNX] And yeah, as I said in the interview, I remember I kind of got crumbled a bit mentally and I didn't help the team enough with the mentality, right?

[Devilwalk] Yep.

[lauNX] And they could get some rounds and then the mood was getting affected by myself and the others, you know, and it kind of went like a,

[lauNX] cannonball you know because i kind of let the harness go away but yeah after that game i realized there is no way in a playoff i'm gonna be mad about an off day and then the next day i was back on track ready to smash

[Banks] Yeah.

[Banks] Yeah.

[Banks] and looking at that next day it was the mongols obviously the mongols have had a meteoric rise and been able to stay at the top tier of cs even with changing the players in it but

[lauNX] Thank you.

[Banks] What is it like, because this is your first game against the Mongols, what is it like to face this team who also want to fight a lot and also want to keep throwing aggression at you?

[lauNX] the best game of my life I've played officially.

[lauNX] Like I said to my friend, who I spent the night after we won, like, they were by far the only team I faced in my life who actually I felt that, bro, they got the smoke, man.

[lauNX] Like,

[lauNX] They were like shooting one taps.

[lauNX] CobraZera was doing flicks, doing ASV top.

[lauNX] Everyone was shooting, pushing through smokes.

[lauNX] I was like, man, this is madness.

[lauNX] But I loved every second of it.

[lauNX] It was such a fun game.

[lauNX] and i really wanted to play that game because i always knew because we have so similar play styles it will be so funny because in so many situations we clashed like directly head to head like four on four on the side just brawl just fight and it was so nice and i was feeling so alive

[Banks] Thank you.

[Banks] But I've got to ask this, right?

[Banks] Because obviously you guys want to fight like that, but it's not many teams that will challenge you with that, right?

[Banks] So to me, that game just looked like there was no resting for anyone in that game.

[Banks] There was something happening across the map all the time.

[Banks] Like, you must have had to have been so aware and so on it.

[lauNX] I mean, we were prepared for it, but that's why I waited.

[lauNX] I don't know, if I would like to change something in this VRS, I want to get Mongols instead of Astralis in tournaments.

[lauNX] I would like to play more Mongols than Astralis because it's much more funny to play these Mongols, guys, I swear.

[lauNX] like it's much i don't know for me at least it's feeling much more competitive on this aspect like you have to be aware of everything you know while with astralis you kind of always know what they do you see the same smoke same molotovs you already know because we play them six times and they don't change that much and

[Banks] Yeah.

[lauNX] mentality wise they are crumbling pretty fast so we know that if we start shooting some real heads they have no chance but I guess Mongols is not like this because they don't tilt that much and they shoot heads back so it's very fun yeah it's good they keep fighting that's the spirit

[Banks] Yeah.

[Banks] Yeah.

[Banks] And they'll just even if it's not working, they'll just keep trying.

[Banks] They'll just keep throwing themselves at you.

[Devilwalk] It's an entertaining way to play Counter-Strike comparably to maybe the more structured way with smokes and trying to trick people that way.

[lauNX] way

[Banks] Definitely.

[lauNX] I mean, I think it's good to play also with smokes and being structured, right?

[lauNX] But I feel when you go way too structured, then I don't know.

[lauNX] I feel it's not CS anymore.

[Banks] Yeah.

[Banks] Now, before we talk about the grand final, looking at the history between you and Astralis, you have played each other so much this year.

[Devilwalk] I tend to agree.

[Banks] There has been crack out, Cluj, twice at EPL on just the group stages, both stages you played it.

[Banks] Then you had to play in the finals as well for that third place decider.

[Banks] And especially the third place decider, one that you ended up losing there on the end, right?

[Banks] You had the overpass overtime game.

[lauNX] Oh my god.

[Banks] Felt like you should have had that one.

[lauNX] Flashbacks, 12-10 overpass, 3v2, 10 seconds left, we knew both of them have one in short, no one was holding short, we were planting default on site, he got the bomb, we lost, everyone was full tilt, I remember the mood was, I don't know, it felt so bad, but we learned from it, and I'm happy, we beat them now in the grand final, so I'm lucky.

[Banks] And that's it.

[Banks] Oh.

[lauNX] you

[Banks] But what is it that makes the, because like for us as viewers, as fans, I look forward, when I saw it was Foot versus Astralis, I was like, okay, this is going to be a good game.

[Banks] This is going to be a good game of Counter-Strike where we'll get some distance on it.

[Banks] It'll be some entertaining, interesting maps.

[Banks] So what is it that makes that matchup so good in your opinion?

[lauNX] I think it's because us being this crazy chaotic upcoming team, right?

[lauNX] And then in the same time having the redemption arc of Hoxie.

[lauNX] And then you have the likes of Ster and Yabi in the team who are like already old experienced players, which are pretty likable.

[Banks] Yeah.

[lauNX] Yeah, maybe less stabby for some reason, but we keep it off the track.

[lauNX] But Sterry is a very cool guy, right?

[lauNX] And then you have Fizzy, who is also such a nice story of coming back into the scene and delivering good numbers.

[Banks] Yep.

[lauNX] Then you got Ryu, who is a good up-and-coming guy.

[lauNX] So yeah, I think there is that.

[lauNX] There is a good story on both teams.

[lauNX] You want everyone to win a trophy kind of from both teams.

[Devilwalk] Well, when you look at this matchup, and I watched the game a little bit today, it felt really easy for you guys in this matchup, in the final.

[lauNX] And I think that's fine.

[lauNX] Thank you.

[Devilwalk] It felt like everything you did, you were either catching...

[Devilwalk] you know map control like Mirage for example you just walked up Con they had no one short watching they had no one Con watching it caught them by surprise a lot of times and even in disadvantaged situations you found gaps and found kills to kind of bring it back to continue your momentum

[lauNX] Thank you.

[Devilwalk] Was it just pure momentum in terms of calling and shooting that kind of brought you it so dominant in this grand final?

[lauNX] What is your momentum in terms of calling and doing things that have brought you into the company?

[Devilwalk] Or do you feel like it was, I don't know, prep work?

[lauNX] Do you feel like it was, I don't know, a prep work?

[Devilwalk] You just had really, really good prep work for Astralis.

[lauNX] I feel it was kind of momentum also on our side because we wanted to smash them so hard and there was no way we could let it slip but in the same time I feel like at least 35% of the loss of Astralis is just going to themselves because no jokes like from the first map like we knew that we are in their head

[lauNX] Like we could hear the slam decks when they were dying, like we were winning every duel.

[Devilwalk] Yeah.

[lauNX] We can hear Hooksy screaming every time we play them.

[lauNX] And bro, like when I hear him doing it, of course I'm going to try to attack the guy you scream at and I'm going to scream as hard as I can when we win because it's so annoying for the enemy.

[lauNX] And I feel with each map we went by, we were just getting into their head more and more.

[lauNX] And we know for sure that they are scared of us.

[lauNX] Like we know they have some players in the team that are literally scared of that about us, like individually.

[lauNX] And again, at least me on a personal level, and I'm trying to tell this to the guys also,

[lauNX] Like, man, when you know someone is scared of you individually, just go smash his aim.

[lauNX] Like, don't even think twice.

[lauNX] He will be so scared of you in a 1v1.

[lauNX] Like, don't even think twice.

[lauNX] You will always win that turn.

[lauNX] And that's how I always think.

[Devilwalk] Do you feel like they back off way more in the maps and give you the space to control because of that?

[lauNX] Yes.

[lauNX] Yes.

[lauNX] Yes, I do feel yes.

[lauNX] And I think they overthink the situation so much in so many ways.

[lauNX] Like, I don't know.

[Devilwalk] Because I feel like you're a team, you kind of have to stop you.

[lauNX] It's fair.

[Devilwalk] You have to put brakes on you.

[Devilwalk] You have to fight you so that you start thinking CS again instead of you always controlling map control gaps and being very reactive in the way you're playing, right?

[lauNX] Yes.

[lauNX] Yeah, but that's the thing with Krabeni.

[lauNX] I think people don't acknowledge the fact that he's very brain active.

[lauNX] Like, I swear, this guy is having so many on-fly calls.

[Devilwalk] I have no doubts about that I have no doubts about that by the way yeah

[lauNX] Yeah, no, I mean, like more like community wise, because I see a lot of guys saying crazy stuff on forums about him, but it's not true at all.

[lauNX] Like, as I said in past interviews, like sometimes we're playing and he's just giving a call.

[lauNX] i'm listening to it site is clear and then i'm like no one has said any piece of information and then he's just coming up up with this perfect call and then i'm like hey

[lauNX] this guy is wall hacking or something he has something in his he has something in his ears like someone telling him something like hey 1b 2b like hey go there go i don't know and but i'm not

[Devilwalk] Ha ha ha.

[Banks] You were going to get the admins to check him.

[lauNX] Yeah, check him PC or something because I'm telling you like sometimes I'm like he's shooting hard.

[lauNX] He's doing this crazy Jesus spoken calls that I don't even know how he's calling it sometimes.

[lauNX] And yeah, there is that.

[lauNX] So, yeah.

[Devilwalk] But in terms of Krabbele, do you feel like that's like, obviously you explain here how all teams kind of back off, give you a little bit map control.

[Devilwalk] Do you feel like Krabbele is very in tune with also the mental of the other side with his calling?

[lauNX] um

[Devilwalk] because it sounds like he's also reading that that you are feeling as an individual that players are backing off and he's finding the right calls to maybe abuse that in a sense

[lauNX] I think he's doing it, but not as much as he should.

[lauNX] But it's the experience, right?

[lauNX] I think he will do it so much better in the future.

[Devilwalk] Okay.

[lauNX] But he's doing it now.

[lauNX] But of course, I think with...

[lauNX] The upcoming tournaments, I think in a year he will be a beast.

[lauNX] I think no one will be able to stop him.

[Devilwalk] Okay.

[lauNX] He's filling the calls.

[lauNX] He's working a lot.

[lauNX] He's putting the work in.

[lauNX] He's working with the coach, with the staff.

[lauNX] He's trying to fix mistakes.

[lauNX] He's very good in every aspect.

[Devilwalk] That's very cool to hear.

[Banks] So you come into the grand finals, it's revenge time again after Pro League.

[Banks] You probably should have smashed them 3-0.

[Banks] You were rolling them so confidently in every game.

[Banks] Matt won 13-5 Ancient, 13-5 Mirage, 13-3 Dust2.

[Banks] You probably should have won Nuke as well.

[Banks] And you definitely have a better map pool than Astralis in a best of five.

[lauNX] The thing is, I feel against Astralis,

[Devilwalk] It was probably the most dominant, apart from NRG game, second most dominant game of your tournament.

[Devilwalk] It's crazy.

[lauNX] I don't know, like, especially because they beat us in, probably in such a fashion that, like, we lost it by ourselves.

[lauNX] Like, we knew, one, they can't beat us individually, like,

[lauNX] Sadly, there is just no possible real way unless you are all five sick and the brain is not functioning.

[lauNX] And yeah, I think there was that.

[lauNX] Everyone was so confident in each other, especially because we beat the favorites, Mongols and Paravision.

[lauNX] And I think that was the most important thing.

[lauNX] After we beat Mongols and Paravision, I think everyone knew we won the tournament.

[lauNX] At least in our team.

[lauNX] I think everyone knew when we got to face Chalice, when we got into the grand final and we know it's them, I think everyone knew we will win this.

[lauNX] Because we were for sure we will take the revenge and we knew that they are scared of us.

[lauNX] especially because they had so many close calls in the groups with so many bad teams, but we didn't.

[lauNX] I mean, we had only the first game against Inner Circle and then in playoffs with Paid, but I'm not going to call Paid such a bad team, right?

[lauNX] They still have some changes, but they still play good CS and they have some good things on the side.

[lauNX] but Astralis they had an easy bracket they had some easy groups and if anything it should have been different it should have been a bit you know but it didn't happen and it was the mental edge like we knew we faced the hardest teams we won 2-0 2-0 we didn't drop a map and they had to struggle with bad teams and we knew it from there like there is no way we lose this no way

[Devilwalk] I have a bit of a different question.

[lauNX] even if they run

[Devilwalk] Maybe this is a bit reaching out, but in terms of like PGL Bucharest,

[Devilwalk] Who are the teams that you think, if you would pick three teams that really impressed you, even if they went one and three, maybe they impressed you in this tournament, which three teams would that be for you?

[lauNX] I mean, first is focus, for sure.

[Devilwalk] Yeah.

[Devilwalk] Yeah.

[lauNX] Yeah, I mean, it has to be, especially after I saw Djorko with the elbow punches and stuff.

[lauNX] Like, man, I felt that passion through the roof and I was like, man, I feel so bad for him.

[lauNX] I was feeling the same, you know, sometimes.

[lauNX] So hats to them.

[lauNX] They have real passion on that lineup.

[lauNX] I like it.

[lauNX] I think the second team, it was eyeballers, to be honest.

[lauNX] I'm so happy for JW, man.

[Devilwalk] Yep.

[lauNX] Seeing players like JW coming back to the top and smashing...

[lauNX] young folks like us, it's good to see.

[lauNX] It's refreshing because he still has the trash talk in him.

[lauNX] He still has the old vibes.

[lauNX] I like that.

[Devilwalk] Yeah.

[lauNX] I want to see that in games.

[lauNX] People still need to catch up from him until he retires because it's not good, I feel.

[lauNX] We need that.

[lauNX] We still need that from Swedish players.

[lauNX] And let me think about third team.

[lauNX] but can we can this be like like impress me but in a very bad way it has to be face like what they have done it's I don't know I

[Devilwalk] Yeah, sure.

[Devilwalk] Well, I mean, yeah, we'll probably talk about them more in just a little bit, but it's one of the biggest free falls.

[Devilwalk] We've talked about it like pretty much every episode for the past like four or five episodes where it's just like been the biggest free fall.

[lauNX] like

[Devilwalk] You know, you've looked through...

[Devilwalk] I mean, even their win rate, if you remove Belgrade as a tournament from their system, they had like four wins the entire year.

[lauNX] Thank you.

[Devilwalk] And it's sad to see.

[lauNX] Yeah, I mean, to be honest for me, as an upcoming player, right, seeing an Orgas face going down with the other old Orgs who dropped out of CS, it's a shame.

[Devilwalk] Yeah.

[lauNX] Because, of course, I'm happy to play in foot, but in the end of the day, like, these were the Orgs everyone was looking up to play in, right?

[lauNX] Like, these were the Orgs who kind of made us play CS.

[lauNX] like everyone was imagining for sure when like when everyone was 14 15 i was imagining myself in face shirts in navi church you know in virtual sports shirts in all kind of sorts right and i think everyone did it

[Devilwalk] I remember when I was playing casually before I was a pro, I remembered my favorite tag that I would have in-game was Fnatic.msi.

[lauNX] Thank you.

[Devilwalk] That was my absolute favorite.

[Devilwalk] And I ended up playing for them.

[Devilwalk] but did you have like a certain like team like when you were younger that you would look up to and i was like this is the tag that i want like this looks so cool uh which one would that be yeah

[lauNX] Sadly, it's FaZe.

[lauNX] I have to be honest.

[lauNX] Sadly, it's FaZe.

[lauNX] Yeah, like FaZe was...

[lauNX] And still is, but not now for sure.

[lauNX] But FaZe was like one of the orgs I was looking up to, like getting the chance to play with Kerrigan and these guys learning from them.

[lauNX] As I always said, like for me, the most important thing in our young careers is to learn from the old guys who are about to retire because they have so much experience and so much things you can learn from them that no one will teach you.

[lauNX] And if you don't get the chance to speak with them at least once for even one hour, then you might not ever learn about this kind of stuff.

[lauNX] And you might have to find it the hard way.

[lauNX] And I always try to

[lauNX] get into touch, not only like known players, right?

[lauNX] Like even less known players, like even Romanian pros from 1.6.

[lauNX] I always try to get their advice when I was younger, get to know how to work, how to do in life, how to deal with stuff, because it's very important for a young mind to get different opinions and ideas from older people.

[Devilwalk] Is that the Elder Gods or what were they named?

[lauNX] and I don't think a lot of kids are doing it, and it's a bad thing.

[lauNX] Yes, it was the Elder Gods and Earthquake.

[Devilwalk] Yeah, okay.

[Devilwalk] Yeah.

[Devilwalk] I still have some memories of Romanian CS teams.

[lauNX] Yes, yes.

[Banks] Let's talk a bit about when you get the win, when you get the trophy.

[Banks] What was that moment like for you?

[Banks] I remember talking to you after the grand finals and then I spoke to you on Instagram.

[Banks] The next morning, you messaged me again and you finally like, you realized what happened.

[Banks] It hit you.

[Devilwalk] I think that's how it felt for me as well.

[Devilwalk] First time I won like a big tournament.

[Devilwalk] It just felt... In the moment, you don't realize it.

[lauNX] yeah yeah but it was unbelievable because again i feel after so many hardships i found through my career and so many fights and battles like people like people don't even know about these struggles and i think

[Devilwalk] You just go back and after a while, what the fuck just happened?

[lauNX] I think some of the struggles I'm going to make public, but I think when I'll be 25 or close to 30, because this stuff is implicating a lot of pro players from Romania also who kind of fucked me a bit in the back and it kind of made things even worse, but I don't want to hurt anyone.

[lauNX] when we play so i want everything to retire and then we can spill the beans out make a book maybe about the struggles of a professional player because i'm telling you like in 21 years of life i feel i've went through much more things than a guy at 40 have been true

[lauNX] And it's not okay, but I'm happy I handled it and I've matured so fast and I got good people around me that kinda, you know, saved me from shit.

[lauNX] Because it was a very, very bad road.

[lauNX] Very bad.

[Devilwalk] So when you win this tournament, is the emotion...

[Devilwalk] Obviously there's a euphoric sense and feeling when you realize everything, but you also explain these sad parts in your journey that you feel in combination with this.

[lauNX] Thank you.

[lauNX] Thank you.

[Devilwalk] Is that correctly explained?

[Devilwalk] Yeah.

[lauNX] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[lauNX] Like, it hits me ten times as hard.

[Devilwalk] yeah yeah okay

[lauNX] Like, even now when I think about it, like, I don't want to think too much about it and talk because, like, I start to feel like crying.

[lauNX] But it was the same.

[lauNX] Like, I had the interview with the HLTV guy.

[lauNX] I just couldn't talk.

[lauNX] I couldn't do an interview speech because when he started asking me, how do you feel and stuff like this, I was just instantly crying.

[Devilwalk] Yeah.

[Devilwalk] It's beautiful though.

[Devilwalk] The sad parts with the good parts in some sense.

[lauNX] Yeah.

[Banks] When you look back at your playing career and what you went through, does it make it all worth it now?

[lauNX] Totally.

[lauNX] Totally.

[lauNX] But even now I'm like...

[Devilwalk] Okay, we have to go away from the emotional talking.

[Devilwalk] See, it's really emotional.

[Banks] Thinking about all the things you have been through, the things we spoke about off camera, and there's obviously a lot to unpack here.

[Devilwalk] There's a huge beauty in seeing you emotional like this.

[lauNX] Yeah.

[Banks] I can change the subject and try and get a laugh out of him.

[Banks] He is the second ever player to use this mousepad to win a tournament.

[Banks] Win a trophy using my mousepad.

[Banks] First is Mezzi, and now it's Launx.

[Banks] Good company there.

[Devilwalk] It is there.

[Banks] Damn, son.

[lauNX] I still have it.

[Devilwalk] And how does it feel that in your foot you have one

[Banks] Damn, son.

[lauNX] I still got it.

[Devilwalk] the same trophy that falcons has in their entire time span they want pgl bucharest

[Devilwalk] 2025 and yours is more like obviously with VRS we have to say that yours is more important because it's now it's not before also they didn't do this one with Monos either so with Monos it's zero

[lauNX] Okay.

[lauNX] I mean what can I say it's I don't want to say too much because bro like I played for them I know the work I know the guys I'm still close with some of them but yeah I don't know I guess money is not buying everything is it

[Devilwalk] But it must feel like incredible, you know, because this is probably the most watched team in the CS space, no matter where they end up because of how much they've invested.

[lauNX] Thank you.

[Devilwalk] And to see you guys kind of push forward and push through that with...

[Devilwalk] Well, minimal investments in comparison and hard work and dedication.

[lauNX] Thank you.

[Devilwalk] It must still fill you with a sense of pride, even though maybe the struggles of Falcons, it's obviously there, but you've done it another way, another route.

[lauNX] I mean, yeah, I mean, of course it feels amazing, but for me personally, it feels even better because again, I can't talk too much about it, but yeah, I mean, I can only say that I was supposed to play in the Falcons lineup and in the end,

[lauNX] For specific, I think, no reasons, they decided to keep someone else, which I don't condemn.

[lauNX] It was expected.

[lauNX] I can't say anything about it.

[lauNX] But for me, I mean, on a personal level, it feels good that now we are ranked above them.

[lauNX] I won a tournament because...

[lauNX] Of course, I had some talks with the guys that are still in Falcons to this day.

[lauNX] I can share their names and they were not happy about the decisions that I'm about to get kicked or like removed and sold.

[lauNX] Like some people still wanted me on the lineup, active people now, but it just didn't happen because of the management.

[lauNX] So yeah, there's that.

[lauNX] I'm happy and I really want to face them.

[lauNX] And it will be even better if we do it in the major.

[lauNX] But in 1-0-0, I don't think we'll face them in elimination games because we won't be there.

[lauNX] But they have to see.

[Devilwalk] I love that, I love that

[Banks] that's actually brilliant and okay we talked about everything obviously you have been doing tournaments and you've been grinding so much since the beginning of the season coolio has finally given you a week off

[Banks] first week off and i first of all appreciate you coming on the podcast but what are you gonna do in this week off i know you like going outside you like hiking nature and being away and i don't mean this in a rude way but you are way older than your age your mindset is way beyond your years

[lauNX] Yes.

[lauNX] I mean many people told me this and it's not only you from CS it's like people who had no like no thing about CS at all and they just meet first time to some close friends like from real life and they just tell me like hey there's no ER20

[Devilwalk] Thank you.

[lauNX] And I told them, yeah, I'm 20.

[lauNX] But it's because, again, like I had to live so much bad stuff and so many situations.

[lauNX] Like I'm telling you, like everything that can happen in a people, like in a human life in a bad way, it happened to me.

[lauNX] Like health-wise, money-wise, friend-wise, like everything it fell down on me on one side.

[lauNX] And I was alone in the pit.

[lauNX] Luckily, my mom and my girlfriend, you know, kept pushing me.

[lauNX] I had the power, the ambition, and I kept pushing.

[Banks] Really paid off for you.

[lauNX] Totally.

[Banks] What's the plan for a louts week off of enjoyment?

[lauNX] I mean, for sure, today and tomorrow, I'll just sit at home, relax, because right before I went to Bucharest, I had to move in a new apartment because I had some problems with the landowner.

[lauNX] She had to move in urgently, some family issues.

[lauNX] I don't want to get in about it, but I had to move in a new apartment.

[lauNX] And now I have to kind of clean everything, make it more cozy and set it up all right.

[lauNX] So when I leave for America, my girlfriend can be here without any issues.

[lauNX] And then, yeah, probably the next day I'll go out.

[lauNX] not sit in front of the computer and in the weekends when my girlfriend is free for sure we'll go via ferrata probably short hikes on something because i can't do a lot of long highs in the winter because as i said

[lauNX] as i said i lost a lot of kilos in my past and because i lost a lot of kilos in the winter it's so hard to hike because we go like 20 25 kilometers with a lot of elevation it's so hard for my stomach and it will make it even worse for me health wise when i go to tournaments

[Devilwalk] Yeah.

[lauNX] So I prefer to keep it on a low level, but constant enough just to keep my mental sharp and ready for tournaments.

[lauNX] And in summer, I will do whatever I want.

[lauNX] I can go hike 30 kilometers.

[lauNX] I don't care because it's summer.

[lauNX] It's not extra pressure from the snow.

[Banks] The next events coming up is the America's Tour, Blast Rivals, then you're going to Atlanta after that, then the Major, which is the last event of the first part of the season.

[lauNX] Thank you.

[Banks] Rivals, you've got Vitality, Na'Vi, FURIA, Astralis,

[Banks] yourselves g2 phase and gamer legion then in atlanta you got vitality navi and you guys as the big three teams so what are your expectations right now that you've won your very first tournament what does that change for you if anything

[lauNX] nothing I don't think it's changing nothing I think we want to keep it to the same plan because as I said in the beginning I don't think I think everyone is thinking the same we won only one tournament

[lauNX] We have much more work to do in this career.

[lauNX] And again, we have vitality to face.

[lauNX] It will be the big challenge.

[lauNX] And I think on a personal level, I just want to put up a good fight.

[lauNX] Of course, if we win,

[lauNX] I will take that.

[lauNX] God bless.

[lauNX] Give it to me.

[lauNX] But yeah, on the real side, I just want to put up a good fight.

[lauNX] I want to show the world we can fight against the best team in the world by far.

[lauNX] Because I think against the other teams we already showed, we are capable of fighting them.

[Devilwalk] I think it's one of the biggest kind of maybe unspoken traps that you can come into as a young team that starts getting success.

[lauNX] of the biggest

[Devilwalk] I know everyone says we have to keep our feet on the ground, stay humble.

[Devilwalk] But expectations kind of naturally do rise.

[Devilwalk] And with that, I think generally you see an increase in frustration from young players, especially when things don't go the right way.

[lauNX] And with that, I think, generally, it's been a great demonstration from young players, especially when things don't go that well, go the right way.

[Devilwalk] Do you think that that is going to be anything relevant for this team?

[lauNX] Do you think that that is going to be anything relevant to this team?

[Devilwalk] Or do you think that you've talked about it enough to kind of set yourself the right path in terms of dealing with that?

[lauNX] Or do you think that they've talked about it enough to protect yourself

[lauNX] I think, yes, we talked already, but I'm not going to let it happen.

[lauNX] Like, I think I've... Because, like, I think I told everyone at least twice already.

[Devilwalk] Yeah.

[lauNX] Because, again, I don't want to push it too much because they will think I'm crazy in the head.

[lauNX] But I'm trying to remind them when they're alone, when I have some sneaky time with each and one of them alone, I'm trying to remind them, like, hey, bro, I'm just telling them, like, hey, don't leave me, man.

[Devilwalk] Thank you.

[lauNX] Like, you're way too good for this.

[lauNX] Like, hey, keep staying here.

[lauNX] Like, keep pushing, keep pushing.

[lauNX] But, you know, keep working.

[lauNX] And I keep telling them, like, don't do that.

[lauNX] Don't do my mistakes because I don't want to see them

[lauNX] anywhere near close at what i've been right like i just want to see them skyrocketing through the roof so i can't even see them i want them to go full fast to the top

[lauNX] Even with me or without me.

[lauNX] I don't care.

[lauNX] I just want to see them succeed because I got so used to them and I got so nice with them and I fucking love this kid so much.

[lauNX] Even if I'm fucking 21, it's not a big difference, but they feel like they're my kids.

[Banks] You say with or without you.

[Banks] My view from the community's perspective, and many in the community say they would want you guys to stay together.

[Banks] And I've not only spoken to you, but people around your team as well.

[lauNX] Thank you.

[Banks] And everyone is saying the same.

[Banks] Does it not worry you now that someone will come in and now might try to sign one of your players?

[lauNX] The only problem for me is about because I mean we all know that in I think somehow maybe one year because I think for sure this year Vitality won't make a change but let's say in a world like one of us will play extremely good on the position right and then Vitality wants to make a change for some reason someone will

[lauNX] want to drop off or I don't know can be everything it's yes anything can happen in this life then of course vitality will come for one of us like we all know like no one will say no and even the org knows it the coaching staff knows it and everyone understands it

[lauNX] But again, I think I've... But even then, Falcons is... Not even Falcons with all the money in the world, with unlimited money, not even them can buy it because everyone realized how good we can be together.

[lauNX] And I think they already know that in these older lineups with older people, people are just crazy in the head, man.

[lauNX] They don't have real expectations.

[lauNX] They expect you to do extremely good from the get-go.

[lauNX] And they don't want that.

[lauNX] They feel way too good together.

[lauNX] Of course, they won't go to an old senile team with people who want instant win trophies when they want to grow up and be fun and have a lot of fun together.

[lauNX] It's normal.

[Devilwalk] No, I mean, apart from just... I don't even think I've congratulated you properly for the win at Bucharest, you know.

[lauNX] Thank you.

[Devilwalk] And I think not only that, but congratulate you guys for playing, you know, a high-octane, entertaining Counter-Strike that...

[Devilwalk] I feel like older generation, the more theory you drive into things becomes less and less common.

[lauNX] yeah it's good to see people like you guys say this kind of stuff to me because

[Devilwalk] So I really appreciate being able to watch that kind of Counter-Strike.

[Devilwalk] So a thank you as well.

[lauNX] When I came back to Nexus, when they rescued me from this relevant situation, like my main plan, it was either with a national lineup or international lineup.

[lauNX] I want that passion back in the game because when I was on the bench and I was seeing all these up and coming players being

[lauNX] I'm going to say it, but everyone is dead, depressed inside, no emotion, no feeling, no personality.

[lauNX] I don't want to see that.

[lauNX] Like if we look now, 1.6 clips, like from 15, 20 years ago, like I've got some highlights, like they were almost fighting each other when they were winning a round.

[lauNX] And now we can't even scream some bad words to each other.

[Devilwalk] yes we're not Valorant yet

[lauNX] I don't want this to happen.

[lauNX] We need to keep the CS players the same way.

[lauNX] We need to be the same because that's why the game went...

[lauNX] we should never be like this is our trait and i think that's why cs was always one of the biggest i've not the biggest watched game in the esports because we are this explosive character we are real human beings

[lauNX] We show passion, we show emotion.

[lauNX] And you showed us first in 1.6 and older generations.

[lauNX] And we need to continue doing it, not stop.

[Banks] So it's time to get to your questions.

[Banks] And the first question we have is from Broken Tree.

[Banks] And he says, questions for longs.

[Banks] Hope two questions is all right.

[lauNX] Yeah.

[Banks] In your opinion, how important is team chemistry for a successful game?

[Banks] Would a team with weaker individual skill but greater team chemistry fare better against a team with really good individual skill but clashing play styles?

[Banks] In a time where fans speak as if a roster change is the solution to any problem, I would like to hear from someone who's been a part of many teams

[Banks] and is now on a team where the other four have only really played with each other.

[lauNX] I mean, I think the best example is Falcons.

[lauNX] You can have the best players in the world on the paper, they can shoot the hardest in the world on their positions, but it's not enough.

[lauNX] Because I can see it from a mile away, they don't like each other for sure.

[lauNX] And that's the sad reality.

[lauNX] I can see it from a mile away and I think every...

[lauNX] Every normal human in the end can see that they don't get along with each other.

[lauNX] I don't know who and what is happening, but you can see it totally.

[lauNX] And yeah, for sure, a team with less skilled opponent.

[lauNX] I mean, of course, it's not like you can take the five best friends of a matchmaking pub.

[lauNX] and put them against Falcons because it won't work.

[lauNX] But if you have some decent enough players with a good... Yes.

[Devilwalk] Yeah.

[Devilwalk] Within a professional context.

[lauNX] Yes, exactly.

[lauNX] Then, yeah, for sure.

[lauNX] Most of the time, I mean, 99.99% of the time, the team chemistry will win.

[lauNX] But I've somehow...

[lauNX] all five players in the team have a bad day then of course the better players will win because yeah it's expected

[Devilwalk] The second question he has for you is, foot is becoming known for an aggressive play style.

[Devilwalk] Watching your games, I notice sometimes it really pays off, but other times it's an unnecessary loss.

[Devilwalk] Not to reveal all your strategies, but are you working towards identifying when you make these plays and when to be more tactical?

[lauNX] Are you working with...

[Devilwalk] Or do you guys plan to just continue making these plays and hoping it pays off?

[lauNX] I mean, it's a little bit of both.

[lauNX] We won't stop doing it because it's one of our secret weapons.

[lauNX] And why should we stop using it?

[lauNX] Because it's a hell of a good weapon, surprising the opponent.

[lauNX] but we are working on it every time every theory we have it every time we throw every situation with advantage people we are losing we always identify the problem the tiniest problem we try to look why it happened like

[lauNX] Why did you pick?

[lauNX] Like, what did he say to me to pick?

[lauNX] Because sometimes maybe it's not even his fault.

[lauNX] Maybe it's not his fault because he picked.

[lauNX] Maybe it's my bad because I told him to pick.

[Devilwalk] No.

[lauNX] And then, you know, it goes to both.

[lauNX] Like, maybe it's the bad of... Yeah.

[Devilwalk] Teammates can also make you look shit, you know?

[lauNX] Yeah, that's the problem and not many people think about it.

[lauNX] But yeah, we are working on it, but we won't stop doing it because this is one of our key strongholds.

[lauNX] And not only for the team, but for each individual.

[lauNX] We can all pop off, we can all do crazy plays, push through smokes and do...

[lauNX] taps and sprays so yeah we are just working it to keep it on a controlled level

[Banks] The next question is from Nolito.

[Banks] Do you think there's any psychological link between embracing visible self-expression like tattoos and being willing to fully commit to a non-traditional path like esports?

[Banks] Was pursuing a conventional career ever something you considered?

[Devilwalk] It's basically saying it's the crazy people that have tattoos.

[lauNX] I know yeah yeah yeah I kind of I understood anyway because like in Romania usually kids ask me this like younger children right they ask me this because you know it's being a trend now with us teenagers to get a shit ton of tattoos right so why not they are cool for me it's

[Devilwalk] There's a link there.

[lauNX] I mean, for me, it's more of art.

[lauNX] Like, I really like tattoos.

[lauNX] For me, it's like an art you paint on the body.

[lauNX] So here's that.

[lauNX] People can see however they want, but that's how I see it.

[lauNX] But... I mean, I don't think there is any real connection, probably, but...

[lauNX] i don't know i don't think there's any real connection with the tattoos and playing cs to be honest no it's just something you want to do probably but i think in cs

[Devilwalk] Maybe there's just like a higher percentage of crazy people having tattoos compared to... Ah, yeah.

[lauNX] And this is a real fact, at least that's how I see it.

[lauNX] I think some people do get tattooed also for the PR, for the media side, because I'm telling you,

[lauNX] When tournament organizers do photo and videos, they will mainly prioritize the tattoo guys, right?

[lauNX] They want to like, you know, with Albania, you do the Albanian thing.

[lauNX] You have tattoos.

[lauNX] It's insane.

[lauNX] Everyone will love it.

[lauNX] It's the same for every country.

[lauNX] If you have some specific symbol and you have tattoos, they will try to use the tattoo to market.

[lauNX] And it's smart in a social media-ish way.

[lauNX] If you think about it, yeah, people do it.

[lauNX] And if you like it, then why not do some good art on you?

[Devilwalk] Yeah.

[Banks] Off the back of that second part of that question, have you ever considered having a normal career outside of esports?

[lauNX] Funny thing is, before starting playing CS, I was so close into joining the army.

[lauNX] Like, yeah, I wanted to go to the army high school in Romania when I finished eighth grade.

[lauNX] But then I watched this Kenias clip.

[lauNX] It was the Kenias clip.

[lauNX] I think it's on Krujnapoka.

[lauNX] The one with the major player profiles, with KennyS it was, I remember it.

[lauNX] And then I watched the one with Pasha.

[lauNX] And after watching them together with my mom, I remember I told her before going to school, it was like 7.30 a.m., I told mom,

[lauNX] I want to be a professional CS player.

[lauNX] I will do it for you, mom.

[lauNX] I just told her like this in Romanian.

[lauNX] And she was looking at me laughing at that time because she thought I'm crazy.

[lauNX] And she was like, yeah, I will truly believe in you and I will support you and I will endorse you in whatever you do.

[lauNX] And she did it.

[lauNX] So we paid off.

[lauNX] But only Army was in my head.

[Devilwalk] Cool.

[lauNX] what's the feeling of having

[Devilwalk] We have a question from Thermocos1.

[Devilwalk] What's the feeling of having Krabeni as your IGL and what does he bring to the team?

[Devilwalk] You kind of answered it throughout this podcast, but maybe you can summarize a bit.

[lauNX] Yeah, I mean, on a game-wise, I feel I'm playing with a cheater.

[lauNX] I have to say about game-wise, he's very sharp aim-wise.

[Devilwalk] Ha ha ha.

[lauNX] He has perfect calls.

[lauNX] He's a very hard-working guy.

[lauNX] He's constantly trying to work on his flaws.

[lauNX] And on the team flaws, which is a good side of a captain.

[lauNX] He's trying to fix the team and himself.

[lauNX] So that's good, especially because he's young and he has it.

[lauNX] And I don't know if he's such a cool guy, like cool guy.

[lauNX] Like I laugh a lot with him.

[lauNX] He's making like crazy jokes, but at the same time.

[lauNX] He has this, I don't know, I think it's Albanian personality.

[lauNX] But, man, he's, I don't know.

[lauNX] Sometimes he's tough as a rock, you know.

[lauNX] I tell him he's going so harsh on sometimes team or symmetry when they do mistakes.

[lauNX] And I'm telling him, like, hey, man, calm down.

[lauNX] Like, don't fight them soon.

[lauNX] But he's very nice, man.

[lauNX] In any possible way, it's down to Krab.

[lauNX] Krab, man.

[Banks] And lastly, we have Skorga, who always writes in a question.

[Banks] Scorga says, while not quite the oldest on the team at 20, how do you handle being the experienced one in the run up to the major as the only major veteran on the team?

[Banks] Points to Banks and Devwalk if they can remember which team and major you made it on.

[Banks] I'm sure they can easily as he's pros.

[Banks] They are as the pros they are.

[lauNX] I would

[Devilwalk] I would not have gotten the major itself but I would have definitely guessed Sprout as the team

[Banks] It's the Rio Major.

[Banks] I was there with B&E and you were playing for Sprout.

[lauNX] real major yeah yeah crazy experiences i had uh yeah but i don't

[Devilwalk] I mean, you talked about this, you know, hyping, talking to the guys.

[Devilwalk] How do you handle being the experienced one?

[Devilwalk] You've told them about not doing the same mistakes as you or you don't want them to end up in that way.

[Devilwalk] Yeah.

[lauNX] Yeah, but it has nothing to do with the Major because I thought about transferring to the Major team, but I don't feel like upcoming.

[Devilwalk] Yeah.

[lauNX] I don't care about it.

[lauNX] I'm happy I got my sticker again.

[lauNX] I'm happy the guys got their sticker in the game for sticker.

[lauNX] Many more to come.

[lauNX] you know but I'm not thinking like oh it's the major like again is the major I don't think it's that much and if anything I swear I have nothing I swear I have nothing from it like we won against who it was oh yeah we

[Devilwalk] Maybe you can share some like, what was your experience?

[Devilwalk] But even emotionally going into the major, didn't you feel like in a certain special kind of way?

[lauNX] Oh no, I was scared the shit out of me.

[lauNX] I was so pressured and I was so scared of my life.

[lauNX] I had no clue what was happening there.

[lauNX] And that's why it was such a bad major individually for me because I was so scared of, like, you know, just scared of fucking up.

[lauNX] Yeah, it was 0-84, 0-86.

[lauNX] I will always remember it.

[lauNX] It was not good.

[lauNX] It was not pleasant.

[lauNX] I played very good in the RMR for it, but in the Major itself, I was pooping the floor.

[lauNX] It was not good.

[lauNX] But at least for me, I feel I gained much more confidence and calmness and maturity from real life experiences and what I've done in real life 10 years.

[lauNX] I mean, of course, playing tournaments and stuff is, yeah, okay, nice.

[lauNX] but in the end who lived the real life a bit like you know like it has nothing to do with real life situations like when it comes down to actually fighting for your life like it was the same in mountain i'll share a story if i can i was on the i was on the mountain with my girlfriend we did like two peaks

[Devilwalk] Of course.

[lauNX] uh and then we went back we hiked for like i think eight hours it was the ninth hour when we decided to go back on the on a circuit route and i remember i saw the storm like they were like all the peaks on the mountain i remember i saw the storm and i told her like there is no way it can

[lauNX] go across the peak and come over to us right and she was like nah nah no way and we were just like chilling moving around and i'm not even kidding like 30 minutes when we went down to the peak it was a valley like this right the mountains like this and we were going down we were in the middle of it and in like 30 minutes the sky was completely black

[lauNX] like there were like hail storm with the size of these balls on the mountain.

[lauNX] I was seeing, I'd never saw this in my life and I didn't know it's possible.

[lauNX] I said on the mountain, I could see from each peak, there were like waterfalls coming down in the valley, in the middle where we were like, everything was flooding up.

[Devilwalk] Ah.

[lauNX] And I was looking and I was like, Hey,

[lauNX] Like we need to run.

[lauNX] And like the terrain, like the terrain was like rocks, like, like this, like this rocks, like rock sticks, big, like you couldn't run on it.

[lauNX] It was wet.

[lauNX] And we hiked like four hours through the mountain.

[lauNX] And then one more hour started to the forest with a hailstorm on our ass.

[lauNX] And that was the time.

[lauNX] I felt like real danger to my life.

[lauNX] And I think from that moment on, like my brain kind of turned off.

[lauNX] I don't have any emotion in the game when I play.

[lauNX] Like I don't feel pressure.

[lauNX] I just can't feel it anymore.

[lauNX] I'm not feeling scared anymore.

[lauNX] I don't feel scared to go and die in the game, you know, because I already felt something in real life.

[lauNX] And I think that kind of gives me the advantage of it in many situations.

[Banks] I remember exactly where I was when that happened.

[Banks] I was with B&E in the practice rooms.

[Banks] When we looked out the windows, it was crazy.

[lauNX] But it was now.

[Banks] Oh, I thought we were talking about Rio.

[Devilwalk] It wasn't in Rio.

[lauNX] No.

[lauNX] No.

[Banks] We had this in Rio during the major.

[Banks] We were in the practice rooms and the weather went from lovely, all nice to chaos outside.

[Banks] We were with the guys, bruv.

[lauNX] no no it was less it was less summer in Romania when I hiked one of my like the second highest peak in this chain of mountains in Romania where I hike it was crazy yeah

[Banks] It was a bad omen.

[Banks] We got eliminated by Na'Vi.

[Banks] I thought you were talking about Rio.

[lauNX] I should have said this in Romania.

[lauNX] I should have explained maybe in the beginning.

[lauNX] But yeah.

[Devilwalk] I got it, I got it

[Banks] One final question I'm going to add because you got Troshu now as the assistant coach for the team.

[Banks] He's been with you since Klujna Poker.

[Banks] Has he been with you guys since then?

[lauNX] I mean, we kind of started working him from crack hole off the scenes, like he was doing prep, like he was still working with Falcons, but they kind of made an agreement, Falcons and food.

[Banks] Yeah, something like that.

[lauNX] And because he's such a maniac and hardworking guy, he was doing prep for Falcons and for us in the same time.

[lauNX] like he was doing prep for both teams in the same time like no yeah like he did it right they were not in diverting crackle i don't remember yeah they have been actually yes yes yes yes yes definitely and i remember like he was doing entry for us and for them at that time a bit

[Banks] Falcons was there at Krakow, right?

[lauNX] and then when the cracko ended we signed them because that's how the deal went cracko is finishing and you get him okay but he's bringing so much impact to the team like he is unbelievable like i don't know like you can feel he has the tire one experience because not only with falcons here but he also worked with the likes of ants

[lauNX] a long time and I can see the experience like he's bringing entire one input into the team and this makes it even better because now you have a guy like I think it's very good to have someone in the staff like coaching staff who was actively in Taiwan for years

[lauNX] the last years of his life because one he's used to the current tier one meta and two he knows how to handle it like he just played for falcons i've somehow we play falcons i would just lay like this on my back at theory and i let mac speak i will just let roshu speak just like spill the beans like tell me what they play their tendencies everything

[lauNX] Yeah, but he's very good.

[lauNX] I think he's one of the best in the market right now and I hope no one will come after him.

[Banks] After how I know him and what I heard he does, I feel it would be a good fit for you guys.

[lauNX] Yeah, yeah.

[lauNX] I mean, like, there's the thing.

[lauNX] If you would stay with us a day in a practice, especially in bootcamp, for example, because in bootcamp, it's even crazier when we're next to each other.

[lauNX] Like, you would not feel it's a team, you'd feel as though it's like a friendly pack.

[lauNX] And I'm seeing it because

[lauNX] Not only that we speak like friends, like no joke, the jokes we make and the way we talk to each other, it doesn't even feel like a job.

[lauNX] Like if you would tell someone we are really working, they will say, no way they speak like this.

[lauNX] Because we are friends in the end, you know, we're like brothers.

[lauNX] We're just hanging out, like making fun of each other.

[lauNX] Why not?

[lauNX] And it's the same with Max because he's a bit older than us and he has a lot of experience in his head.

[lauNX] Everyone is listening to him.

[lauNX] But I want to make it clear because I don't want people to think that he was not listening to Falcons because I don't want to put bad crosses into Falcons and him.

[lauNX] From our side, I think we're much more open to his stuff than Falcons, but I know Falcons were also open, but of course they have different perspectives of seeing stuff.

[lauNX] Yeah.

[Banks] And also, do you feel for right now, it seems that you are getting a lot more love from the Romanian community again?

[Banks] How does that feel?

[lauNX] I mean, of course, I love it.

[lauNX] But in the end, I'm going to be honest with you.

[lauNX] I feel the Romanian community is one of my biggest and one of my like one of the best things and not the worst things because I need to be realistic.

[lauNX] And I always said it on my shims, like the Romanian people were the ones who got me up into the scene.

[lauNX] And they were the ones who tried to bury me down into the scene.

[lauNX] Literally, honestly speaking, they tried to bury me in the ground.

[lauNX] No joke.

[lauNX] With facts like lies and rumors.

[lauNX] And no one told me anything.

[lauNX] And I had to find out from different foreign players from tier 1, tier 2 about these lies.

[lauNX] in events or like the straight up phone calls at 2 a.m.

[lauNX] in the fucking night.

[lauNX] It's like just, you know, and yeah, I mean, I love it.

[lauNX] But in the same time, I can't forget what happened because a lot of lies have been spread about me on Twitter, on live streams, on HLTV posts, and no one asked me anything.

[lauNX] Like no one knew anything about me at all in real life.

[lauNX] But everyone was assuming that I'm doing the craziest possible stuff.

[lauNX] And I might have done it, but not the way people said it.

[lauNX] Like people took it to a way that it made me look like I'm some, you know, New York homeless guy.

[lauNX] And it was not like this, honestly.

[lauNX] And I don't like it.

[lauNX] Not only with me, but it goes the same for every people.

[lauNX] I don't think anyone should go through such kind of stuff.

[lauNX] You should never lie about anyone's past or future.

[lauNX] If he done it, okay, let him do it.

[lauNX] But at least speak the full facts.

[lauNX] Don't shove dirt in his mouth for no reason.

[Banks] A lot of us have this on HLTV, Frez, Reddit.

[Banks] They act like they all know you.

[Banks] It's like Devil Walk.

[lauNX] Oh, what do you mean?

[lauNX] He's the biggest man I've seen.

[lauNX] He took his pants when he won a tournament.

[Devilwalk] Where do you read that?

[lauNX] He's the biggest man we've seen in CS community.

[lauNX] So... What?

[Banks] He likes to wear women's clothing.

[Devilwalk] Yeah, exactly.

[Devilwalk] What the fuck?

[Devilwalk] Show some cojones yourself, Banks.

[Devilwalk] Where's your pants drop on stage?

[lauNX] We win the major, I swear.

[lauNX] If I win the major and you'll be on the interview, we will say it now and we'll remember for sure both of us.

[lauNX] If we win, when you take the interview, just take the fans part of us off.

[lauNX] Yep.

[lauNX] Yep.

[lauNX] No one will understand anything but only us three and the guys watching the podcast.

[Devilwalk] Do a devil walk, man.

[lauNX] Yeah, that would be great.

[Devilwalk] 100% of people who have promised to take the pants off if they win the major has won the major.

[Banks] I will commit to that.

[Banks] I'll be down.

[Banks] Just drop them down.

[lauNX] But, I mean, I promise now I'll take my pants off if I do.

[lauNX] But how should I do it?

[lauNX] Like, should I rip it off?

[lauNX] Or, like, how do I... Yeah, okay.

[Devilwalk] Just boss it.

[lauNX] Okay.

[lauNX] Yeah.

[lauNX] But, oh, I thought they will, like, rip them off.

[Devilwalk] No, I just dropped them.

[lauNX] oh i thought you ripped him off okay okay like that's how i don't know that's how i had in the back of my head like i knew he did it but in the back of my head he was just like like yeah

[Devilwalk] I'm not that strong.

[Banks] We just talked about this.

[Banks] Now this is how forum posts start.

[Devilwalk] Yep.

[Devilwalk] This is going to be the biggest news on Twitter after the release.

[lauNX] yep yep yep man they won't say anything because they know i'm crazy like they know they would say like hey normal day in the office let him do his job

[Devilwalk] If Lungs wins the major, he's going to take his pants off.

[Banks] Then I'm going to have to do it.

[Banks] The rest of the team are just going to look at us crazy.

[Devilwalk] Yep.

[Banks] So Lowndes, thank you so much for joining us after winning Bucharest and learning so much more about your career.

[Banks] It was absolutely wonderful to just learn more about you as well.

[Banks] Lastly, is there anything else you want to say?

[lauNX] I mean no it's I mean of course I feel in PGL like I think it was also PGL requesting me to do it because you know probably me being Romanian and yeah so it has to be a correlation

[lauNX] but i'm i always told them like they should take the interviews because it's helping their image and it's helping them speak more open to the public because yeah like we win a tournament on stage you have to speak in front of everyone what will you say you know like hey thank you good okay no i need to be

[Devilwalk] It's good practice.

[lauNX] yeah we need to be strong speeches you know i want to see them speaking good and thank you for having me by the way

[Devilwalk] And yeah.

[Devilwalk] It was our pleasure entirely.

[Devilwalk] Thank you so much.

[Devilwalk] I felt I have got to know you a little bit more and I feel like every time we, you know, get a guest on

[Devilwalk] i feel like i root for that person and that team even more just because you you gain some extra kind of sense of the personality you definitely showed your personality here today and again i want to thank you for joining us but also for continuously showing

[lauNX] thank you thank you

[Devilwalk] your way and your style of Counter-Strike and I'll be rooting for you in the coming tournaments so yeah

[Banks] an amazing guest a lot of insight and we did just talk to him off camera before we let him go to discuss the fact that he will come on to do a proper all about lance because he has such an interesting story interesting career history his mindset like there's very few players

[Banks] that interest me as much as they do him, you know?

[Banks] And I'm not even talking about the game side.

[Banks] I'm talking about out of game side as well.

[Devilwalk] But it's also that he's so raw and unfiltered in a way that you get dragged along into his story in a different way.

[Banks] It's just, yeah.

[Banks] But he does also hold himself back without going too far.

[Banks] There's some things he wants to say, but he's smart enough to know when he should reel it in, which is something we can definitely appreciate for him, for sure.

[Devilwalk] Yeah.

[Banks] So what we need to continue doing here, and it's not going to be too crazy long, but we'll be looking at PGR Bucharest.

[Banks] Obviously, we already spoke about Foot's journey.

[Banks] So Foot has been done by Lowndes himself.

[Banks] But let's start going through this.

[Banks] So FaZe is the first one.

[Banks] We're going to come into the character news a little bit later on.

[Banks] But...

[Banks] Faze, obviously, default lost two games because they weren't at the event.

[Banks] Then they played inner circle, lost 0-2.

[Banks] I'm not surprised they lost 0-2, bro, because you just probably stepped off a plane in the sometime middle of the night after losing the major, losing the dreams, not sure what the team's going to do.

[Banks] And then you're supposed to try and save yourself from elimination in another tournament.

[Banks] There's no real surprise.

[Banks] People are going, oh, their lottery in a circle is so bad.

[Banks] Guys, have we seen their whole career this year, this year results?

[Banks] This isn't crazy.

[Devilwalk] No, it's not crazy, but it's still crazy.

[Banks] Overall.

[Devilwalk] But you have to like, even if all those circumstances tune in, it's still a 0-2 game they're playing.

[Banks] Yeah.

[Devilwalk] They're playing the easiest game in the entire tournament.

[Devilwalk] so to speak uh so no i get that but they they at the same time you know his face they they've they should be able to pick themselves up there's so many experienced professional players in there that

[Banks] Yeah.

[Banks] But just your mentor wasn't going to be there.

[Banks] Your mentor was never going to be there.

[Banks] Yeah.

[Devilwalk] I feel like you can still kind of criticize them losing a 0-2 game.

[Banks] Fair enough.

[Banks] Fair enough.

[Banks] All right, let's do then looking at next team, VOCA, American side that came on in, obviously SEMFIS, coach for the team.

[Banks] They lost to NRG in a domestic matchup.

[Banks] When you lose to NRG in the opening game, it is already going to be quite hard.

[Banks] And they obviously did have a substitute player anyway, play across the tournament for them.

[Banks] Then you go into 3D Max.

[Devilwalk] Yep.

[Banks] You play with still the substitute player coming in there.

[Banks] You're going up against the 3D Max who is playing obviously above that level.

[Banks] I will say...

[Banks] I know I predicted at one point BC game to make playoffs.

[Banks] I'm a little bit delusional on that.

[Banks] You know, I just said that could be the sneak one we'll come into that later.

[Banks] But even the fact they took a map from

[Banks] BC game, it's still something they can be impressed with.

[Banks] They're still notably good players on that team.

[Devilwalk] Yeah.

[Banks] We were trying to grind and go forward.

[Banks] So obviously going out in last place isn't what this team wants.

[Banks] But I mean, for them, it's more just the experience gaining, surely.

[Devilwalk] No, I think so.

[Devilwalk] You know, it's probably just an opportunity for them.

[Devilwalk] You know, they even picked up a map against 3D Max, which we should probably say is impressive to kind of bounce back from NRG loss there.

[Devilwalk] into picking up the first map, making it close even on the third map of Ancient, bring it to overtime.

[Banks] Yeah.

[Banks] 100%.

[Devilwalk] So even though they went 0-3, I think there's more positives to take from it than negatives for them.

[Devilwalk] I don't think anyone expected them to make a run towards playoff.

[Banks] No.

[Devilwalk] As you said, it was just to gather experience and kind of move on.

[Banks] Yeah.

[Banks] Next, we'll stay with the Americas because sadly NRG also went out.

[Banks] We were both a bit more positive about NRG, right?

[Banks] And especially the fact they would have had some time since Rotterdam to get Grimm into some better positions.

[Banks] I'll be honest, I didn't watch any of the NRG games.

[Banks] I was very limited on my time of doing this stuff.

[Banks] But like, they beat...

[Banks] the domestic matchup in Voca.

[Banks] They lost to Foot.

[Banks] They lost to Eyeballers.

[Banks] They lost to Legacy.

[Banks] The problem I have here is not getting maps.

[Banks] And obviously, they got absolutely destroyed by Foot.

[Banks] then it was at least closer on the first map of Nuke against Eyeballers, but Eyeballers has a lot of positives to say.

[Devilwalk] Thank you.

[Banks] And then Legacy kind of ran them over as well.

[Banks] And it's like... Well, the thing is, I put Legacy a lot higher...

[Devilwalk] Yeah, that's the scary part, because they looked competitive before Grim was added, and now it's like they've almost lost a little bit of their charm, weirdly enough.

[Banks] yeah but would you not put still legacy like quite a way above them like i'm not gonna hold it against them i would have just liked to have seen them they didn't even need to win a map for me they just needed to have some fight in them because you should know playing in the america's region

[Banks] what it's like to play against some of the South American teams.

[Devilwalk] Yes, I mean, it's a weird one.

[Devilwalk] I was quite disappointed by NRG, I'll be honest.

[Devilwalk] I fought a few tournaments back even before they added Grim.

[Devilwalk] I thought I saw some potential in them there.

[Devilwalk] Obviously, adding Grim should, on paper, give them...

[Devilwalk] more experience it should give them more firepower it should kind of give them at least a chance against some of these teams um but it's as you say like picking up five rounds against foot picking up 12 rounds against legacy um

[Banks] Yep.

[Devilwalk] It's too uneven.

[Devilwalk] It's not consistent with their performances.

[Devilwalk] Because even if they're playing close against eyeballers, the next game they need to be able to make a map competitive.

[Devilwalk] At the very least.

[Banks] Yeah.

[Devilwalk] And that's...

[Banks] Yeah.

[Devilwalk] Yeah, they haven't really gotten Grim into working.

[Banks] I'll give them on the beginning of after the major cycle of how well they can make things happen.

[Banks] For me, it'll give them enough time to actually see

[Devilwalk] Yeah.

[Banks] how into everything he is um they didn't make the major right nrg well they did make the major i bro i'm still so lost on who's in the major let me just look again i want to make sure i'm not spitting any non-correct facts in here

[Devilwalk] Sure they made it.

[Banks] Oh, NRG is the major.

[Banks] Okay, they made it through the Americas.

[Banks] So obviously stage one is a lot of South American teams.

[Banks] I would expect NRG maybe not to guarantee make it stage two.

[Banks] but have a fighting chance.

[Banks] That's what I want to see then, because that's now two months away from now.

[Banks] So me evaluating where they're at now with Grim just coming in and Grim's supposed to be this upgrade, like you mentioned, then potentially of losing some of that momentum with obviously changing player.

[Devilwalk] Yeah, I'd agree with that assessment.

[Banks] Cologne has to be where we see them punch forward.

[Banks] Because remember, they did pretty okay at Budapest considering they were playing with a bloody coach.

[Banks] So I'm going to hold them to some higher standards coming into that, you know?

[Banks] And it's an important one for them.

[Banks] That's how I look at it.

[Banks] All right, next is Inner Circle.

[Banks] Do you know what?

[Banks] Inner Circle and NiP, just rewind.

[Banks] Give Ken back to Inner Circle, who were on the rise with Ken, yeah?

[Devilwalk] you

[Banks] And change everything, because Ken's not having any success.

[Banks] Inner Circle's not having any success.

[Banks] Their one game win, like, okay, you took a map from Foot, was the opening game.

[Banks] You took a map from Legacy.

[Banks] you got too old by bait and then your only win was against the phase that probably would have beaten you had their major dreams not been ended so rewind the clock go go backwards resource not

[Devilwalk] Yeah, it's not great.

[Devilwalk] Even though they beat FaZe, I'm not sure you're supposed to see that as an achievement in this year.

[Devilwalk] So, yeah, it's kind of bad, yeah.

[Banks] It's very different now.

[Banks] It's very different.

[Banks] Now, BC game, we can definitely have a conversation about though, mate.

[Devilwalk] Um, yeah.

[Banks] You can get Mongols in the opening game, yeah?

[Banks] You picked us too.

[Banks] You hear from Taz that I need more time to be together as a team, take that time.

[Banks] And I really like the Taz addition to this version of BC game and what he can bring and what he can help with.

[Banks] But I mean, this was diabolical.

[Banks] Like...

[Devilwalk] But, I mean...

[Banks] simple was only performing some of the time like it's not he is no longer the greatest player of all time he was in csgo that's what he can have right he was in csgo but i mean i've sat there as someone who i like him as a person as a friend as like someone i spent so much time with during that rise

[Banks] And I would agree, he's got phenomenal skills.

[Banks] We saw him grinding again.

[Banks] We saw his face at games go up and stuff.

[Banks] But this ain't working.

[Banks] This is like, he's not that same person anymore.

[Banks] And we've gone away from it.

[Banks] I think Stryker put this probably the most beautifully I heard it, was like that...

[Banks] Because he's not solo carrying games, and I am paraphrasing here, yeah?

[Banks] He now is not even enjoyable for some people to play with.

[Banks] People don't want to play with him.

[Banks] And that's a saying.

[Banks] It was such up and down performances from them.

[Banks] They lost to MIBR, which I think is unacceptable.

[Banks] They beat VOCA, but still dropped a map there.

[Banks] And they lost 2-0 to Focus.

[Banks] Obviously, Focus is quite an interesting team.

[Banks] It's like a new age team coming up as well.

[Devilwalk] I even predicted them to get playoff.

[Banks] I predicted BC getting to get playoffs, sadly.

[Devilwalk] No, I meant focus this time.

[Banks] Oh, okay, okay, okay.

[Banks] I thought we were just throwing shade at my...

[Devilwalk] And not BC game.

[Devilwalk] That kind of insanity is...

[Banks] Hey, that was my wild Hail Mary play of like, yeah, S1mple can somehow do it again, especially because the field of Bucharest was quite weak that I thought there was potential.

[Banks] But yeah, do you know what?

[Devilwalk] I mean, I could have had the perfect prediction if I just got like focus.

[Banks] Like, they're done.

[Devilwalk] No, maybe I couldn't have.

[Devilwalk] Actually, well, I wanted legacy to beat bait.

[Banks] Okay.

[Devilwalk] And Focus got matched up against Eyeballer, so it was a little bit unlucky there.

[Banks] Yeah, that's just the way it goes.

[Banks] You know, we didn't do simulation for this one.

[Banks] But I mean, for me, already the rumors are out that two players will be kicked from BC game.

[Banks] People are just straight away, by the way, saying like it will be Aragorn and crazy, like they'll keep Mutiris.

[Banks] But I think it's 100% Mutiris is going to end up being kicked and someone else.

[Banks] like they'll kick the igl oh you did you read it you say what i'm thinking about yeah here i'm not the igl i'm no here i'm the eyes i'm not the captain

[Devilwalk] It probably is.

[Devilwalk] I mean, it's evident that they don't really match up in their line of thinking.

[Devilwalk] This has been even kind of revealed in interviews that Materious has made.

[Devilwalk] Yeah.

[Devilwalk] That's a prime example.

[Devilwalk] I mean, it's like you're going to need an emotional captain if you're going to

[Banks] That's rough.

[Devilwalk] kind of get simple in and rolling and believing and not because there's going to be comparably to any other player in the world probably having simple in the team is going to have more ups and downs in your team's mood than probably any other player

[Devilwalk] Therefore, having an emotional leader, someone we talk about like Apex or Kerrigan who are really, really good, those are obviously elite examples.

[Banks] Yep.

[Devilwalk] But having someone that at least has a grain of those attributes is very, very important for a team that has Simple on it.

[Banks] Yep.

[Devilwalk] so I think he kind of shot himself in the foot by even mentioning that or even saying that yeah but I

[Banks] Yeah.

[Banks] It's probably he was in the emotional state though, right?

[Banks] When he was given that interview like it was.

[Banks] Yeah.

[Banks] And also...

[Banks] i was gonna say just but that they also bc game are gonna throw stupid money at this and people you know there's that thing that came out that like simple tweeted no way dummies believe that i have 120k per per month it's not even half of this

[Devilwalk] I agree with you, though.

[Banks] For him to be on 120K a month, he'd have to be streaming and also spinning on BC Game on their casino or whatever at the same time.

[Devilwalk] didn't also bc games like ceo hint on like magisk is not going to mouse boards

[Banks] yeah yeah yeah and like he made they made approaches to dong to see if there was a number like they are willing to buy and take anything they can get right to try and make this work but

[Banks] What is concerning is that it doesn't seem like simple and electronic are a pull for many players to be like, yeah, I want to play on that team.

[Banks] It's not 2022 anymore.

[Banks] It's not 2021.

[Devilwalk] Nope.

[Banks] It's a long way from now.

[Devilwalk] And I don't think his kind of marketing period that Electronic had in VP does them any good either.

[Banks] Well, that suffered.

[Devilwalk] Because, yeah, it doesn't look like a foot family friendly environment.

[Banks] The shouting up players.

[Banks] Yeah.

[Banks] of course you have to do that yeah it's no it's not it's not unlike imagine even if you are maybe a young ukrainian eastern european player who really wants like a desperate jump up in your career

[Banks] Sure, maybe you might think about going for it because it's simple, but I can't imagine many others agreeing to go into that right now.

[Devilwalk] No, I mean, it's... I mean, I don't think it's not only from like a player's perspective.

[Devilwalk] I think it's like even viewed from a coach's perspective sounds like...

[Devilwalk] You know, some jobs you can get by by you enjoy the people you work with, you enjoy like the environment and the fun that you have on the journey.

[Devilwalk] I don't really see

[Devilwalk] if I would jump into that project, that I will have those feelings.

[Banks] Yeah.

[Devilwalk] Um, like it's a growth day by day kind of vibe.

[Devilwalk] It's, it's kind of what the negative parts about what longs mentioned in the pod, um, earlier where.

[Devilwalk] It's pressure to win now, now, now, now, now, get things done now, now, now, now, now.

[Devilwalk] And is that really an environment you want to be in?

[Devilwalk] Because that also means there's consequences for not bringing it now, now, now.

[Banks] Yeah.

[Devilwalk] And I think that scares people.

[Banks] And if you're not given enough time, you know, look how many times we say...

[Devilwalk] Yeah, I think that scares people.

[Banks] orgs teams players are not given enough time to build something for the long term to actually lift the trophies they want to lift we have seen so many team changes happen where you would 100 argue that it wasn't that player's fault and they're just doing it because they need your reaction to something and that's a that's a big problem

[Devilwalk] Yeah.

[Banks] But let's see, they tried to buy their VRS points.

[Banks] If they need to buy three more players to make some other VRS points, good luck to them.

[Banks] But our next team I'm going to talk about, Focus, is even higher than them on the VRS right now.

[Banks] PC game is 70th, Focus is 26th.

[Banks] Focus beat 3D Max in the opening game.

[Banks] I did lose to PowerVision.

[Banks] The wildcard loss is not great either.

[Banks] Then they beat BC Game and then they lost to Eyeballers.

[Devilwalk] But this is an incredibly young team with some interesting pieces.

[Banks] But it is an interesting team.

[Devilwalk] For me, what kind of, like why I even predicted them in the first play, obviously they went to a LAN and they won it, right?

[Banks] Yeah.

[Devilwalk] They want some qualifiers to even be in this position.

[Devilwalk] But for me, I think one of the hardest matchups I've ever experienced where I kind of know it's the coach who has had impact.

[Banks] Yep.

[Devilwalk] cuban is one of those coaches like it's one of the toughest coaches i've played against in terms of mind games in terms of prep work uh where i've kind of felt like oh he he had me

[Devilwalk] in this one so I believe in Cuban a lot as a coach I think he did wonders in that Norwegian org what were they called Apex thank you

[Banks] Apex.

[Devilwalk] I think he did wonders there.

[Devilwalk] I'm surprised it has taken him kind of this long to get a project going.

[Banks] I'll explain to you why.

[Devilwalk] Was it ENCE he went to or?

[Banks] Yeah, but I'll tell you why.

[Banks] People are stupid.

[Banks] People underestimate Cuban's ability so much.

[Banks] He is one of the most underrated coaches.

[Banks] And I'll say this about Cuban.

[Devilwalk] 100%.

[Banks] I know him personally as a friend.

[Banks] When I spoke to him at JL's wedding, I've said this publicly before.

[Banks] He's got a very harsh way of dealing with players and a specific mindset on how he views the game.

[Banks] It is a good mindset, but if people don't buy into it or the players don't work with it or the organization, like,

[Banks] doesn't give it a time, he's not going to succeed.

[Banks] But his history after working with VP, you know, when he finishes playing days, everything he's done as a coach, if I look at Mad Lions onwards, so Mad Lions, they had success.

[Banks] They grinded the rankings, even competing at some of the partner leagues where you had to get open qualifier spots, yeah?

[Banks] did the same on Apex plus leading them to a major was doing great work at ENCE but then for some reason they didn't agree on things and obviously Cuban is mature enough to just say okay you don't believe in it I'll step away he's done this time and time again but if you get players that believe in him and an organization that believes in his vision and way of doing things

[Devilwalk] Nope.

[Banks] you will get winners, and you will get players that can perform.

[Banks] And like, ZTR and Volt are known quantities, but you've got Banjo, Jorko, Mafios, all of these guys will be able to flourish and thrive under him, for sure.

[Banks] think i think obviously jail had blade next as his coach right which is a huge one but cuban did wonders for jail like took him from mad lions to apex that got him the call up to navi and they had such a good relationship and jail was able to and obviously again it's both eastern european mentality but they were able to

[Banks] put that together and harness that on moving forward.

[Banks] Some players have to stop being so soft and so weak.

[Banks] Looking at our side of the pond, our Eastern, our Western Europe.

[Devilwalk] No, but I agree.

[Devilwalk] I think Cuban is one of the most underrated coaches out there.

[Devilwalk] I think he's absolutely elite.

[Devilwalk] It's a guy that you just need to buy into his system.

[Devilwalk] But I think that if there's...

[Devilwalk] there's like a few coaches that work in the way that you know cuban blade like very systematic strategic they will find consistency for your team i think cuban is in that category i think it's

[Banks] Yep.

[Devilwalk] like almost unbelievably underrated.

[Devilwalk] But Focus, very interesting team.

[Banks] Fully.

[Devilwalk] I am looking forward to see what they got going.

[Banks] Definitely.

[Banks] You nearly hit the jackpot.

[Banks] We're getting them through the playoffs as well.

[Banks] Nearly.

[Devilwalk] Yeah.

[Banks] Legacy, now this is the team, Devwalk, that disappointed me.

[Banks] This is where the disappointment starts because FaZe is one thing, but I had higher hopes in this field of teams against Legacy.

[Banks] You lost to ParaVision, nothing wrong with that.

[Banks] You beat Inner Circle, okay, you dropped a map, but I'll accept it because Legacy always drop a map, right?

[Banks] It's their style of play.

[Banks] You lose to MIBR, man.

[Banks] I'm not underrating MIBR, but Klim is... I still don't believe in this Klim guy, by the way.

[Banks] I'm still waiting for this fallout.

[Banks] MIBR needs to cycle in a new player.

[Banks] People are going to cook me for saying that because they're just going to look at numbers, but I'm not sold on him as being this wow breakout player for it.

[Banks] You shouldn't be losing to MIBR.

[Banks] Then you beat NRG.

[Banks] Okay, that's... It's nothing to shout home about.

[Banks] And then you lose to Bait without taking a map.

[Banks] And you did kind of get rolled on.

[Banks] And even Sizzy was performing really well there at the same time.

[Banks] Like, for me...

[Banks] I'm not going to take this one event and be harsh on Legacy, but this wasn't good enough.

[Devilwalk] Thank you.

[Banks] This was way beneath.

[Banks] For me, it was a must playoffs.

[Banks] A must playoffs.

[Devilwalk] I mean, to some extent I agree with you.

[Banks] And

[Devilwalk] I just have this view of Legacy where we're never, ever, ever going to see them be consistent.

[Devilwalk] um and that's gonna be blimps and bumps with tournaments where they lose but eventually you know they wake up on the right side of the bed and they're gonna destroy everyone uh so i just have that view of legacy uh

[Banks] Yeah I know what you're saying I get it

[Devilwalk] Still disappointing as a tournament as a whole.

[Devilwalk] Like, I agree with you there.

[Devilwalk] I think they should be making playoff.

[Devilwalk] I predict them to make playoff.

[Devilwalk] And they fell out short.

[Devilwalk] And it's, you know, that MIBR loss is probably the one that is going to haunt them a little bit more than the others.

[Devilwalk] I feel like this is, you know...

[Banks] Kind of wilder.

[Devilwalk] you know, a Swede comes in and brings MIBR glory, it's...

[Banks] Domestic one.

[Devilwalk] But it's such a grudge match match up, domestic match up, that they obviously want to win that one and they obviously want to be perceived as one of the better Brazilian teams.

[Banks] Yeah.

[Devilwalk] So yeah, that one will sting.

[Devilwalk] like bait I'm kind of re-evaluating bait a little bit I feel like they have picked up something so it's not that bad of a loss yeah

[Banks] Hmm.

[Banks] We'll come on to that after we're not we're not ready for the bait talk.

[Banks] We're not ready for the bait talk yet.

[Banks] But I, I just think the legacy should be way above what we saw there.

[Banks] And it's just we'll wait and see what future events hold for them.

[Devilwalk] They should definitely be punching in the 3-1 mark overall in this tournament.

[Banks] Yeah.

[Banks] Yeah, definitely.

[Banks] Wildcard next.

[Banks] Wildcard find themselves losing to Bait, beating Focus, which was a legit win, right?

[Banks] But then losing to Mongols and PowerVision 2.0.

[Banks] I don't think there's anything wrong with losing to Mongols and PowerVision 2.0 and at least being somewhat competitive, right?

[Banks] Did you see the crazy Mirage overtime?

[Devilwalk] I...

[Banks] I actually didn't watch the second map because the first map was so long.

[Banks] I had a limited window where I could do something.

[Banks] And then I looked at this and went, well, you know, I guess I'm only watching Mirage.

[Banks] It was 28-26.

[Banks] It was embarrassing for PowerVision, I'll be honest, to let it go like that.

[Banks] But I mean, it's just some... I thought once it goes to overtime, PowerVision will just win.

[Devilwalk] It's...

[Banks] Instead, we just kept going.

[Devilwalk] But it's a weird team to kind of evaluate their... Because they obviously end up in the 2-3 bracket.

[Devilwalk] But that's where the default win versus phase.

[Devilwalk] That's where their second win comes up in.

[Devilwalk] And they play some really close games against some really good opponents.

[Devilwalk] I mean, even if you look at the Bates one, it was pretty decent.

[Devilwalk] You look at the Mongols one, 13-11, 13-8.

[Devilwalk] And obviously the Paravision one, 28-26, 13-11.

[Devilwalk] They're competitive, but they still only really picked up one win.

[Banks] Mm hmm.

[Devilwalk] But I think overall interesting lineup.

[Devilwalk] It's kind of a European American mix.

[Devilwalk] Hex being in there, someone I kind of felt like

[Devilwalk] almost got robbed of a spot in M80 I thought he did good in that team obviously a big talent like JB came out and they just had to pounce but I still don't think you know

[Banks] It made sense.

[Devilwalk] I think Hext kind of deserved a spot in how well they played in that team.

[Devilwalk] So it's good to see him kind of back in a big tournament.

[Devilwalk] And it's cool to see, you know, this...

[Devilwalk] x what is it para vision igl of uh namanya uh oh serotonacity not uh para vision but you played a very annoying style i remember them greatly there was a lot of clashes with the b and e in the days

[Banks] Yeah.

[Banks] And he's been grinding a lot, right?

[Devilwalk] Yeah.

[Banks] He's had, I don't know what teams, but I just remember hearing his name for a long time.

[Banks] He said four years on zero tenacity.

[Banks] He had that I will stint as well before this.

[Banks] So he just plays a lot.

[Banks] He's an active guy.

[Banks] He's definitely trying to grind his way through on it.

[Banks] So it could be a shot for him.

[Banks] I know he's enjoying it at least.

[Devilwalk] Yeah.

[Banks] But my expectations, I think like this is probably, I would expect him in this category, you know?

[Banks] This is not like,

[Devilwalk] I kind of feel like it's almost reverse for me.

[Devilwalk] I felt like NRG probably should have been more in the wildcard category and the reverse.

[Devilwalk] I feel like wildcard kind of overproduced, overperformed to some sense.

[Banks] Overbeformed.

[Devilwalk] I mean, by expectations, maybe I'm being harsh on saying overperformed.

[Banks] Hmm.

[Devilwalk] They performed really well, and I didn't expect them to perform this good against this tier of opponents so quickly.

[Banks] Okay.

[Banks] Yeah, I get it.

[Banks] I get it.

[Banks] But instead, it's only one win.

[Banks] So I'm thinking of three.

[Banks] I'm just looking at it as 3-1 when you had very tough games.

[Devilwalk] Yeah, yeah.

[Banks] It's like a good spot for him.

[Banks] Next is MIBR.

[Banks] Making playoffs is crazy.

[Banks] Making playoffs, and they didn't have the easiest of runs.

[Banks] The wins they had were Eyeballers, who also made playoffs, Legacy, who we expected to make playoffs, and BC Game, while also playing Astralis and 3D Max.

[Devilwalk] Yeah.

[Banks] I think for, like, LNZ, by the way, is someone I fully think can do well on this MIBR roster compared to what we have with our kicker version, yeah?

[Banks] I'm still, like, in signing English, no problem.

[Banks] But for Venom and for BRN, like, I'm still waiting.

[Banks] to understand if they can really adapt to this because they're not coherent in the same way.

[Banks] And then Klim, I'm still down on like, he was just so overhyped.

[Banks] And this is nothing against him.

[Banks] I've said this before on a podcast, but he was so overhyped where I wasn't seeing what people were hyping up.

[Banks] And he can have a good rating when he's playing a lot of domestic South American teams.

[Banks] But he's not the solo carry player.

[Banks] It doesn't matter if he's 1.20, 1.10, 1.15 over and over again in all these games if you're losing everything.

[Devilwalk] But I also think that he's also a little bit...

[Banks] I don't see the same mechanical gift where he single-handedly wins you rounds.

[Devilwalk] let's say, poorly marketed because of what happened in Budapest with their lineup.

[Devilwalk] They were hyped and they looked absolutely terrible at that major.

[Devilwalk] And that

[Banks] Oh, you mean the one with kicker?

[Banks] Yeah, yeah.

[Devilwalk] Yeah, they looked really, really, really bad.

[Devilwalk] So I also think that kind of has shown a little bit of a bad light on him because of the terrible performances they had in that.

[Banks] It was terrible.

[Banks] Okay.

[Devilwalk] And we kind of have to refresh our view

[Devilwalk] of even him as a player because it's obviously impressive to go 3-1 in this tournament MIBR they made the major even with this kind of wonky base of players you have to say to some degree

[Banks] Yeah.

[Banks] Yep.

[Devilwalk] Three Brazilians, a Russian, and a Swede with a Serbian coach.

[Devilwalk] It's an interesting mix.

[Devilwalk] Let's just say that.

[Banks] It's so odd.

[Banks] When you say it like that, it doesn't even sound like a pub joke.

[Banks] It just sounds nuts.

[Devilwalk] Yeah.

[Banks] And the thing is...

[Banks] I think Letny is more than capable enough to allow LNZ now to change things, but I'm hoping they also change the way they get Klim to do things in order to allow more ability for someone like Insani to shine as well.

[Devilwalk] I think so.

[Devilwalk] I think Letney, for me, has always had a great understanding of CS.

[Banks] It can't be full focus of just playing around the AWPer and going,

[Banks] Did you ever work with him or not?

[Devilwalk] Did I work with him?

[Banks] Did he ever stand in for one of your teams or something?

[Banks] Because he's a standing master.

[Devilwalk] He might have...

[Devilwalk] Trial or help, but I can't remember.

[Devilwalk] But I do remember talking CS with him extensively for one bit.

[Banks] Yeah, I like him.

[Devilwalk] I think it was when we were in FPX or something.

[Devilwalk] And we were even considering having him as IGL at some point.

[Devilwalk] um either way he's he's great at counter-strike and he's great he has great view of counter-strike i like his view of counter-strike uh so i have no doubts that he's also an incredibly hard worker it's uh yeah you cannot fault him for that

[Banks] yeah now this is when we're going to change onto something so much more positive this is we're going into your neck of the woods we're going to your very soft country who had some hard counter-strike to play because just on the back of what we were saying

[Devilwalk] But yeah.

[Devilwalk] Soft country.

[Banks] But they did not play soft counter-strike.

[Banks] JW don't play that soft counter-strike.

[Banks] This was legit.

[Banks] This run was so good.

[Banks] And okay, people can say they lost to Mongols and Astralis.

[Banks] They beat Focus, MIBR, NRG.

[Banks] Not the hardest to make playoffs.

[Banks] But they beat Astralis.

[Banks] They did beat Astralis.

[Banks] They just fumbled so hard when they were at the finish line.

[Banks] They were up 11-4 on Ancient.

[Banks] That's my diabetic alarm.

[Banks] They were up 11-4 on Ancient.

[Banks] And they sadly fumbled it.

[Devilwalk] they could have made finals for sure

[Banks] That was in their hands to 2-0 Astralis.

[Banks] Now, JW took a lot of that himself, you know, so we couldn't close it out and they couldn't reset going into the last map.

[Banks] So they didn't actually beat Astralis, but this could have been one of those epic runs.

[Banks] That's going to hurt them, but it's a lot of learning experience for the other players on that team.

[Banks] Yeah.

[Banks] Yeah.

[Devilwalk] No, but I love Eyeballers.

[Banks] I like it, man.

[Devilwalk] I think they have a lot of interesting pieces.

[Devilwalk] Maxter obviously has so much star potential.

[Banks] Did you see the Max the Highlight?

[Devilwalk] I think this was a rough tournament for BobXT.

[Devilwalk] but he's normally one of their like absolute best players so it's a little bit of shame that you know he didn't get to show and highlight what he can do because he can definitely play at this level this was just

[Banks] Yeah.

[Banks] He's really good.

[Banks] Yep.

[Devilwalk] poor tournament for him um unfortunate but even if you look at like someone like roll for decks they are very very interesting pieces as well and i think they have a good solid like build of what you need in a team with different people taking different amounts of space in a team

[Devilwalk] So I like it.

[Devilwalk] I like Pete as the coach.

[Devilwalk] He's done some wonderful work with them since joining, grinding their way up.

[Devilwalk] And it's one of the reasons why Swedish CS is back.

[Banks] is very true very true and you know what for bob xd it's a very big event for him and it's probably a lot of pressure on him to perform the same way he was it'll come with some time he's not one of them players that i'm worried about did you i mentioned to you did you see that max to highlight the spray down bruh that was nuts another

[Devilwalk] Yes.

[Devilwalk] He was as surprised as you were.

[Devilwalk] You can see it on the cam.

[Banks] Sometimes it just works.

[Banks] Sometimes it just works.

[Banks] But I'll say this.

[Banks] If that can happen more regularly for them, like these kind of runs, this could be a consistent team to be grinding forward to seeing at some of these other events, to see at some of the events next year or next half of the season where...

[Banks] bigger teams don't attend like there is going to be opportunity now for them and i'm i'm excited because this is not the first or last time we're going to see them unlike in terms of a tier one event

[Devilwalk] No, I don't think so.

[Devilwalk] I think they, even if they have down periods, them and Alliance, I think, are going to have regular showings for tier one events this year.

[Banks] Who do you think is better right now?

[Devilwalk] If you want consistency, I think Alliance.

[Devilwalk] I think Eyeballers...

[Devilwalk] They have maybe a bigger ceiling at times.

[Devilwalk] They can at least play a bit more on momentum than Alliance.

[Banks] But that probably comes from like JW's way of the game.

[Devilwalk] But it's very different styles of Counter-Strike.

[Banks] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Devilwalk] Alliance is a more structured style with Eyeballers being a little bit more wingy.

[Banks] True, true, true, true.

[Banks] All right, well, that's enough about eyeballs.

[Banks] We'll go on to bait.

[Banks] So bait.

[Banks] I didn't have expectations for them.

[Banks] At one point, I thought they were not going to do anything, and this was so dead.

[Banks] And now, okay, beat Wildcard, lose to Astralis 3D Max.

[Banks] Then I started to get worried.

[Banks] You beat Inner Circle, you beat Legacy.

[Banks] Legacy is a positive one.

[Banks] Then you lose to Foot, which I think everyone expects them to lose to Foot, but they even improved their overpass enough, or maybe...

[Banks] foot didn't improve their own overpass enough but foots overpass is normally good we see them challenging some top teams on that map um that i would say that this was a good run for them still there are times where i'm seeing the sissy they keep telling me about but i think let me just check i'm not gonna lie to everyone but i think he was still the lowest rated player of the whole team

[Banks] No, okay.

[Banks] Alex was under him.

[Devilwalk] I, I,

[Banks] He had a 1.0 rating this time.

[Banks] So there is growth with the young kid.

[Banks] There is growth.

[Banks] And he even did some interviews and content as well.

[Banks] So I think we're on the right track with him for everything that was told to us.

[Devilwalk] I agree.

[Devilwalk] They're on the right track with him.

[Devilwalk] But I have a hard time sensing where I put bait.

[Banks] It's hard.

[Devilwalk] I have a real struggle where, like, how good are they?

[Devilwalk] Because obviously...

[Banks] Because I don't know where to put them either.

[Banks] I was going to say, right, remember, this is the other thing we have to hold them to.

[Banks] Budapest, one game away from playoffs of a major.

[Banks] And now that seems so far away for these guys.

[Banks] And Ken Zazor, how many times have I been positive about him at this team, what he can do, his raw skill?

[Banks] He's still there, maybe not as good as he could be, but both him and NPL are not as good as when NPL was leading.

[Devilwalk] But it's a weird one because like Essential used to be kind of their low rated player in this tournament.

[Banks] Yep.

[Devilwalk] He were their fifth best rated player of the entire event.

[Banks] That's kind of one-off for him though, right?

[Devilwalk] Maybe even fourth if you remove Kerrigan from the list.

[Devilwalk] He only played two maps.

[Banks] Yeah, don't count, bro.

[Devilwalk] so fourth best player of the event and I mean that's great but you need all the pieces to kind of shine for this bait yeah

[Banks] Yep.

[Banks] Yeah, last three events.

[Banks] He's been higher by the way.

[Banks] He's gone 112, 116, 121 last three events.

[Devilwalk] But for bait, this is a great tournament.

[Devilwalk] It's kind of stopping the bleeding.

[Devilwalk] It's a way for them to kind of finally get some breathing room and some space to actually believe if they are making the right decision or not.

[Devilwalk] because if obviously it was close they could have you know went out in the in the other pool but they didn't they made playoff they made a quarterfinals they lost against the winners of the event they played great against the winners of the event

[Devilwalk] narrowly losing two maps, 13-11 and 16-13.

[Devilwalk] Overall, great success for bait in this tournament for me.

[Banks] yeah yeah um power vision next at all power vision

[Banks] Jame is Mr. Consistent with this, but do you know what?

[Devilwalk] Old Paravision.

[Banks] I think you could just almost bet on it now with ParaVision that it will be one good playoff run, go deep in the tournament, then one bad tournament, then one good playoff run in the tournament, then one bad tournament.

[Banks] Let me look and see if I'm actually onto something here.

[Banks] So they win Bounty.

[Banks] Then they do really badly in Krakow, top 16.

[Banks] Then second place, Klusner Poker.

[Banks] Then do really badly at EPL.

[Banks] Then third to fourth in Rotterdam.

[Banks] And then I'll say really badly in Bucharest because the elite teams are not there.

[Banks] This was your event to win.

[Banks] Now, I'm not going to be harsh on ParaVision.

[Banks] I don't think this is... It's a blunder because this was their chance of a second trophy for the year.

[Banks] Realistically, people should have been looking at this as like...

[Banks] Depending on the bracket, obviously a foot Paravision, foot Mongols, Paravision Mongols, that kind of a grand final, right?

[Devilwalk] you

[Devilwalk] Okay, but if I put ParaVision in quarterfinals versus, let's say, 3D Max or MIBR with Astralis Eyeballers coming up, I think they make grandfinals.

[Banks] Paravision.

[Banks] Yeah.

[Banks] Yeah, that's what I'm saying.

[Banks] They had the hard side of bracket, but so did foot.

[Banks] But still, if you looked at that bracket before everything we know today, you would have said ParaVision was the favourites to go into that grand final over any of the other teams.

[Devilwalk] Favors, yes, but I personally believe in foot.

[Banks] Yeah, but I said football make finals as well.

[Banks] I said 5-4 Paravision would give them a harder time.

[Devilwalk] Yeah.

[Banks] I thought they would struggle, but they're very well prepared for it.

[Banks] They've beaten them in the group stage, right?

[Devilwalk] Yeah.

[Banks] So I think Paravision's not bad, but they best perform when they're the underdogs.

[Banks] And Dastan, did you read that or listen to that Dastan interview they did on the couch?

[Devilwalk] I listened half of it, I think.

[Banks] Oh my God.

[Banks] Dude, we obviously, we love Dastan, right?

[Devilwalk] Yeah.

[Banks] Full honesty.

[Banks] He's like, if I could kick some player now, I would kick a player.

[Banks] I got major coming up.

[Devilwalk] I can't kick player now.

[Devilwalk] Going major.

[Banks] It's basically, bro, if you're somewhat underperforming or missing the smokes and flashes, remember, when they miss smokes and flashes, they get fines as well.

[Devilwalk] Yep.

[Banks] Yeah, they have a fine system in place.

[Banks] We heard that on this podcast.

[Banks] back when we did the Budapest Major.

[Banks] First of all, you're getting fined.

[Banks] Then also, you should be sweating because you don't know if you're being kicked as well.

[Banks] Because the thing is, he's very right about some days, one player pops off and takes over.

[Banks] James is consistent.

[Banks] But it's like the rest of them just sit like a random one point something rating.

[Devilwalk] I'm kind of surprised Nota is a bit inconsistent because he is... For me, he's been like, when they play great, it's Nota is the... Like, that's...

[Banks] And...

[Banks] Note his way.

[Devilwalk] He's the one that makes them look all-star, almost.

[Banks] Mm-hmm.

[Devilwalk] Obviously, if you have Sway, Cielo, Jayme kind of, you know, running the show, having Note up there as well, gives them a bit of consistency.

[Banks] But they are a young team, right?

[Banks] But also, when you've really won an event and you're now doing multiple tier one events, the young team thing does start to like... Like, we're not going to accept that forever.

[Devilwalk] Yep.

[Banks] And I understand Dastan's frustrations.

[Banks] And I'm never criticizing the way he's doing it.

[Banks] But it's like...

[Banks] Some of the mistakes they make, it's hard.

[Banks] Some of the mistakes, I would not even be as harsh as Dastan would be on them.

[Banks] But I guess if he's seeing them every single time and he's looking at it with a microscope every time, it's probably very hard for him to deal with.

[Devilwalk] As it is for any coach.

[Banks] Yes, but I mean, when you've already fought, you got over this and you're winning the tournaments, you're going through it and then old habits die and he's expecting them to remember.

[Devilwalk] that's a different conversation to have expect people to remember that's like that's the worst part about being a coach let me just tell me expecting people to remember what you tell them it's the

[Banks] We're expecting teams to remember things.

[Banks] We've been through this.

[Devilwalk] It's the toughest task.

[Banks] Yeah, just ask my wife.

[Banks] Just ask my wife.

[Banks] I don't remember half the things I'm supposed to do.

[Devilwalk] Yeah.

[Banks] There was a million things going on.

[Banks] I don't know.

[Banks] I think this is a disappointing one more so than other early exits because this wasn't a tough set of teams like...

[Banks] For 100%, they should have beaten 3D Max and been on the other side of the bracket.

[Banks] You know?

[Banks] ParaVision shouldn't be losing to 3D Max.

[Devilwalk] true I mean they just go home Dustin whips them up a little bit and then it's all good

[Banks] Not in current state, current form of how it is.

[Banks] And they were lucky to make playoffs.

[Banks] Definitely.

[Banks] But I don't see them as in a worrying position.

[Banks] Like, what's the next event for them?

[Banks] Let me have a look.

[Banks] where are they going to next oh they got chill time until kazakhstan and then they do cac and then they're in stage three at a major so they're good that's gonna be good that's gonna be real good

[Devilwalk] Dustin in Kazakhstan that's it's gonna be the best para vision we've ever seen you had yep

[Banks] All right, from here we go to 3D Max.

[Banks] I think both of us didn't have 3D Max making playoffs, right?

[Banks] I had him making playoffs.

[Banks] I'm delusional in some way, I guess.

[Banks] I don't know.

[Banks] I'm still so... I like the Masuta addition.

[Banks] I like the fact that MBK is going to be behind them more.

[Banks] Teams they beat in order to make their playoff run.

[Banks] They beat Voca, Bait.

[Banks] PowerVision wins impressive.

[Banks] They beat MIBR as well.

[Banks] Losing to Astralis, there's no real shame in that.

[Banks] It was a 2-0.

[Banks] Close games, though.

[Banks] Just unable to take it over the line.

[Banks] And then losing to Mongols in the third place to SIDAR would still put Mongols...

[Banks] way ahead of 3d max anyway even if it's this iteration of them so i think this is a top four is very good at the 3d max considering where they're at like this is one you can look at more positively but i'm still

[Devilwalk] Yep.

[Devilwalk] Yep.

[Banks] I remember just we were talking about them last year.

[Banks] Could be a constant top eight team, playoff team, and then it never came to be.

[Banks] So I'm...

[Banks] not out on this team i'm just reserved about how i look at it because obviously if there was elite teams here the same for many of the teams that wouldn't have made playoffs but i mean i would never put 3d max in that conversation if the elite teams are here that they could even have a chance of making it to playoffs but they've got time to develop with this roster

[Devilwalk] I think that's a fair assessment.

[Devilwalk] I do think there's something exciting happening around 3D Max.

[Devilwalk] They've just, you know, gone back to the role coach, bringing in, obviously, MBK, switching a little bit of roles.

[Devilwalk] Misuta is in.

[Devilwalk] I think there's something...

[Devilwalk] interesting about what they're trying to do and I think that they have the potential to go further than where they were at with their last lineup

[Banks] Mm hmm.

[Devilwalk] um but i think it's a it's a it's a little bit of a time game for them because they've obviously changed all made all of this stuff a month ago i'm not sure

[Devilwalk] They've had enough time to really settle into all the changes and all the things that they will be doing.

[Devilwalk] So I'll be giving them a little bit more time, but I'm positive on 3D Max.

[Devilwalk] and I think overall the tournament itself and the performance it was great um it's a step in the right direction because we have to remember a month ago they were free falling down to 26 in the VRS and

[Banks] Yep.

[Devilwalk] They were for quite a while pretty stable around that 10 to 15 mark.

[Devilwalk] And they're heading back in that direction.

[Banks] Yeah.

[Devilwalk] I think they're currently 15th.

[Devilwalk] So they kind of bumped their way back in to that stability.

[Banks] Yeah.

[Devilwalk] But I think it's going to progress a little bit further.

[Devilwalk] And I think they can be competitive against some teams.

[Devilwalk] Especially the likes of like GE2 or someone like that.

[Devilwalk] But I don't think they, as you mentioned, will be, you know, defeating Vitality anytime soon.

[Banks] Definitely not, especially that French matchup on the cards.

[Banks] And what's interesting, right, since like late or say August 2024...

[Banks] all the way into where we are now.

[Banks] They've hovered anywhere max going up to eighth in the world, VRS, and then roughly they average out around top 12, 13, and obviously they're back there right now as being 15.

[Banks] so i feel like this is just a position for them to go anywhere close to being a top eight team right now when you've got teams like foot and australis punching higher it's like their spot's just going to keep dropping down because i don't see where they can go to match it so i feel like

[Devilwalk] Yep.

[Banks] They are still yet to show us a way for them to go further, you know, and find a way into it.

[Banks] And it's more just all on them and all eyes on them to make that possible.

[Banks] So next is Mongols.

[Banks] Now, Mongols, I don't know.

[Banks] I never had them.

[Banks] I had them as a team that could make grand finals and win the event.

[Banks] But I never believed in them.

[Banks] If this was Mongols of like Austin time or before Senzu was gone, then obviously, yes.

[Devilwalk] They would be clear favorites.

[Banks] Yeah, exactly.

[Banks] By a long way.

[Banks] Their run wasn't bad, right?

[Banks] They lost to Astralis and they lost to Foot and then they beat 3D Max.

[Banks] So they only lost two times.

[Banks] I think the Astralis loss is painful because...

[Devilwalk] They lost in the group stage as well, right?

[Banks] Yeah, group stage one.

[Banks] So that could have been the 3-0.

[Banks] That could have been 3-0 for Mongols and through to playoffs.

[Banks] Obviously, all teams go to quarters anyway, but it's obviously seeding side.

[Devilwalk] And they crushed him.

[Banks] But they beat Paravision, they beat Wildcard, they lose to Foot in 2-0, and they beat 3D Max 2-0.

[Banks] 3d max one we just spoke about was at least a dominant victory right one to be proud of um but it's still they were doing this also without mara some people told me but i'm not sure this is true that like he's having a kid as well so if he is congratulations to him that's awesome um obviously hopefully he's back for the the major but um

[Banks] I don't think this isn't good by their standards for a team that can lift Tier 1 trophies and be in Tier 1 Grand Finals, but it's still their development as a team right now that puts them on an okay position.

[Devilwalk] Yeah, I mean, a third place finish, it ain't that bad.

[Devilwalk] They were never really frontrunners to be the winners in my book.

[Devilwalk] I think they're in that weird space where

[Devilwalk] It's going to take them some time.

[Devilwalk] They're either going to fall or kind of fall up upwards or drop down very hard where they need to make more player changes.

[Banks] Mm hmm.

[Devilwalk] I'm still not completely sold on Cobra's era versus Censored discussion, even though it's something we need to maybe stop even discussing at this point.

[Devilwalk] But...

[Devilwalk] I like him as a player I think he's good they can definitely shoot as long as you know said in the earlier in the episode but

[Devilwalk] I'm still keeping my kind of reserved view that I think they will hover around 10th to like, I don't think there will be a credible top five team for a consistent basis.

[Banks] Okay, but what do you think of the development of CobraZero so far?

[Banks] Because he's hitting some good highs.

[Banks] He's looking really strong.

[Devilwalk] I think there's nothing to blame him for.

[Devilwalk] I think obviously he's kind of thrown into a very, like the deep end to some sense.

[Devilwalk] And I think he's doing as well as you can kind of expect from a player.

[Devilwalk] I think that there is potential in him.

[Devilwalk] There's growth to be had in him.

[Devilwalk] But they've only had three months and just jumping from... Was it the Huns?

[Devilwalk] The Huns to the Mongols is a pretty big leap to make.

[Banks] Yeah, and I feel like...

[Devilwalk] So yeah, he obviously needs to get a little bit more comfortable in this scene.

[Devilwalk] And I mean, he's only 20, so there's room to grow.

[Banks] He has some moments where it catches me and I'm like, oh, I'm liking what I'm seeing from Cobrazera.

[Banks] And it's just finding more consistency in that and finding some more confidence in that, especially against good opposition.

[Banks] I don't want to compare him to Senzu too much.

[Devilwalk] Yep.

[Banks] But I want him to see at least have the level where I see moments of him being able to take more of that space like Senzu used to do.

[Banks] That would be nice.

[Banks] That would help them a lot.

[Banks] Because it limits them where... But obviously Senzu had that over time, right?

[Banks] With just knowing what to do reactionary to things.

[Devilwalk] Yeah, I think it's going to take some time.

[Devilwalk] It's a big leap.

[Devilwalk] There's a lot of new stuff for him.

[Devilwalk] So I think they're obviously going to

[Devilwalk] For me, I'm seeing like this year is kind of just riding the wave for the Mongols and maybe they'll get some exponential burst at some point.

[Devilwalk] But I'm kind of seeing it to be maybe next year if they stick through it.

[Banks] It's a long way already.

[Devilwalk] Because it's such a... There's one thing to be like top 10.

[Devilwalk] But to burst up into competing against Vitality and top five teams, I think it's a big leap to make consistency-wise.

[Banks] They're still fifth right now, though, which is really good.

[Devilwalk] Yeah, they are.

[Devilwalk] It is really good.

[Banks] Yeah.

[Banks] It's kind of crazy.

[Banks] They're still hanging in there in a good position.

[Banks] All right.

[Banks] Who's next?

[Banks] Astralis.

[Banks] Astralis.

[Banks] From third place at EPL to second place at Bucharest, still a very positive run.

[Banks] Beat MIBR, Bay, Mongols, Eyeballers, 3D Max.

[Devilwalk] Yep.

[Banks] They didn't really, like, only the Mongols was like a tough team they had to fight until they got to foot.

[Banks] So they had an easier run, but you can only beat who's in front of you.

[Banks] Just saying like it was not really much to go off of.

[Banks] And they should have lost the eyeballers game.

[Banks] great ability to be able to come back and win it the way they did in that.

[Banks] But it should have been 2-0 eyeballers.

[Banks] And from there, right, going up against foot, I think Laux made a really good point that I didn't look at when I was watching the finals in that

[Banks] They play scared versus them because I saw rounds.

[Banks] If you remember, I don't know if you remember Nuke, there was a round where like Hooksy calls for a lobby crunch and Foot were not ready for it.

[Banks] Those are the kind of things that were surprising.

[Banks] But then when Astralis played more standard, that just played into Foot's wheelhouse.

[Banks] And you think you only win Nuke after you were down, like it was crazy.

[Devilwalk] Yeah.

[Banks] They were down...

[Banks] 10-4, then 11-7, then it was 12-10.

[Banks] Like, footwind control should have won 3-0.

[Banks] And then instead, Asharis battled back, won 16-14 to get absolutely dumped on Dust2, which is still causing them headaches and problems.

[Devilwalk] Yeah, it's... I mean...

[Banks] So, revenge was had.

[Devilwalk] Yeah, I think overall it's a good tournament from Astralis.

[Devilwalk] They should be very, very happy with making grand finals.

[Devilwalk] I don't think, and I think it was evident in the Hooks interview as well, they were third or fourth in VRS.

[Devilwalk] He kind of toned it down and said, you know,

[Devilwalk] yeah it's kind of great to be there but i think we all know we're not really fourth in the world um and there's there's there's very obvious truths to that um but you know

[Banks] yeah yeah he's realistic

[Devilwalk] it's an Australis with potential.

[Devilwalk] It's an Australis as it's growing.

[Devilwalk] It's an Australis that has, you know, they're picking up experience and they're picking up, um, wins and they're, they're at least competitive, you know,

[Banks] Even if they faced like a Paravision or a Mongols in the final if it wasn't foot.

[Devilwalk] So I think overall, I'm not sure you could ever have asked them to win this tournament, if I'm brutally honest, going into it.

[Devilwalk] I don't think so.

[Devilwalk] I think they did the best they could.

[Banks] Okay.

[Banks] I'm also excited to see if there will be more of a pop off from the Fouseys and the Ryu's as they get more confident with this level of pressure.

[Banks] Because it's something they're not used to feeling.

[Devilwalk] Yeah.

[Banks] Because Fousey had some real stinkers on that final.

[Banks] Like I was literally trying to count his misplays or decisions I would not normally see him fumble that continues to happen.

[Devilwalk] Well, I think it was just for the entire squad.

[Devilwalk] I think there was even, you know, they were tuning into voice comms during this tournament and you could hear Hooksy, you know, talking about tilt and resetting and, you know, fixing it.

[Banks] Hmm.

[Devilwalk] So there's a glaring idea that when Longs talks about they're in their head that they can hear frustrations, they feel frustrations and it changes how Astralis is playing and the quality of how they're playing.

[Devilwalk] And that takes time to kind of figure out how to deal with as a team and

[Banks] Yeah.

[Devilwalk] I think that's probably where they gain experience is how do they deal with it?

[Devilwalk] What do we do next time?

[Devilwalk] And it's not always as straightforward as just fixing it.

[Devilwalk] Emotions come and how to deal with them can be difficult in a moment's notice for anyone.

[Banks] Yeah.

[Banks] And obviously foot, we don't need to talk about.

[Banks] We discussed all of it with Lount.

[Banks] So that brings us to the end of PGO Bucharest.

[Devilwalk] Yeah.

[Banks] It was a very good event overall, considering the team and field that was there.

[Banks] Obviously a huge jump up for the teams that performed very well in VRS standards.

[Banks] We'll see how that evens out now we get into Rio and stuff.

[Banks] That was on the previous episode.

[Banks] Again, if you didn't see it,

[Banks] All of our Rio stuff's in there.

[Banks] So the only thing we've got left to do is a bit of the recent news.

[Banks] So we will start with our recent news.

[Banks] And there's only a couple of pieces in here.

[Banks] Regali leaves FlyQuest free agency.

[Banks] There is actually a demand for AWPers now.

[Banks] Yeah, he's open to offers.

[Banks] But if I look down Regali's history of teams and stuff, for example,

[Banks] He went from the Fnatic Rising, Fnatic Academy, Copenhagen Flames.

[Banks] OG was an okay one for him, but it was still just under a year.

[Banks] And Tropic, not a great team.

[Banks] And then FlyQuest as well, where it lasted a while, over a year, but it didn't have what they needed or what he wanted.

[Devilwalk] you

[Banks] I still think he's capable, but he's one of these AWPers that I feel like he needs a lot of catering to.

[Banks] He needs a lot of setting up.

[Banks] He needs a lot of resources for him.

[Banks] I'm not sure if that works for a lot of teams, especially he might have to look down at lower tier teams as well.

[Devilwalk] I think the hype is starting to die for Regale.

[Banks] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Devilwalk] Sorry, I'm selling stocks if we're doing it any way in that way.

[Devilwalk] it's clear Rigoli has you know he has potential he has a skill set I'm starting to wonder like how coachable is the kid how you know these are the questions that come up in my mind because he's had

[Devilwalk] You know, he came from like a Copeningen Flames OG being one of the most hyped young offers in the scene to now it's starting to dim downwards in trend.

[Banks] He had the great first stage.

[Devilwalk] And I didn't think he had like a very good major run either.

[Devilwalk] I felt sometimes, yeah, but when I look at awpers, one of the core attributes I look at is what does this awper do when your team is struggling?

[Devilwalk] Because I think that that's one of the biggest responsibilities for an AWPer is to start picking up kills, start finding ways for your team to win rounds, alleviate the riflers from just running in and dying.

[Banks] Make life easier.

[Devilwalk] And I felt like he went a little bit too passive in my eyes.

[Devilwalk] which can happen to anyone.

[Devilwalk] Still very young, capable hopper, only 23.

[Devilwalk] I'm sure he will have his opportunities kind of bounce back into the scene, but it's rough times for him.

[Banks] Mm hmm.

[Banks] I feel like if you don't make it work in an Oceania team, then you have to take a step back even further in Europe to be able to build yourself back up.

[Banks] And it's about that fight he needs to show in order to do it.

[Devilwalk] Yeah.

[Banks] So let's see what can be next for him.

[Banks] Let's see who will give him a shot.

[Banks] He has to show something next.

[Banks] And then our last thing to touch on here is

[Banks] carrigan to join the falcons people said it would never be nico and carrigan back together again i'll say this yanko tweeted out earlier like they did a podcast of yanko and nico on esl ages ago i think it's a year ago or so and that gives you a lot of insight into just

[Banks] how it could work how their relationship can be what they're like right um i need to go back and watch it but i do vaguely remember some of the moments they were looking at there um but i will say this this is true

[Banks] Like HLTV and KRL was the first, the French streamer was the first to report it.

[Banks] He was correct.

[Banks] It was not a dummy.

[Banks] HLTV confirmed it.

[Banks] And I spoke to some people and they also confirmed it.

[Banks] i showed devwalk yesterday and he was like oh my god when i sent him the screenshot that i can't show you guys he was like what the hell because this is real this is happening and

[Banks] people like devil you got a different opinion we had a little chat about this but i think this is great for carrigan because this is less firepower for falcons this is exactly the players and style that works for carrigan at his best and i might be a romantic and a dreamer and all in on this

[Devilwalk] Thank you.

[Banks] But I'm just thinking, Kiyosaki, Nikko, Manassi.

[Banks] Cesses is there, but I mean, those three, no one's good.

[Banks] Like, the looseness, the playing off feeling, the going with it.

[Banks] It might be a bit harder for Kiyosaki to be, like, quick on it and go.

[Banks] But for Munnessy, for Niko, this is going to be great.

[Banks] For Testis, it's going to be no problem.

[Banks] I love this on paper.

[Banks] And they need a leader.

[Banks] By the way, I'll say this.

[Banks] Nothing against Kiksan.

[Banks] As an IGL, I love him.

[Banks] But I think in that current team where Niko is such a voice...

[Devilwalk] Thank you.

[Banks] I don't think it's working in this fighting that off, yeah?

[Banks] And I'm not saying that's the right way to do a team because I know DevWalk's going to come with a coach mindset about how this can be split.

[Banks] But I mean, there's going to be no bigger voice than Carrigan in that team.

[Banks] not happening it doesn't matter what nico's saying you can call as much ct as you if if carrigan decides something you he says jump you say how high that kind of mentality here we go right let me sit back let me get comfy yeah

[Devilwalk] Okay, let's, uh, let's kind of dwell dive into this.

[Devilwalk] So first of all,

[Devilwalk] I feel bad for Kiksan.

[Devilwalk] I think still Kiksan is an IGL for the future.

[Devilwalk] I think that he is capable of leading maybe one of the best teams in the world in the future.

[Devilwalk] Getting Kerrigan in,

[Devilwalk] I think, yes, it solves issues with the emotional leadership, maybe some shokiness to them that it can give them some restraint in the middle of the round.

[Devilwalk] He has a big personality.

[Devilwalk] People listen to him.

[Devilwalk] in that sense, makes logical sense.

[Devilwalk] It's all great.

[Devilwalk] The one thing I'm a little bit worried about is if I look at the phase project,

[Banks] Mm hmm.

[Devilwalk] For some reason, you can't just look at that project and say that there is zero fault in Kerrigan for this drop-off.

[Devilwalk] There has to, to some degree, be something the way they're working every day, the way they're practicing.

[Devilwalk] Something is wrong with the talent and the players that they have there.

[Devilwalk] in that group and for some reason kerrigan has failed to kind of bind that group together again and harness the the skill set of what's been there um yes what's your but

[Banks] but okay but then don't don't you don't you just say like yes carrigan takes on the blame but brokey was a big problem jacob definitely wasn't the right fit yeah and

[Devilwalk] 100%.

[Devilwalk] You're also faced, you know, this could have happened a year ago.

[Banks] Yeah.

[Devilwalk] You know, this could have been, you know, Kerrigan saying, okay, this is not working anymore.

[Banks] Yeah.

[Devilwalk] We need to fix this before we sink this ship even deeper so no one can recover any parts of its ancient history.

[Banks] Mm-hmm.

[Devilwalk] it it feels like you know every time i see you know i don't know how face works but i still assume

[Devilwalk] to some degree, that Kerrigan's input has been important for FaZe throughout their journey and why they've kept some players and why they've, you know, changed people.

[Devilwalk] I don't think his input has been irrelevant, even though he might not have been the one deciding the be-end and end-all.

[Devilwalk] So all I'm saying, I think on paper, Kerrigan's move to Falcons makes sense on a surface level.

[Banks] Hmm.

[Devilwalk] What I'm wondering is...

[Devilwalk] Is Kerrigan up to the meta?

[Devilwalk] Has there been problems with the way they've approached CS that has caused their downfall as well?

[Devilwalk] And is this just going to magically fix itself?

[Devilwalk] with him joining mid-season comparably where I would have liked it better is at the end of a season where there's a break where Kerrigan can kind of

[Devilwalk] go in have time to set how he wants to play Counter-Strike with this lineup whilst in the middle of the season I could foresee it being not as great as everyone thinks it's going to be straight on

[Banks] That's a very well measured response.

[Banks] I could be, like I said, romanticizing the situation.

[Banks] But don't you think it's better they make the change now and be ahead of the curve coming into it?

[Banks] If you're already thinking about, like, if they were thinking about making the changes, maybe they were even surprised that, like, Kerrigan came up as an option.

[Devilwalk] I think this is essentially them conceding any chances of winning the major.

[Banks] This major, yeah.

[Devilwalk] Yeah.

[Banks] Maybe they'll make a grand final with some Carrigan luck.

[Devilwalk] Yeah.

[Banks] But obviously they're not going to beat Vitality anyway, right?

[Devilwalk] There might be something into that.

[Banks] This is not happening, so... Mm-hmm.

[Devilwalk] Yeah.

[Devilwalk] But it feels weird to me, especially that's in the middle of a season kind of deal.

[Devilwalk] But I'm not against Kerrigan joining Falcons.

[Devilwalk] I just don't foresee it to be smack bang, every problem solved.

[Devilwalk] Now we're beating Vitality the next game.

[Devilwalk] I foresee it to be a little bit of a longer...

[Devilwalk] testing period for that to happen because if you look at any team Kerrigan has had there's always been continuous growth period we look at Maus even this face lineup it was an instant success it took them a long time to find success

[Banks] Yeah.

[Devilwalk] And I'm wondering, Kerrigan turning 36, I think either today or tomorrow, whenever it was, how much time do we actually have of Kerrigan in this lineup?

[Banks] Mhm.

[Banks] Let me just check.

[Banks] I guess it's true to his retirement.

[Banks] He's 35.

[Banks] He'll be 36 when?

[Banks] Yeah, 14th of April.

[Devilwalk] I think it's tomorrow.

[Banks] You are correct.

[Banks] He'll be 36.

[Banks] He's older than me.

[Devilwalk] That's kind of where my worrying questions comes from, but I don't think they will be necessarily worse.

[Banks] Yeah.

[Devilwalk] But this looks to me like they're getting Kerrigan to fix their problems now.

[Banks] Yeah.

[Devilwalk] This is a now build and it's going to mount even more pressure on the team, the individuals, like everything is going to mount instantly.

[Devilwalk] It's not like people are going to be like, okay, let's give them six months.

[Devilwalk] That's not going to happen.

[Devilwalk] That's where I'm weighing on this.

[Banks] But look at this.

[Banks] They'll play Astana and they'll play CAC, Lans, before the Major.

[Banks] And they'll play that with Kerrigan.

[Devilwalk] Yeah.

[Banks] That's two good events to get ready for the Major.

[Banks] Then a bootcamp before Cologne, you'd hope.

[Banks] Because they're in Stage 3.

[Banks] And they rock and roll with it from there.

[Devilwalk] Interesting.

[Devilwalk] I will be watching definitely.

[Devilwalk] Yep.

[Banks] We will definitely be watching.

[Banks] That first game is going to be record-breaking viewership for whoever's got it.

[Banks] It's Astana.

[Banks] Yeah, it's Astana.

[Banks] That's going to be crazy.

[Banks] Kerrigan in a Falcons jersey.

[Banks] And it's...

[Banks] For me, this is it, though.

[Banks] This is the last hurrah.

[Banks] This is the last moment for Kerrigan to deliver something, to show it, because this is where he has got another super team again, and he's almost been gifted it, you know?

[Banks] Gifted the chance, gifted the opportunity.

[Devilwalk] Yeah, but this is what bothers me with the release of Kikson.

[Banks] Yeah.

[Devilwalk] Because Kikson, I think, is still for the future.

[Devilwalk] But the demands are now.

[Banks] yeah what okay yeah i get that um i would say that also for phase now

[Devilwalk] It's not that I'm negative towards Kerrigan.

[Devilwalk] I think I'm negative more than Kikson is removed.

[Banks] You can only remove one other player.

[Banks] Now, will Twist want to stay?

[Banks] Will Frozen want to go somewhere?

[Banks] If Frozen gets an offer and goes somewhere, you have to keep Brokey, Jacob, and Twist.

[Banks] Only one more player can go, otherwise that core's gone.

[Banks] Or maybe FaZe as a whole organization exit CS, which would be a sad day.

[Devilwalk] I think it's more leaning towards exiting.

[Banks] But also, I don't imagine...

[Banks] I don't imagine Karrigan with, I mean, I don't imagine FaZe without Karrigan now either.

[Banks] And that's a sad thing.

[Banks] The FaZe logo gone from CS.

[Devilwalk] I mean, he was probably one of the bigger pulls for a player to join.

[Banks] Yeah.

[Banks] Does Twists IGL again?

[Devilwalk] Yeah, it's... I don't know.

[Devilwalk] I don't know.

[Devilwalk] But we'll see.

[Devilwalk] Interesting.

[Devilwalk] But I think for my money, it's kind of a gamble from Falcon's side.

[Banks] yes we will well let's wait and see how it will all go down um we had a couple more allowance questions coming while we're doing the episode but we already filmed the episode and he's already gone so we can't answer that there's no more questions for us so that means

[Banks] Episode 57 of the All About Counter-Strike podcast is done.

[Banks] I hope you enjoyed us having Lance on in a different way, a different style of having the guest on and getting some things working in there.

[Banks] I hope you all enjoyed another banger episode from us.

[Banks] Let us know in the comments.

[Banks] Don't forget to hit that like and subscribe because it does help us out a lot.

[Banks] You know, there's actually a fact.

[Banks] It's like 70% of the people who watch the podcast aren't subscribed.

[Banks] So if any of you could just hit the subscribe button, it helps us so much.

[Devilwalk] Oh, really?

[Banks] You're watching actively again and again and again.

[Banks] same people same viewers so if you just hit subscribe turn notifications on it helps us out remember we have no sponsors no anything we're just doing it ourselves so these things matter does mean a lot to us helps with an understanding where the podcast is going the next episode we'll be back doing will be after rio and we will cover the

[Banks] review of rio into the blast rivals 2026 in fort worth texas so you ready for that one dw we will do

[Devilwalk] Will do.

[Devilwalk] All right.

[Devilwalk] Thank you, everyone.

[Devilwalk] Bye-bye.