NiKo on his Desert Eagle miss against s1mple: “I don’t think that moment had a major impact on my career.”

The problem wasn’t with the game. I never blame the game, so of course, it was my mistake. I guess I didn’t wait long enough after the first shot. In other words, I started shooting too quickly. Still, it was a close call. But yes, I missed. It was a very important moment. I had the Desert Eagle, and back then I was one of the best players with that weapon. At that moment, I didn’t feel any pressure and wasn’t thinking about what would happen if I missed. I knew I’d done everything right—the play had unfolded perfectly. If I’d had a different gun back then... Even with a Glock, I think we would have won that round. But the Desert Eagle doesn’t forgive mistakes: if you miss with the first bullet, it’s extremely difficult to get a kill with the second. I saw a sniper standing on the other side who also needed to be taken out, so I started firing faster and missed two or three more times. I don’t know how I felt after that—too much time has passed since then. Without a doubt, that moment had a huge impact on me during that match. Only a robot wouldn’t have felt anything.

If we’d won that round, if I’d killed s1mple, who knows what would’ve happened. Although I don’t think that moment had a huge impact on my career. I think the loss at the ELEAGUE Major: Boston 2018 affected me much more. At the PGL Stockholm Major 2021, I really did everything I could. I played perfectly, but that one moment… I mean, I told myself at the time: “one round can’t make that much of a difference in the grand scheme of the entire Major.”

The loss in Boston had a much greater impact—not just on me, but on the entire team. If we had won that Major as a team, we could have achieved so much more that season. But instead, that loss just crushed us.