NiKo on karrigan: “If any other IGL had been in his place at the Major, we wouldn’t have won the tournament.”

There was nothing bad between us, but at certain moments during the game, we didn’t always see eye to eye on how to play the rounds. Of course, things have changed a lot now, and I’ve learned a lot on my end as well. I think things are much better between us now, and we’ve developed a much better dynamic. Now I’ll just try to fulfill this role as best as I can, so to speak. I’ll try to do my part: throw a grenade here, be the first to push forward there. If he’s on the other side of the map, I’ll coordinate our actions on my side. I won’t tell him what to do, like: “You do this, and we’ll do that.” I’ll just help him out more in those little moments. And so far, everything’s going great… Or rather, everything has been going great so far! Our results this season aren’t the best yet, but they’ll come.

When it comes to the problems we had at FaZe Clan, I think the reason is that we didn’t have a good coach who had authority and a say in matters. RobbaN was more responsible for the mental side of things and wasn’t particularly involved in the gameplay. He always lacked the ability to step back and look at the situation objectively, to understand what was happening in the game and how we needed to adjust our style.

I think if any other IGL had been there instead of him at the Major, we wouldn’t have won the tournament. I can’t say I’m completely sure of that, but I’m almost certain, you know? I mean, no one else has that ability to adapt so quickly to the team and find a way to bring out the best in every player. He knows how to give all his teammates freedom, where everyone has the right to speak up. And any player can say at any moment what they want to do, and karrigan will build the entire round around that and see the plan through to the end. In my opinion, that’s his best trait, and the second is his communication with the team.

As for Damian, I think that as a team, we initially handled the pressure very poorly, and he, as the IGL and captain, didn’t always find the right approach for all the players. He received feedback but brushed it off instead of taking everything that was said into account. We should have tried to develop a more suitable playstyle where everyone would feel better, where everyone would be a little more comfortable running defaults, and where there might be slightly fewer tactics. Sometimes we’d review a match and analyze it. We might point to one reason why we thought we lost, but he had a different opinion on the matter. It was incredibly difficult to find a compromise. I think that’s one of the reasons why Team Falcons decided to replace him with karrigan, who is very different from Damian. And we were lacking... One of the reasons karrigan came in as a replacement was that we needed someone who could take the heat.