Astralis x Stake Exclusive CS2 Interview

NEO: jabbi is the player bringing Astralis together, why Cache already feels nice in practice & how it feels to be joining Astralis

Speaking to Stake, new Astralis head coach NEO opened up about his decision to return to coaching so soon after leaving FaZe, what he made of the roster before accepting the job, and the work already underway to make Astralis a force to be reckoned with.

In this exclusive interview, the CS2 legend also shared his thoughts on Cache rejoining the active map pool, the teams pushing Counter-Strike forward strategically, and why jabbi might be the most underappreciated piece of the Astralis puzzle.

Read on to see what one of the most experienced figures in Counter-Strike had to say, and you might just find some unique insights before placing your esports bets here at Stake Sportsbook!

Can you take us back to the moment when Astralis first approached you? What was going through your mind when you realized that this opportunity was real?

Actually, I wasn't sure if I wanted to go back to coaching so fast, because I just had almost three years on FaZe. And it's a very intense life that you have when you travel so much. And now that I have two kids, it was nice to be home for a couple of months. But at the same time, the offer was … it's Astralis we're talking about, so it was a really nice and a great opportunity, especially with such a lineup, a very promising team, which seems to have the potential to be great. And everything felt really nice to join the adventure.

So before that, you were considering doing something else or just taking some time for yourself?

Yeah, I wasn't really rushing. I wasn't actively looking for anything in particular, thinking about whether that should be coaching to continue or trying to figure out something different. But I just wasn't in a hurry in any way. So there were a couple of offers, and this one felt just the right one.

And Astralis’s CEO described your signing as an investment in the club's future. In the short term, what changes do you realistically expect fans to notice over the next few tournaments with Astralis?

I’ve just started working with the guys, so it takes time to get to know the players and see how everyone is. But for sure, it comes down to being consistent to some degree, reaching playoffs each tournament you go to, having people be scared of you when they play you. So just be a respected team like Astralis once used to be.

Having coached FaZe and now joining Astralis, do you think that you will need to make any big adjustments in how you approach coaching and the team in your first few weeks with Astralis?

I'm still kind of new to coaching, considering I've been playing for 20 years. Coaching for three is almost nothing. I've coached one team with the same IGL. So getting to know different habits, different ways of handling things takes time. But I think I'm getting a little bit of understanding of how things work here. And just trying to improve on a daily basis. Sometimes little things. Sometimes you have to make bigger changes. But these guys know how to play CS. It's just not always there. So just trying to make everything more stable. Of course, with the help of our performance coach, Urszula, which is the first time as a coach I have that kind of support. It makes my life much easier and also brings improvement in different aspects of the game. It's not only the in-game things. It's also the outside of the game, stuff like relations between the players and motivation and all those kinds of stuff, which are very important in CS and every sport.

It's still the early stage of our journey. But hopefully we'll see some improvement.

You've played for so many years and have been a coach. You're relatively new to coaching. Is there something you believed as a player that you later realized was wrong or not exactly what you expected when you started coaching?

Honestly, not really. There's a big difference in the stress level. When you play, it's on a different level than when you coach. When you're playing, you're actively doing something and having full impact on what's happening. And when you're coaching something, like more of it, you're watching the game. Of course, you have an impact by taking timeouts and adding some things here and there, but it's still on a different level. So there's more stress.

I think I've discovered how many of the things are related to non-game stuff, as a coach. There's plenty of work that's been done with the players as people themselves. When I started playing, there were no coaches. And at some point, we brought a coach to the team. The coach had a different role at the start, he was a manager as well. Now we have fully structured organizations with different kinds of people doing different things. So the coach can focus more on the game stuff. But like I said in FaZe, I didn't really have that kind of a person to help me with the things like Ula does here. There's plenty of work.

Your final series as FaZe's coach was a loss to Astralis at the ESL Pro League. Looking back, was there anything about Astralis in that match specifically that made you think that this team has potential?

I think it wasn't only that game that I could see their potential because they've had quite a success for a team that's new and went international. Players had to switch to English from Danish, and you could see they were playing pretty well. So it's not only about that game. Coming to the game as FaZe, we knew it's not gonna be easy. We've also been struggling a little bit towards the end of my time in FaZe, and probably throughout the year before, except of the major. So yeah, it's been a full roller coaster mode, and it's quite funny that my last game on FaZe was against Astralis.

Cache is returning to the active duty pool. From a coach perspective, what's the biggest challenge in preparing for a map that hasn't been part of top-level competition for so long?

As always with the new map, some of the players never really touched it or had the chance to play the game when the map was in an active map pool. I was part of it, but it was a different game. There are some changes to the map, of course, but some of the ideas are still valid. So just getting to know all the new angles, getting used to the positions from the basics, going through names on the map to lineups of grenades, to some more advanced stuff, strategies and all those things.

We're just working on it on a daily basis, practicing with other teams and seeing how it feels. We've played a couple of Caches already, and it does feel nice.

When you evaluated this Astralis roster before accepting the job, which player's potential stood out to you the most, and why?

Each one of them has some strengths. Staehr was always like a very solid player. Jabbi as well. HooXi has been known as an IGL. Probably the person I knew about the least was ryu. And phzy I've seen a couple of times already, seen him doing some crazy shots. So it's like, I would know a little bit about each one of them by preparing before the game against Astralis' FaZe. So yeah, I think the whole team has like a complete roster with different kinds of people and personalities. And you can see when they connect, they are a very good team. They can be very strong.

And is there one of these players whose strengths you think are not fully appreciated by the Counter-Strike community? Maybe people are just not realizing how special they are in some way?

Yeah, I think, I believe until you listen to the actual communication that's happening between the players, it's really hard to say. But what I've discovered, jabbi is a very important part of the team. He's bringing a lot of ideas, controlling a lot of things, helping HooXi to lead the team in many cases. It kind of depends on the map because you have Staehr as well doing those things. Other guys can hop in and say a couple of things for the whole team as well. But jabbi is the one that's like one of the crucial parts of the team that brings them together.

Considering the upcoming tournaments that Astralis will play in, is there any specific one that you guys realistically believe you can perform well, maybe even win or get to the Grand Final?

I don't think we look at it this way. We just wanna play the best CS every time we go to a tournament and just go as far as we can, but just taking it game by game. We're not trying to set expectations for ourselves, like ‘we are expected to win this tournament or that tournament.’ The reality is always a little bit different. And we just wanna play good CS, be a team. And with that, the outcome would be getting a good result in the end.

And looking at the current top teams, which team do you believe has a style that is pushing Counter-Strike forward the most strategically or maybe even mechanically?

I think right now CS2 is so advanced. Each team has a lot of depth in strategies. There are different play styles. You can see each one of them feels kind of unique. You can learn things from anything basically. The ones I think are very solid are … I like how FURIA plays the game. Spirit is very strong. Vitality and Falcons are the teams to look up to. But I think each one of those teams has its own specific style of playing the game. And that's what's beautiful about Counter-Strike.

The strategic part of the game is so advanced. And also you have so many tools. It's very fast to just see what the teams are doing and even copy some of the stuff that you see. It comes down to adjusting it to how you wanna play the game and to make it your game as well.

Talking about the Cologne Major before you joined Astralis, HooXi said in an interview that the team knew what they had to do but couldn’t do it during matches. You're about to get started with the team. But from your experience as a coach, when you saw something similar happening at FaZe, for example, what kind of work do you usually have to do with the team so they can bridge that gap between knowing what to do and actually doing that?

I think it's a human thing in the end where there's stress coming together with the game, and people don't think clearly sometimes. Sometimes it comes down to experience. The players that are on Astralis, you have two guys that are not very experienced. It comes down to the amount of LAN games, tournament games that you play that you maybe think more clearly with time. It comes down to the repetition that's happening during the practice days, each day. Of course, you create habits during the practice that also translate into the game. So it comes down to the environment and the structure you build throughout your daily practice.

Like you said, at first you didn't even have a coach and then you started having a coach that was kind of a manager, and then it started evolving. How did it feel to be so experienced and successful but also having to keep your ego in check and listening to someone when you felt like you were doing so well? How was your relationship with the coaches you had as a player, and how did that shape your view today as a coach?

Actually the coach that we've brought to the team back then was an ex-teammate of ours. So we knew him very well. And then to some degree, the coaching position is still developing. Counter-Strike is a bit different than football, for example. You don't have substitutes; you have same five guys that need to get along and work on their teamwork. So the coach is there to fill in the gaps, to work on the things that he sees the team is not doing.

You have different types of coaches, different types of IGLs. Sometimes the team itself does everything, and the coach brings smaller things. Sometimes the coach builds the structure. So you could see him as just a sixth member, to some degree in the past, that was bringing more strategies if the team was not bringing them, making sure that people follow what's happening or like what we've discussed. There was a time when the coaches could be speaking all the time during the game at the beginning. So you had some teams when the coaches were leading the game as well. Then it got cut short, so they had to switch a little bit, but it's been developing over time, and that was completely different. Still just part of the team bringing all the stuff, all the strats or things that are needed.

If we revisit this conversation after the next few tournaments, what do you hope people will be saying about Astralis that they aren't saying today?

I would love to see everyone putting Astralis next to those top teams that are there already as a contender type of team that we're going there as one of the favorites. That would be a dream coming true for sure. So, I'm just taking it day by day, it's just work, and the result is an outcome. So we'll see where we go.