NBK: "Definitely going to come back."

We had the chance to catch up with NBK and apEX to talk about their impressions The World Championships 2015 finals in Belgrade as well as the feeling within the French national team after they defeated Poland to take home the trophy.  

First of all, delays have been a big issue at The World Championships due to denial of service attacks. How has that affected you?

NBK: It was very hard for everyone, both the players and the organizers. It was worse for the organizers, I guess, because for us as players even though we finished one day at 3 AM, we didn’t play the next day until 7 PM, so we had time to rest. It wasn’t really an issue for us.

It was just bad because I think the event would have been good if there were no issues at all and I think every team that came here just had a lot of fun because it’s something original.

It would have been a really good event without the problems, so it was more of an issue for them [the organizers] than for us.

So even with the problems, you said you enjoyed yourselves. Would you support this tournament to grow and come back year after year?

NBK: Sure, I think it’s quite important, because it changes the teams you [usually] see. All countries are mix teams that are just enjoying themselves and making the game more spectacular. It’s kind of like the all-star game at the NBA.

On the other hand, I think if nations would bring their best players, the best lineup possible, it would be more entertaining.

I would also like to see [the event] be a bit bigger because no team had preparation. Maybe doing something special like a one-week preparation where teams come here and just practice to have better games, something different to add to the whole tournament.

But I definitely think we’re looking forward to playing it again. Yeah, it has been fun, and we’re definitely going to come back next year.

This year’s final was the same as last years, but with very different teams. The young players in Poland have grown a lot, how do they compare from last year to this year?

apEX: Yeah, it was different. Last year they had TAZ, NEO and byali, and this year it’s totally young players. It’s a mix of Vexed and CSGL.

It’s totally different. This year they came more prepared. For example the first map, Train, they had it prepared. They were playing together, they had so many strategies, and they just beat us so easily.

Even though they are less experienced, because people like TAZ and NEO just have so much experience, last year was hard but this year was harder.

Even if you don’t have “the best” Polish players in the world, they showed a really good game. It was really hard to play

So most of Team France have played together before, how has it felt to reunite with old teammates?

NBK: Well, to be fair, we played the online games before [the finals], with a different team than now. But it turned out very well. We started off the event pretty shaky because we were not super focused, we were not taking everything very seriously, we were just trying to create some synergy and create something just for this event. But it turned out very good in the end.

We were all hanging out together, we’re all friends and ended up showing some very good Counter Strike and some very good team play.

So yeah, it was a bit hard at the beginning because we had the French shuffles and some changes. But I really like the event, everything felt great. Even when we were losing we were staying focused and we showed up as a real team pretty much.

Any last words?

apEX: Yeah, thanks to the organizers. This has grown a lot from the first year. It’s pretty huge, and I hope this can be even better next year. Mostly because of the DDoS. Just thanks to the organizers who did the best they could for us, because without the DDoS this would have been an amazing event.

NBK: I just want to add that there has been a lot of hate, I guess, towards the event and everything that happened. But we have to remember that they are the ones that are more hurt than us. We should just take it easy on them. They’re going to learn the lesson and come back stronger, because aside from that, we had a great hotel, the accommodations were perfect, we were taken care of.

Obviously, thanks to all the supporters, all the players—especially the players in the crowd—and all the fans here in Serbia. Thanks for the interview and thanks for having us.

VIVE LA FRANCE!

apEX: Vive les baguettes.

LucasAM is a writer and photographer for HLTV.org. You can find him on twitter @LucasHLTV.