NBK: Not worried about slow start

For Nathan "⁠NBK-⁠" Schmitt and the rest of G2, the upcoming StarSeries finals will be a special event. It will mark the offline debut of the French team, formed in February by bringing together players from both the country's two strongest sides, under the leadership of Richard "⁠shox⁠" Papillon. 

It has been a bumpy road so far for the French team, who failed to qualify for IEM Katowice and currently languish near the bottom of the table in the ESL Pro League, with a 6-8 record. Still, expectations will be through the roof when G2 take the stage on Tuesday, with their first match pitting them against Ninjas in Pyjamas. 

NBK discusses the first couple of months under G2 

Read on to find out what NBK- had to say about G2's latest results, the benefits of last month's bootcamp in Berlin and the process of building a team many hope will rise to the top.

The StarSeries event will be the first offline competition for your new team. What are your thoughts and expectations, heading into this tournament?

This event is very important for us. First of all, it is the first big event we will attend since the creation of the roster. We have undergone a bootcamp and we know how to work with each other and the kind of spirit we will approach it with. 

Regarding expectations... We have been playing almost all the top teams from Europe and we are having satisfying results against all of them. It is only up to us to translate that into official games. That is something we have struggled to do, but we are getting better at it.

Even before the team was officially created, the community used the words “French Super Team” to describe the roster. Do you agree with this label? Is this the best team you have ever played on?

The good thing about this label is that the community expects us to do big because we have managed to put together players for roles in which they excel. We are trying to build a different project from the ones we have seen before in France. But we are definitely aiming to fit into the "Super Team" label! 

This team so far is the one in which I have been the most comfortable when it comes to mixing things up and finding the right balance between playing our style and adapting to what the opponent is throwing at us. Results-wise, we have obviously not been where we or the community expect us to be, but we are getting there. 

Aren’t you afraid that being called the “Super Team” is an extra source of pressure at this point, when the team is still trying to get the basics covered?

This label is mainly a reason for people to trash talk us when things go wrong or we lose a game. It doesn’t add any pressure, and with the talent contained in this roster we have to deliver some kind of results. It is a step by step process, and we are still changing things in our game (positions, style, strats, etc) so that every player enjoys their role.

The team’s first online results have not been the best, leaving many fans worried. Did you expect such a slow start, considering this is a new roster? Are you concerned about these first matches or confident that things will eventually fall into place?

I think none of us expected a slow start like that, but we are not worried about it. It obviously sucks to lose games (especially missing IEM Katowice and having a bad start in EPL), but so many teams play great CS in different ways that it is hard to work on everything at the same time. These games have helped us to know what to focus on and also to find the big synergy problems in some positions. Now I feel that we have the kind of balance that will help us to be more consistent, and those losses were definitely a factor that helped us move forward in that direction.

You recently had a bootcamp in Berlin. What kind of aspects were focused on? Were you happy with this first real experience as a team?

Our week was split into two halves. In the first one, we played a lot brainlessly, focusing more on fixing the "bigger picture" problems during the second half of the bootcamp (mentality, fixing positions, changing the way people worked together, etc.).

We also had some media activities for HyperX and for G2, some talks with the management and a visit to the LCS studio in Berlin.

We feel great as a roster. The staff and the players have the same goals, and it feels great to have everyone moving together and on the same page. Everyone is in high spirits and we have spent some great times together! 

NBK believes the team will peak in the Summer 

Now that you have had time to analyse the recent defeats in the Pro League, what do you think that has gone wrong? How long do you think it will take for the team to be at 100 percent?

We have not analysed all of our games, to be honest. We have lost quite a lot of close games mostly because of tight clutch situations. So the simple fix to that is to "get better at clutch situations". We have to play with more basic team play and be strict with ourselves. We have mostly lacked discipline and we need to get much better at that. 

We are slowly getting to where we want to be as a team, but I think that our peak will be in June/July, when we will have practised our style and we will be able to only focus on our individual skill.

What are your first thoughts on playing under shox’s leadership? What are the main differences between his style and that of Happy?

shox already had a period back in EnVyUs when he was leading, although it was meant to be temporary at that time. We have brought ideas from both G2 and EnVy under the same banner and tried to take the best of both worlds. He trusts the players to make the right choices and the right plays. We try to play more off of each other and work with the zones of the map, which is something kennyS, apEX and myself were not used to in EnVyUs.

The main differences are pretty obvious. Happy prefers a more packed game style with players having very specific objectives and instructions. shox tries to work more on the whole map, with each attack group trying to create space for the others to work with.

What are your first impressions from working with SmithZz as a coach? What has his role in the ingame development of the team been like and how is he coordinating his tasks with shox?

So far, things have been going great. It is always very easy to work with Eddy, and he has been helping players that were struggling within the team for whatever reason.

He has been working mainly with kennyS to give him a more passive vision of the AWP role and help him be more complete. He is overseeing everything and helping in every way he can. The coaching role is not extremely well defined in CS yet, and it is up to him to create that path and do whatever he thinks is needed to help the team.

The StarSeries event will begin with a Swiss stage. What are your thoughts on this format, also compared to the format used at IEM Katowice, which many players criticised?

I like the Swiss format. It makes for good intense games, and you play enough matches so that “luck” or randomness is not too much taken into account. There is also real pressure when you are about to be eliminated and you have always four games a day, which will be very intense.

Which teams are you looking forward to facing the most in Kiev? Is there any team that you feel that has the potential to be a dark horse?

I’m really looking forward to seeing how HellRaisers will perform. I really enjoy their game style and they have been firing on all cylinders lately. We don’t really think about any team to face in particular as we need to prove to everyone that we belong to that level of competition.

Hopefully, we will be the dark horses of the tournament, as we have yet to prove ourselves to the world!