HLTV Confirmed guest profile: refrezh

Ismail "⁠refrezh⁠" Ali will be joining tonight's episode of HLTV Confirmed, which will be live on our Twitch channel at 20:00 . Prior to the show, we took a look at the talented Dane's entry into the scene and asked him about the future of Fragsters.

The 20-year-old burst onto the scene with the rest of the promising youngsters in Fragsters, who climbed from their #102 spot in the HLTV.org rankings to #23 since he joined them in February this year.

The squad made great strides at several events, placing third at DreamHack Valencia in July and reaching the quarter-final at StarSeries S6 in October, where they beat team such as Gambit, BIG and North, with refrezh managing an impressive 1.64 rating in the latter match and a 1.14 rating throughout the Kiev event.

refrezh has risen through the ranks quickly, as he only went through a few teams before making waves in the Danish scene. The 20-year-old was a part of the former Copenhagen Flames lineup and had a brief stint with Singularity before being transferred to Tricked in May of last year.

There, he improved even more and showed his fragging potential, but was, surprisingly, benched to make room for Simon "⁠snedker⁠" Snedker, before Fragsters picked him up after a three-month inactive period. He is often lauded for his patient style of play paired with the ability to clutch in intense, important rounds. His teammate Nicolai "⁠torben⁠" Amorim had the following to say about refrezh when Fragsters signed him in February:

"His style is really perfect for us since we already have enough hyperactive players. He is calm and steady, and helps to bring us down to earth."

Leading up to the Dane's participation in HLTV Confirmed tonight, we caught up with refrezh to ask him a few questions about him and his team's recent succes as newcomers among the top teams:

You've had some pretty exciting months since joining Fragsters in February, and you've been doing great while impressing a lot of people. Tell uss more about how you've experienced breaking into the higher tiers of CS?

It's been a very exciting adventure. We went from being five guys with no experience at the higher level to being able to compete with some of the best teams in the world. It's also been surprisingly pleasant for us, since it's normal for a young and inexperienced team to encounter a lot of problems along the way. We've had almost only positive results, but we have kind of the same problem as the old Astralis core of xyp9x, device and dupreeh, who had troubles with choking in the big matches.

Personally, I've always dreamt of competing at this level and I'm extremely happy that I got the chance on this team. It still feels a little weird when fans come up to me and want to take pictures with me. I'm like 'but, why me though?' I'm so happy people are supporting my team and it makes me motivated to continue working even harder.

You and your team have been able to make it to some pretty big events, like when you went to StarSeries. What's it like meeting and playing against some of the big guys?

It's an honor to get to play against legends like Virtus Pro and other top teams. We go into the matches with a huge underdog mentality, we have nothing to lose. It's only after the matches I realise how huge some of these matches are, but, when we're on the server, it's like playing against any other team. Although we do often feel like we're being outplayed by experience, but of course, we hope to be able to remedy that further down the road.

It was recently revealed that you guys weren't able to reach an agreement with the Fragsters organisation about staying on the team after your contracts expire, meaning you will be free agents in January. Are you staying together, or can you see yourself being picked up by a bigger team?

The five of us will stay together, and we're actually already in the process of negotiating, but nothing is for certain yet. I guess everyone dreams of playing for one of the best teams in the world, but, for now, my future lies with these guys.

If you want to know more about refrezh, the talented 20-year-old will be joining the panel for tonight's episode of HLTV.org's live talk show HLTV Confirmed, where he will share even more about his time in Fragsters and give his thoughts about recent events in the scene.

The show starts at 20:00 and can be watched on our Twitch channel: