HLTV Confirmed guest profile: nexa

Valiance's new rifler Nemanja "⁠nexa⁠" Isaković will be tonight's guest on HLTV Confirmed. Ahead of the show, we took a look at the 21-year-old talent's career so far.

After playing 1.6 casually for some years, the Serbian's first encounter with CS:GO came after his friend gifted him the game on Steam. He would later go on to state that it took only 10 hours in-game before he knew he would eventually become a pro player.

In the beginning of his career, nexa played in several smaller Serbian teams, but was quickly picked up by iNation, who scouted him out playing local LANs in 2015. The Serbian wasn't ready for the 'level of progression', though, and was cut from the team only a few months later, going on to form the team that would later become Guerilla Method.

With Imperial, nexa beat HellRaisers at StarSeries Season 6

nexa would impress in this team, as it attended the WESG 2016 EU Finals in Kiev, where the 21-year-old managed an impressive 1.38 rating over four maps in spite of being eliminated in groups. Against Virtus.pro, who were one of the top teams internationally at the time, he would reach a massive 1.58 rating, which prompted both fans and orgs to take an extra look at the then 19-year-old's skill.

After tenure in several Serbian mixes, including his former team iNation, nexa's next big leap forward came when he was picked up by Renegades with the help of his compatriot Aleksandar "⁠kassad⁠" Trifunović, who coached the squad.

The move meant a relocation from his native Serbia to the US, and also a role change: Renegades wanted nexa to in-game lead them, and he obliged. With the estrangement of living and breathing CS in the US - with little to no social life - and the pressures of calling an in an international top team, his tenure in the Australian squad didn't go over well.

nexa would mostly garner below-average-ratings and admitted that, even though IGL'ing often comes at the expense of fragging power, he was "making shitty calls anyway." At IEM Sydney 2017, Renegades would reach a total of zero T-sided wins against Chiefs and were eliminated in the Swiss group stage with a 1-3 record. The squad also bombed out of the PGL Major Krakow 2017 Main Qualifier after losses to Dignitas, FlipSid3 and TYLOO. They would go on to reach top four at DreamHack Open Atlanta last year, but nexa was removed only days later, a decision he felt was "deserved".

nexa cites his English skills as a valuable to his career path

After his transcontinental adventure, nexa would go back to playing FPL and grind his way out of the slump, and was eventually approached by Asger "⁠AcilioN⁠" Larsen about making a team, which later became Imperial. The 21-year-old would continually impress alongside other FPL-stars like Rokas "⁠EspiranTo⁠" Milasauskas and Žygimantas "⁠nukkye⁠" Chmieliauskas, as the team went on to win Copenhagen Games in March and DreamHack Open Summer 2018 in June.

After a period in which Imperial underwent several changes, nexa and EspiranTo were picked up by Valiance earlier this month alongside Otto "⁠ottoNd⁠" Sihvo, who came from HAVU. So far, the side has been doing well, qualifying for both the closed qualifier for upcoming the Europe Minor and the WESG 2018 World Finals in China, but they have yet to prove themselves against bigger, internationally renowned squads.

The Serbian talent will be joining HLTV Confirmed tonight at 20:00 . You can find our Twitch channel and watch the show live right here: