Devilwalk: "I think we have proven that no matter what difficulties we go through we can still perform and develop"

We spoke with NoChance's coach and former fnatic member Jonatan "⁠Devilwalk⁠" Lundberg at the Europe Minor to hear about his role and the team's next steps.

NoChance ended their run at the Europe Minor in the group stages, placing 5-6th after taking down MOUZ in a BO1 before falling to CR4ZY and MOUZ in BO3 matches.

After the European mixture's elimination, we sat down with Devilwalk about his decision to go into coaching, joining NoChance, and working with the team which he describes as a weird puzzle he has been having a lot of fun trying to solve.

I wanted to start with your decision to go fully into coaching because you coached fnatic, then you played a bit again, then went back to coaching, then again played a bit. So when was the decision made to go full coach-mode?

I had some problems with my injury before I went AWOL, or whatever you want to call it, somewhere around the time GODSENT was created. I took that break and after I came back I tried playing for a bit but I didn't have the same urge to play. I didn't get that feeling after watching games, the urge to instantly go into deathmatch and practice. I didn't feel like I had anything to prove.

Obviously, you always want to prove more and make people notice you and see what is good about your play and stuff like that, but I just didn't have that feeling anymore. I would just watch a game and try to analyze it, figure out why people are doing certain stuff and take inspiration from that, build on concepts I think they have, but make them my own in a way, so they fit my line of thinking. I don't know, I like helping other people get better as well. I get enjoyment from seeing someone develop, even if it is not in-game stuff, just helping people unlock themselves.

The first part of the answer sounded like you could also go and do analysis work, on-camera work, was that ever an option for you?

I mean, I didn't reach out to anyone, if someone offers me I usually say yes. Of course, it was an option, but I know that being an analyst and doing camera work is a very stressful job, I've done it in the past, you have long days, you put a lot of pressure on yourself and you know, live is live. It is not like I don't think I can do it, but for me, it is just a side gig.

How did you come into NoChance as a coach?

I basically started coaching again in Chaos, with pronax and Maikelele, later building the PlesseN-FREDDyFROG-Relaxa lineup. That ended quite fast but I was still under contract with Chaos so it was my job to try to rebuild something from nothing. It was a really difficult timing when all of these changes happened everyone was locked in contracts, we couldn't really reach out and talk with anyone, get a replacement that we needed. So we had to have a stand-in from a lower tier.

For us, it was really difficult during that time, but it was also a super-good learning experience for me on how to try to build something out of a complete mess. So I think that experience helped me six-seven months later, once I went to NoChance, which has also been quite a mess. I have learned a lot in Chaos, what I did wrong, what I did badly, because I'm really hard with myself as well. I always think it is my fault, no matter what. So I learned a lot from that and I think we just fit very well with our personalities, I don't think I'm very difficult to have around for the players. I impose my will, of course, but in a way that makes sense to them, not trying to force them to do things my way. They need to understand the concepts and have to make it their own, otherwise, I don't think coaching is very relevant.

Still, it was a move from Chaos, a team where you were salaried, into a team that was just a mix. So what lured you into it at that time?

Well, potential. It was like a weird puzzle because if you look at the lineup on paper it looked weird, it has always looked weird, but trying to figure out and make sure that we get the maximum out of these weird pieces has been really fun, it has been a challenge to figure out how to make it work. Improving communication, as well as making sure we have the components to be able to play the game without me is always my goal.

At the start, there was a lot of calling online from me, then eventually I understood that kRYSTAL is incredibly smart and also an organized human being, quite reverse from myself. But a lot of the things that he had was really, really good stuff, but I think he was maybe missing a few details that would allow him to make his calls even better. So I've been trying to help him out with some of the concepts we had in old fnatic and other teams, the inspiration I've taken from watching demos, and he has really made it his own and developed, in my opinion, into a really, really good in-game leader.

Aside from helping kRYSTAL, what is your main focus in the team right now?

Prior to this bootcamp, I think our T-sides have always been quite good, so my focus has been mostly on CT sides, rotation patterns and eliminating risks with small details. It can be holding a flash at a certain timing and being ready for an explosion, or molotoving certain positions when we are doing other stuff so the opponent doesn't have the chance to use a reactionary play if they are already set up. Minor details like that so we always have the time to rotate. On Inferno, for example, if the AWPer is playing Long and he doesn't have nades, should he play Long? Stuff like this, minor details that make a huge difference when you are playing.

Where I wanted to move from there is the preparation for the Minor. You didn't play much online, you played some things but didn't have some exciting results. How did the preparation for the Minor go?

One month before the qualifiers for the Minors started, me, Kevin (kRYSTAL) and zehN talked and we made the decision that we should change our map pool quite considerably. We took the decision to play Nuke and Vertigo instantly and did a lot of work on these maps and even in the Closed Qualifier people would pick our good maps against us because they had no clue what we were good or bad on, there was no way to analyze us. I think that was a good approach from us and probably one of the key things why we made it this far and why we have been getting a lot of better results.

After a short bootcamp you come here and have mouz and CR4ZY in your group. You end up going out but got some good results, got some map wins. How do you assess what you managed to do here?

In general, I think our approach has been good. There are a lot of issues that we have identified but they are too complicated to fix. It might be swapping player positions, roles, stuff like this, and we decided that we can't fix it now, this has to be done later. Because it will take too much time to learn and the dynamic on the map will change in a way that is unpredictable. So we've been careful with making these major changes and just kept on grinding. Even though we maybe know a long-term solution, for the moment we needed to patch things together and try to make it work.

Are you happy with what you've managed to do here as a team?

Yes, but I'm also disappointed. Obviously I think we should've won against mousesports, I think it was something like 5-6 ecos/force buys we lost against them. So that stings, really really stings, because that many should not happen.

What is the hardest part of being a team like yours, a tier 2-3 team at the moment?

Obviously having no salary, analytical tools or help in any sense. I mean we are doing this in a way that everyone is doing it for everyone. We are putting in our time and sacrificing our social lives, everything, to make sure that this dream that we have together will be fulfilled. So, of course, it is going to be difficult with the worry of paying rent or whatever. But I think that, when you consider all of these things, we are happy with everything. It has been a difficult time but I'm proud of everyone that has been a part of it and has been working their asses off. I'm proud of everyone.

It has been hard for you guys to find an appropriate organization, how will you approach that problem moving forward? I think STYKO said it in an interview, you are a #51 team in the world right now, but you think you are better than that so your expectations and the expectations of orgs' don't really line up. So how do you get them to line up?

Well, I don't really know to be honest, but keep on grinding, get rankings, obviously it is hard now because you can't even instantly go and do it because we have a player break and we have to assess our situation and talk with a lot of people to get contacts and hopefully, through that, we can get an org. But right now, we are just trying to talk to different people, make sure they get to know us personally as well so then maybe they want to sign us.

Can you give me the pitch, why would people want to sign you, what is exciting about your team?

I think we have proven time and time again that no matter what difficulties we go through, is it losing a player or having a lot of stress and worry, we can still perform, we can still develop. We lost frozen to mousesports, we lost nukkye to HellRaisers, we lost Radifaction to Nordavind. But we kept improving even though these things happened. So I think our system of working and the way we approach things tactically have been our key strengths and will continue to be that way no matter what happens.

You touched on some of the things that you will be doing after the player break, but can you tell me what the next steps for you are going to be?

Well, I'm not going to reveal my game plan [laughs], but it is exactly like we did pre-Minor, we are going to have a meeting, we are going to talk, make sure we have a three-months plan of how we are going to develop tactically, what maps we should play, everything. We will talk about everything from the ground up because we have a lot of ideas but we need to prioritize what we want to be done so we don't overwhelm ourselves. We will take it one thing at a time, focus on that, and when we feel like it is done we will go to the next step.

Is there anything you feel we haven't covered fully and would like to add at the end?

I mean, feel free to contact us and talk to us ([email protected]). We are open to any suggestions, be it creating our own brand or joining another organization. Hit us up with your idea and we will have a chat.