kioShiMa: "I had to work my way up at the beginning of CS:GO and I'll do it again if I have to"

HLTV.org caught up with Fabien "⁠kioShiMa⁠" Fiey, who was competing at ESL One New York as a stand-in for G2, to talk about his experience with the French team and his future prospects.

kioShiMa joined G2 in a one-off stand-in performance at ESL One New York, where the French team beat ENCE twice, in their group's opening and decider matches, to qualify for the playoffs, but G2 eventually fell to an Evil Geniuses team on the rise that would go on to win the event at the Barclays Center.

In the interview, kioShiMa talks a little bit about how the French squad decided to go into the event with him and François "⁠amanek⁠" Delaunay splitting calling duties. He also talked about the wins against ENCE, as well as some of the past mistakes he made in his career and what he is looking forward to in the future in order to make his return and compete in Counter-Strike's upper echelons.

Coming out to New York and playing ESL One NY with G2 as a stand-in, was it fun? How did you feel back in the server? How was the whole experience for you?

It was kind of hard to find a place in the group since shox was the in-game leader before he got removed. It was basically impossible to find an identity in just a week, so what happened was that AmaNEk was in-game leading some maps and I was leading some others since we didn't have time for me to learn all of the strats on every map.

I just did the basics and we played from the basics. We had a lot of fun until the semi-final because there we couldn't find our footing. It was just impossible, we didn't feel the game at all and anything we would do was out of sync, everything was going wrong, and we couldn't find our style or game at all against EG. Other than that, it was really fun and a pleasure to play here.

As you said, you came in standing in after the team's loss of an in-game leader, so a playoff run is a pretty good result, don't you think?

Yeah, I mean we felt like we had chances to make it through the groups because of the teams that were here. Liquid were obviously the big favorites, but we felt like we could beat ENCE and eUnited, which is what happened, but It was really hard once we made it out of the groups since the teams that made it to playoffs were prepared and knew what they were doing compared to us.

Tell me a bit about the ENCE matches, particularly the first one with the two big comebacks. Tell me a little bit about making those comebacks and taking that two-map victory with one map going to overtime and the other all the way to thirty rounds.

The thing is, we felt like we were making good calls every time and literally didn't change anything during the comeback and in overtime, we didn't change the game that much. We were playing pretty much the same and tried to just have fun. If it works, it works, if not we didn't have a deep strat book or anything so we were just seeing what happens.

Do you think that helped, not having any pressure?

For most of the players, probably, but I think some of the players were stressed and under a lot of pressure just... just for the fact that we all want to do good, we all want to win, we're all competitors, so in a way you at times want to try and do "too good" and it affects the rest of the team, which I think happened a bit during certain moments in the first matches and against EG.

EG are a team that were good before the Major. At the Major they showed they have a lot of potential, and here they fulfilled that potential. You can't really knock yourself too hard for losing to them now...

It's not the fact that we lost, it was the way we lost. As I said, it felt like we didn't play at all, like we were never there, and everyone on the team felt the same way after the game. We were probably at like 25% of what we showed we could do during the group stage. I feel like if we would have played them the way we did during the group stage, we could have at least put up a fight, which in this match we didn't. It's not so much that we're sad, we're disappointed, basically.

You mentioned earlier that you were calling on some of the maps because you didn't know the strats, how did that go? How was calling? Is that something you're playing with these days or was it completely situational?

It was completely situational, I was doing it on Overpass and Inferno, two maps that are easy to lead on because you don't need deep knowledge, you retake one zone, you retake another one, and you finish on a site depending on rotations. You don't really need amazing strats, just a couple of smokes, a couple of mollies, everyone knows everything, so it's easy to plan the basics compared to some of the other maps.

You've been sidelined for a while now, so what have you been up to? Anything on the horizon?

I'm not preparing anything specific. I've been in contact with a few players to perhaps make a team, but nothing is certain. It's CS, it changes all of the time and there's nothing you can confirm. I'm open to all offers and still looking at where I want to be, basically. I made really bad decisions during the past two years that perhaps I shouldn't have. I don't regret anything and fixed a lot of health and personal issues while I was out, so I feel better than ever and it's just about getting back into CS. ESL One New York was a good feeling.

You say you made some bad decisions, even though you don't regret anything. What do you consider some of those decisions were and what have you learned from them?

If I go back to Envy, the first time I got removed, it was a bit of a mess with me and the team. You know when you feel targeted and everything is your fault? You don't feel well even just being in the team. I also had some personal things going on which made me unable to focus on the game and I was unable to take criticism, which made me not want to play anymore. That was the first bad decision, although somewhat out of my control.

I then picked myself up, which was hard, and spent some time in FaZe. That was putting me back on the rise, but then the next bad decision was going back to Envy. I went to a team that was dying, which is what I did again after that, with Cloud9. They were looking for new players, new coaches, new everything all of the time. Those were two bad decisions, going back to Envy and then going to Cloud9. Even if I had a really good time on both teams, I learned that I shouldn't join a team that's going downward and searching for their identity.

Maybe there is something in starting a team and getting together with other players to create something new. Any last additions you want to make?

Yeah, basically to explain what's happening right now is that I have to show myself again because I haven't been playing for a while. The thing now is that I just need to get back in and playing, it doesn't matter if it's Tier 1, Tier 2, or Tier 3, I'll just work my way up again the same way I did the first time. I came from 1.6 and none of the guys from the Source scene knew me, so I had to make my way up and I'll do it again if I have to.