JACKZ on m0NESY's arena debut: "He is born to play CS"

The 16-year-old AWPer was praised by his teammates after a standout performance against Virtus.pro.

Ilya "⁠m0NESY⁠" Osipov was the shining star of the first quarter-final of IEM Katowice 2022, as G2 took down Virtus.pro 2-0. Whether the young AWPer would be able to deliver in front of the crowd in Spodek was one of the main questions for the playoffs, and the answer was a resounding yes.

Audric "⁠JACKZ⁠" Jug and Nikola "⁠NiKo⁠" Kovač praised their new teammate after the match, especially his 1.39-rated Mirage performance which helped G2 secure a triple-overtime win.

"This kid is insane, I can't imagine what he will be able to do in the future," JACKZ said in an interview with Pala "⁠Pala⁠" Gilroy Sen. "He is really, really good, he is born to play CS, and I'm happy that he produced a performance like that in the arena because he was better here than during the group stage."

"We didn't see any nerves from him, he was cold-blooded and he just delivered," NiKo said about the youngster on the stage, before talking about Mirage in general. "m0NESY helped us big time with clutches, Aleksib came in with some good calls as well. We kept fighting, we kept finding solutions instead of just sitting and waiting for them to do something."

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JACKZ added that him and NiKo not performing was the reason the map was so close in the first place. The Bosnian superstar was particularly underwhelming, a far cry from his 1.50-rated group stage. "First of all, NiKo and I weren't on good form on Mirage, we were forcing things, we weren't really patient with what we planned. After, on Ancient, it was easier to restart, refresh our minds, and play."

Despite NiKo's underwhelming performance, finishing the series with a 0.90 rating, G2 closed out the series following a one-sided affair on the second map, in a 16-5 scoreline on Ancient.

After an impressive stage debut, m0NESY will be rewarded with a clash with Natus Vincere. The NAVI Junior alumni will therefore face off against his former organization — and Oleksandr "⁠s1mple⁠" Kostyliev —, for the first time since moving over to G2 during the winter break.