device on reasons behind leave: "My body just shut down"

The 19-time MVP award recipient appeared on the most recent episode of HLTV Confirmed to discuss his time away and return on Astralis.

Astralis superstar Nicolai "⁠device⁠" Reedtz joined HLTV Confirmed on Monday, appearing for the second time on the show after he last spoke to the panel of Chad "⁠SPUNJ⁠" Burchill, Milan "⁠Striker⁠" Švejda, and Zvonimir "⁠Professeur⁠" Burazin in June 2020.

That was nearly a full year before the four-time Major champion's surprise transfer to Ninjas in Pyjamas in April 2021, a team on which he played for eight months before taking medical leave in December. He remained sidelined from professional play for the entirety of 2022, missing the top-16 stage of a Major for the first time in his career in the process, and rumors swirled about when, or even if, he would make his return.

That return finally came about toward the end of 2022 when Astralis announced the Danish star had returned home, but device didn't play his first official for the team until 2023 dawned. The 27-year-old spoke on all of these topics and more during the show, ranging from his stint on Ninjas in Pyjamas, taking a step back from professional play, what steps he has taken to mitigate the issues that caused his absence, and the importance of mental health and dealing with personal issues.

"The change to NIP back then was a great opportunity for me, I still do really believe that. I don't regret joining them," device began when asked about his time on the team and taking a step back. "We had a good run in the beginning with a few different players as you said, but honestly I think we did quite alright, we had some progress.

"Stuff happened in my personal life that I don't want to talk too much about, but it really made it so that for me, I was way more isolated than I've ever been. As you also said, there was a lot of personal struggles for me that came with that, which was like I couldn't sleep for many months, started having panic attacks in the middle of the night which is like... you can talk about it, but if you experience it you know how shitty it is. It's really hard to understand if you haven't tried it. I just kept going because there was the Major in Stockholm, which was a really big deal for us as a team and NIP as an organization, and we were doing pretty well leading up to that tournament."

After touching upon NIP's 5-8th place finish at the Major in Sweden, device explained that his health issues came to a head at IEM Winter. "My body just shut down," he said. "I'm used to, and did for a long time, throw up every other day because of the stress, but this was a different pressure. I just think that I couldn't deal with it anymore, everything around CS was so much chaos that I just had to disconnect and retract myself."

He added that he was advised to take a step back by health professionals, and despite wanting to return, he had no idea when he would come back and was advised to take a longer break. He instead put his focus on working with doctors and professionals in order to help him have a "toolbox" of things he could use to handle the mental pressure and stress of competition.

Later, device added that one of the other objectives of stepping away was to remove the correlation between being stressed and playing CS, an association that he had always felt but one that he hoped to fix by playing the game for fun again without the added pressure of professional competition. This also had the added effect of reigniting his spark for the game as he played with a number of Danish players in the scene.

Staying off social media was something that the Dane also emphasized at various points during the show as contributing towards his recovery, pointing towards the negativity of interactions online bringing him down, especially following bad performances. He also touched upon the echochamber of negative comments and opinions discussed on social media, stating that it can easily get into your head.

"The worst part is when you start believing it," device said. "You start feeling that there is some truth in it, because... reading stuff online, like what do people really know? They've just based an opinion which is not 100% based off facts, but if you start believing it and you hear the same thing over and over, it becomes very draining because then you have to convince yourself that that is not the case, and that is when it really drains you. That is when it brings you down."

Talk soon turned to his return to Astralis, with device stating that he feels he has been performing well since coming back to professional play. He added that he had opportunities to play for other top organizations and touched upon a potential Danish mix that could have formed with Rasmus "⁠HooXi⁠" Nielsen and Jakob "⁠jabbi⁠" Nygaard, but ultimately settled on Astralis as they already hold partner slots and he fits into their system. He also gave his thoughts about Nicolai "⁠HUNDEN⁠" Petersen being in Astralis after his exploitation of the coach bug, saying that he believes in second chances.

"I've always seen HUNDEN [at LANs dating back to CS: Source], but I've never really known him," device began. "Obviously, he used the bug against us as well. I believe in second chances, first of all, but I also treat people based on how they treat me, and I was just open-minded when I met him and I do think that personally, he is a really good guy, and he is really, really good at CS and at his job. That is how I view it now that I'm getting to know him as a person as well and I like him, but I understand the public narrative is like a witchhunt we had back in the days right, you have to burn somebody alive to have justice."

When pushed further about HUNDEN having multiple chances, device added that he didn't follow much past the original coach bug. "I don't read that much, but one thing I've always thought about the coach bug is... and this might be a little bit controversial, but if the coach is the only guy that knows about the bug and the team doesn't know about it, it has no relevance to the game. Then he can't give any information, so what does it matter? For it have an impact, it must have been communicated, so for the coaches to be the only persons that are being punished is a bit weird for me."

Toward the end of the hot seat section, device commented on his original departure from Astralis, stating that he told Lukas "⁠gla1ve⁠" Rossander to get Nico "⁠nicoodoz⁠" Tamjidi to replace him and that he was unsure why things didn't work out with Asger "⁠Farlig⁠" Jensen. He also refuted allegations that he collected paychecks while on NIP's bench, saying he wasn't paid while on sick leave, and didn't get money from the Swedish or Danish governments as part of his health leave.

The 27-year-old also spoke about what returning to active professional play has been like between playing top teams and the amount of practice that people are putting in, as well as joining the team alongside Christian "⁠Buzz⁠" Andersen. "[Buzz] is one of the guys I spent the most time on the server with the last year. There was a lot of opinions about that in the beginning, but for me it was very natural. I think he is very gifted and mature, even though he is young. I love playing with him, he's one of my favorite teammates of all time and we're having a lot of fun."

He also had high praise to offer when talking about Benjamin "⁠blameF⁠" Bremer, going so far as to say that the rifler has been the "biggest surprise" for him. "For me it was a question mark of how much space does he require before I joined the team because we play a lot of Overpass A, which is double star player roles; Nuke, double star player roles, but he has been the biggest surprise for me. I feel like we are working in tandem, it's working really well, and that is one of the success criteria for this team."

Conversation then pivoted toward ESL Pro League and the outcome of Group A, as well as a preview of Group B. To see what device had to say about how the group unfolded and his full quotes regarding his absence and return, you can check out the complete episode embedded above, or navigate to it here. You can also find other episodes of HLTV Confirmed on our YouTube channel, where there are also weekly news recaps, episodes of Counter-Quiz, and more.