degster on niko: "I like him, it feels good to play with this guy"

OG's AWPer shared some insight into the team's evolution with Nikolaj "⁠niko⁠" Kristensen, expectations at IEM Rio, and the team's first win over Vitality in Brazil.

OG have started off their campaign at IEM Rio well with an overtime victory against Vitality in Overpass, in which Abdul "⁠degster⁠" Gasanov and company overturned a 6-11 deficit to move on to play Cloud9 for a spot in the playoffs.

Following the win, degster spoke to HLTV about the feat and what he did to combat a lack of playtime between the RMR and the Brazilian tournament to get off on the right foot.

The AWPer also talked about niko's continued adaptation to the team and what he brings to the table as an experienced player and new in-game leader and shed more light on why Casper "⁠ruggah⁠" Due isn't with the team in Rio de Janeiro.

You can read or listen to the full interview below:

Congratulations degster, you won your first game against Vitality, also great comeback on the T side. Talk me through it, what happened?

I think we just didn't wake up. I had this feeling, and I also heard my teammate giving an interview, he says the same. I just came here and I feel this idea in my head, that we didn't have time to practice here, and because of two days flight for me you just don't play CS and now you join it and you don't feel the game.

After the first half, I put the monitor closer, I changed how I sit a bit, and it feels better because you just try to put your head inside of the game. There were some situations, like at least how I see the game, that we were not turning on, me personally also. I had one very important moment that I lost just because of it. Yeah, the T side was better for us just because you can run here, you don't need to do some certain things to do team protocols and stuff.

Did you just do the matchmaking classic and change your crosshair, change sensitivity-

No, no no [laughing]. Only the monitor was super far away, to be honest, I just didn't feel it like, okay, it's like that [laughs]. But then I realized that the monitor is more than my hand far away, and I'm like okay, come closer.

Another thing that we noticed on the broadcast especially, there's no ruggah for you guys. Tell me what happened?

I know that ruggah's child is sick right now, and he really needs to be with family to help, to get recovery, you know? So that's the reason he's not here and we respect it, and we hope that everything will be fine and everyone will feel better soon.

Now it's been two months with niko as an IGL. Let's talk a bit about the nexa situation, obviously he's not been there with you for a bit. Is there any updates on it?

There is no information that I can tell you more than what was in the announcement.

Okay, what about niko? Talk to me about him, you've had him as an IGL for two months now. I imagine it's evolved a little since he first came in, his first stint as an IGL, tell me how he is?

This guy is crazy to be honest [laughs]. But yeah I like him, it feels good to play with this guy. For me, I still feel I lost some things when I played in CIS region, it's small details but these small details are improving you to be a top player from a mediocre player.

Like for example today there was a situation, 2vs1, where player like niko who has been playing in Heroic and has experience, he helps me to control the situation with my teammate because my teammate was not giving any information to me. So he helps me because I did my best, he helped me, and because of it I killed ZywOo. And I told to niko in live, thank you niko, because if it's going to be my native language I will speak super fast, super loud, I know what to say and I know that my teammates will always understand me, but when it's an international team and it's not everyone's native language, it getting much harder to explain. Even in the last round there was a lot of things that I know, after the year together, I know which things can work ten times better by just using the native language, and it's sometimes affecting your emotions, you feel sad that it's not working.

A player like niko is helping not only as an IGL, but also as a player, a teammate, to do certain things and win more rounds, and I respect it.

Especially in the later part of the game, I saw F1KU being very vocal. How is he involved with the leading of the team or as a second voice?

It's just one rule that we had for this game, it's Rio, we didn't play CS the last days. My first flight to Rio was cancelled so I was flying for three days, so we didn't have practice. Only one rule that I had for this game, for our teammates, was that we need to scream. It's okay for every one of us, we just want it, because in my opinion if you don't do anything and you didn't wake up for the start of the rounds, you will sit, you will be full calmed down, and you will have less chances to turn on in the game. That's why I tell to my teammates, guys, all that I want is don't give up, it's our main rule to be honest for the whole team, don't give up and scream because you need to wake up. It's the first game, you feel struggles sometimes in first games, and it happens with everyone so we tried to find our way to wake up.

So obviously you won the game, you're facing C9 in the next round. How are you feeling about that?

I'm feeling okay. We played against them online, but to be honest I don't remember when the last time I played against C9 offline. I'm very excited to play this game, and I really want to play the best CS that we have in Rio before a Major to have more chances to improve and be the best versions of ourselves in Paris.

The Major is just around the corner, but this event is along the way. How do you manage expectations and how do you prepare for this event when the biggest event of the year is just around the corner?

I didn't do something special. The only thing that changed right now is you realize, for example I was watching five demos sometimes every single day, sometimes less. Right now you just realize that you don't need to put 1000 hours to work on CS:GO, because you know that, like for OG, we have only Rio and the Major as big tournaments. We didn't qualify for BLAST in the USA or for Dallas, so if we don't have any other tournaments all we can do is play our best in the last ones, prepare for them of course and do certain things that are always important to do before tournaments or opponents, and then prepare yourself for CS2. That's at least how I look on it.

Have you had any conversations about CS2 within the team? Are you going to tackle that later?

Some people don't like it, some people like it, that's normal. Old people don't like that smokes can be destroyed by HEs, young people are saying like me, 'oh it's an insane idea, I have so many things that I would like to do.'

Do you think it should still be balanced, like reduce the time it stays out after you-

I think it's already balanced. I would like to try to play it in tier one, to be honest, it's something that can be very interesting and it's a game-changing moment. Now five HEs on T side, five HEs on CT side, you can use some tricks and maybe it's going to be super interesting, maybe not, but I like that Valve tries to change something which is a fundamental base in this game.