tabseN on Krimbo: "He has taken a lot of responsibility to play certain positions and he's doing it very well"

The 28-year-old in-game leader talked about Karim "⁠Krimbo⁠" Moussa's crucial role within the squad.

IEM Rio 2023 was BIG's last chance to claim a big trophy before their next scheduled LAN appearance at BLAST Premier Fall Groups. The German squad got off to a great start with solid wins over MOUZ and HEROIC, securing their appearance in front of the Brazilian crowd at the Jeunesse Arena. Fatih "⁠gob b⁠" Dayik's men then lost the upper bracket final to Natus Vincere, but moved to the knockout stage with the potential to take down teams ranked higher than them.

BIG lined up in the quarter-final against Vitality hoping to get revenge against the European squad following their loss at the RMR earlier in April. Despite a good start to both maps, the Germans quad was unable to stop Mathieu "⁠ZywOo⁠" Herbaut and company and were eliminated after a 0-2 loss.

Johannes "⁠tabseN⁠" Wodarz took some time after the loss to talk about the team's run at the Brazilian event, Krimbo's recent performances, and Marcel "⁠hyped⁠" Köhn's evolution since his promotion in January.

Unfortunate about yesterday, but overall, you showed a good tournament. You had a few good wins, especially against MOUZ to start with and Heroic, so can you talk me through those first two games?

Yeah, especially against Heroic we felt like it was a relief, first time in a long long time that we have beaten them. But overall as you said, we played a good tournament so far, we managed to beat top teams here. Obviously, we are sad that we couldn't beat Vitality, wanted to have the revenge from the RMR but couldn't make it. They are definitely ahead of us. We're still not satisfied, but we are looking forward for the results and hopefully, we can take them as an experience and make them even better.

Your third game, NAVI, the first half on Mirage was really really close. Can you tell me what went wrong with that?

Against Vitality you mean?

Yes, sorry.

Against Vitality the first map was very close, it was Nuke, but the second game was Mirage and it was kinda close too. We felt like the T side was okay, and on the CT side we had some good setups I would say. It was the first equipment round [gun round] where we made the first kill on apEX in middle and then they popped B, we handled it really badly and then after that obviously they crushed us, they abused us in middle and it was kinda hard to play. Also, the momentum, they just rushed on us, they killed us, they had more X on X situations in their favor, everything crumbled and unfortunately we couldn't make it.

Let's talk a bit more about the year in general. Krimbo has been really good for you, right now your highest-rated player this year, but even at this event, he was clicking heads pretty well. Can you tell me how he has been with his development since coming into the team last year, practicing?

Yeah, it definitely feels good to have him on the team here. He has taken a lot of responsibility to play certain positions and he's doing it very well. He's thinking about CS a lot and he is doing what we want him to do. Obviously that he is playing so well means a lot to us, he's improving every day, and he's trying to be consistent as well. He found a way for himself and hopefully, he manages to for the next year, or the next half a year, because it's a really important part for us in the team that we can rely on him. Especially in the clutches for example, when he is in the 1v1, 1v2, 1v3s, 2v3s, he gives us a lot of confidence because he most of the time wins it and he plays really smart.

The other significant change you've had recently, you swapped syrsoN for hyped. It's been a month and a half, two months since the change, have you had time to reflect on not only what syrsoN brought to the team, but how hyped is different and what he brings?

The most comparison I would say is just experience, for sure. syrsoN back in the day took a lot of responsibility, he knew exactly what peeks he needs to do in certain times. hyped, his ability to shoot very well is very good, he understands what he needs to do, sometimes obviously he is not experienced enough to maybe make a shot and then go back, and play safe, but he is trying to overextend, overkill, and I would say that if he gets more experience playing these kinds of tournaments he will be much better in the future.

But obviously it is hard for me for example, or for the team, to make it work because he is a new player, we want to put an eye on him, we want to make him feel comfortable, we want to make everyone feel comfortable, so everything is lacking a little bit so he feels more comfortable, and everyone else of course, but we will make it work. We had, as you said only two months, and I believe that we will make it better in the future.

I know that for such an important position in the team, a young player comes in, maybe not as experienced as syrsoN was before. As an in-game leader, you bring such a young player that is so important for you but he still isn't refined. How is it for you?

For me, I take him by the hand basically and say, 'Hey look, you can do this and this, what do you feel comfortable with? Tell me your moves, tell me what situation you like to be with,' and then I try to create the system around it. But most of the time when I play default on myself I just say for example, 'Hey, I just need this and this from you, and afterward you can do whatever you want.' He gives a lot of information about what he wants to do and how he sees the game as well, so it's important to be on the same page.

Obviously you leave here, no Major for you, but you've got Brazy Party at least. After that it's a long break until BLAST Fall, what's the plan going forward through this break?

Of course now our focus is for sure on Brazy Party, it's a huge online tournament. After that, I don't really... I don't know, it's a long long time since I've had this kind of a break, like to have such a long break, but we will see. We will just try to refocus, try to also rethink everything that we did in the past, just try to think about the future, what we need to do to improve, what we need to have better results obviously, and then we will see what will happen in the future.