huNter-: "CS:GO is a legendary game, I'm happy I'm a big part of it as are all of the players here"

We caught up with the Bosnian rifler after G2's 2-0 start in Paris to talk about the first day of play at the Major and what to expect in the coming days.

G2 beat The MongolZ and Complexity in the first day of the BLAST.tv Paris Major's Challengers Stage to set themselves up with a clean 2-0 record after the best-of-one stages. The European combine will now move to series play, where they are just one win away from locking in a spot at the next phase of the tournament, the Legends Stage.

Nemanja "⁠huNter-⁠" Kovač took some time to acknowledge a team like The MongolZ, who are trying to make their way to more appearances of events of this caliber, as well as sharing his views on G2's good results in the best-of-ones and what the expectation management has been within the squad. To round things out, he showed gratitude for the ability to be in the last CS:GO Major before the advent of CS2 and his expectations for the transition to the new game.

First day, 2-0, I bet you'll sleep well tonight.

Yeah, of course we'll sleep well, 2-0 was our plan since we started preparing for the Major. It feels good, it feels good.

You played TheMongolz and Complexity, two teams that on paper you were favorites against. How important was it for your confidence moving forward?

First of all, we didn't think that we're big favorites. Especially when you play a best-of-one, you can't be favorites against any team. Of course you are on paper, but it doesn't mean anything. You need to play the best CS if you want to win because one round can change everything, literally.

We started both times on Inferno on the CT side and lost both times. First time it was 6-9 and the second 7-8. It wasn't pretty and we'll need to see tonight what we did wrong to improve it for tomorrow because I think that some better teams, for example FaZe, will punish all of our mistakes and will win even more rounds. We need to watch out and we need to see what we did wrong to improve it for tomorrow.

The T sides were amazing, HooXi did amazing preparation for both games and he called pretty well. Congratulations to TheMongolz and Complexity, they both did really well, honestly. This day is behind us, and behind me, already, and I'm just focused on tomorrow. We don't know the opponent yet, but as soon as we know we'll prepare.

Both of the vetoes ended up going to Inferno. Was it a map you prepare for particularly and were hoping to be able to play a lot in this phase?

Yeah, I mean, I'm not the guy looking into maps when we play against opponents, that's HooXi and Swani. They expected Inferno for both games and prepared it well, so yeah, we kind of expected it.

You're up 2-0 going into series play. Best-of-ones can be tricky, so how good is it to get through them in the best way possible and be able to focus on the best-of-threes?

For the confidence it's pretty good to just have 2-0 after the first day, it's less pressure, for sure, because you know that you kind of have more space for a mistake. You have one map to lose. So yeah, it feels good, honestly, it's better to have less pressure and more confidence, so everything's positive.

I was talking to Twistzz earlier and he was saying that it's nice to be able to play against teams that aren't always playing in the same circuit as you guys. You got to face teams that maybe you don't face all of the time. Was that refreshing for you?

Yeah, it feels good for me, as well. Especially when HooXi is doing preparation, or Swani, they are showing us things that we never saw before from teams like FaZe, Liquid, NAVI, all of the tier one teams. I'd say Heroic is a bit different compared to everyone because they have their different style, especially on CT side. But yeah, it feels good, honestly, to have somebody else doing other things because that's more experience for us.

I know how much it means to them because I started from zero like all of them. Especially TheMongolz now, in the Major, they are fighting to be tier two, tier one, and to play these kinds of events more. So yeah, it's their dream and we need to respect that. We cannot complain, we just need to prepare for that and that's what we did. That's why we did well today.

There was the high-stress period of the RMRs, so what did you do between then and here to be ready prepared both in the server as well as mentally?

For me, mentally, there's no pressure now. There was a lot of pressure playing at the RMR. I said in an interview that there's more pressure at the RMR than playing finals or semi-finals in front of a crowd. Here I'm at a Major. I just remember the feeling when we lost the last time for the Rio Major. It was really tough, I didn't complain after that and now I came here, we're playing the Major, we don't have any pressure.

We're just trying to be the best version of G2 that we showed we can be at the beginning of the year in Katowice and at the end of last year at the BLAST World Final. We're trying to be that G2 and to be as consistent as we can, individually and as a team.

There's a lot of expectations set on G2 doing well this time around, you're one of the best teams in the world in a good moment for the team. How are you managing these bigger expectations? Even the G2 hype video loading up to 100%. How do you deal with that expectation put on you guys?

We deal well, I think. When you sign for G2 you need to be ready for big expectations and you need to be ready for pressure. If you are not ready, you cannot play for this team because G2 is one of the biggest organizations and when you decide to sign for G2 you need to be ready for everything.

Me, personally, I don't care too much about anything. I'm just focused on what I can control and that is helping my teammates, trying my best, and doing what I do the best — playing CS — and that's pretty much it. Anything that I cannot control, I don't focus on it, and I think that's really important.

To close things out, one of the things that's talked about very much and understandably so, is the fact that this is the last CS:GO Major before we move on to CS2. Does that have any particular meaning for you?

Yeah, of course. Playing the last Major in this legendary game means a lot to all of the players that are here. Everybody wants to do their best, I know everybody prepare really well, even for this Challenger Stage. Of course, when you go to the Legends Stage it will be even better to play, and then in front of the arena and the crowd, of course.

But we're far from that spot, we need four more wins if we want to secure that, so we go step by step. Over all I can't explain my feeling playing the last CS:GO Major and going into CS2 after. It's a legendary game and I'm happy I'm a big part of it as are all of the players here. I hope CS2 will be even better than CS:GO and in ten years maybe I'll talk to somebody younger than me and he'll say the same.