huNter-: "All of the players on the team deserve one more chance"

The Bosnian star touched on the team's decision to not make any changes during the off-season and their current inconsistencies.

G2 started off the year on the front foot with a victory at IEM Katowice 2023, continuing the great form they showed at the end of the previous season. The Rasmus "⁠HooXi⁠" Nielsen-led squad has, however, cooled down significantly since their victory in Poland, and their decision to not make any roster changes in the summer came as a surprise to many.

Their inconsistent performances over the last few months have seen them fall to the No. 4 spot in the ranking and far off the pace compared to other event favorites at IEM Cologne such as Vitality, HEROIC, and FaZe. Nemanja "⁠huNter-⁠" Kovač and company kickstarted their journey in Germany with a solid 2-1 victory over Astralis, which the Bosnian rifler quickly followed up with a catch-up session with HLTV to talk about the team's summer and their current form.

You haven't made changes in such a crazy off-season, is that an advantage or a disadvantage?

I think it's an advantage because all of the players on the team deserve one more chance. We did some good things at the end of last year and the beginning of this year and we don't know about the CS2 thing, so we didn't want to change anything. I'm really happy because of it, to stay with the boys, because as I said, I'm happy playing with them a million times and everybody deserves one more chance in this team. Hopefully we'll take that chance to stay together even for CS2.

A lot of teams made changes so they're trying to find their identities. You're a bit more established, but it seems from the outside that you're having a bit of a struggle getting into the rhythm. Today you won your best-of-three, but there were some shaky moments, particularly on Inferno. What do you make of getting back into the swing of things?

Back then we had really good T sides and now these days we have good CT sides, so it's really hard to have a kind of balance. That's what we're searching for, to have balance, to have consistency on both sides and play good as much as we can. I think this team is really strong individually and we need to focus more on us individually, all of us, to help the team, to try and shoot the best we can, because in the end that's winning us games.

We were winning events before because we were really good at clutches, we had some good calls — and we still have them—, winning some stupid rounds like 2vs4s, 3vs5, and that will win us games, especially against good teams at big events.

What happened on those T sides, why are you not clicking so well anymore?

We were working a lot before on T sides because we have strong individuals and we didn't focus too much on CT sides. We were kind of just playing the game. Now we're really focused on CT sides because that will help us win games as well, but we need to find balance, keep that balance, and find that consistency.

m0NESY had a beautiful highlight on Inferno today. It was against pistols, but still a piece of art. At the same time it seems he hasn't found the consistency he was having last season and even at the end of last year. Is there anything to that?

He's still young, he's a kid, and of course sometimes you have ups and downs. We're not the same team without him. Every AWPer is really important, but m0NESY, I don't think he knows what he's capable of. We need him and hopefully we'll have him and he'll help us win games as he was doing before.

We all believe in him and we're working with him a lot, especially NiKo and HooXi, and we're supporting him. He's our kid, so yeah, hopefully he'll keep going and he'll be one of the best players really soon. He is already, but maybe even the best!

The Inferno was a bit touch and go at times, but you did make it to the decider map, Nuke. How important was it for you to have that strong finish today?

It was really important. Both Inferno and Nuke were kind of our best maps when we were the best, and Inferno is still one of our best maps. On Nuke we were struggling a lot lately and I'm really happy that we managed to close those two maps out. On Ancient we had some unlucky rounds, especially on T side.

We just need to keep working, but I'm really happy that our CT sides improved and we showed it today once more. Tomorrow is the day off, we'll practice to try and see what we can do better for the next game against FaZe or NIP.

IEM Cologne is one of those tournaments in which every team is a threat, pretty much. All of the best teams in the world are here. Where do you rate yourselves right now?

Oh, I'm not the guy to ask where we rate ourselves! I'm always the guy who's just watching the next day, the next opponent, so I'm just focused on NIP or FaZe. We'll watch it tomorrow and have it tomorrow, so I'm not focused not focused on playoffs or going until the end. Game by game, day by day, that's the most important. We control what we can control, that's all.

Then let's say NIP or FaZe. Any preference?

We lost to FaZe at BLAST. They smashed us 2-0, so I would like to play FaZe again.