Krimbo: "For me, it wasn't a problem to speak English"

The German rifler spoke to HLTV ahead of their ESL Pro League S18 campaign.

BIG have fielded a national core throughout their history, which started in 2017, and have since become the flagbearers of German Counter-Strike. In an offseason during which several organizations, including Natus Vincere and Liquid, moved away from their heritage, the German organization went for a different path and promoted two academy players.

Despite that, Florian "⁠syrsoN⁠" Rische's departure forced BIG to go international when searching for a sniper. Mateusz "⁠mantuu⁠" Wilczewski was the man they chose, which meant that the team would have to communicate in English going forward.

BIG's start to the season was hot and cold and they now come into ESL Pro League S18's Group B with high expectations, according to Karim "⁠Krimbo⁠" Moussa. In his interview with HLTV, the German rifler also talked about his upturn in form, English communication, and the team's goals for the season.

Congratulations on your recent CCT victory. What does that do for confidence and how is the team feeling after that one?

Thank you, first of all. It's great, winning these small tournaments also grows us as a team. I think it's always much better than practice to play these tournaments. You always learn much more. And also, as a player, when you don't play practice but play an official it's always different, there are two mental states.

BIG missed out on Gamers8, but you've played a lot of officials at Thunderpick and CCT. Is that intentional? Are you trying to get as much game time under your belts as possible?

Yeah, definitely. If you don't qualify for these events, you have to play some other tournaments. And like I said, it's even better practice to play these online tournaments than just practicing because you just learn more from it.

You've been playing really well recently, your rating for the last couple of months is above your average rating for the last year. How much have you tried to step up into a star role and do a lot of the fragging for the new BIG lineup?

Over the last year, my kind of trial year, I grew really much as a player, and I understood the game much more. Now I know what player I want to be and also want to be for the team. Maybe star player isn't the right word.

On most of the maps, I'm also filling positions to enable my teammates more, because I'm experienced and the others, like prosus, learn from it. Maybe, in the future, we can swap.

I'd say that if we just function great as a team, I can always perform. For example, as a T, I mostly got the lurk roles, and as a lurker, I really feel comfortable. But on CT I'm more of an anchor, to help with the stability of the team more than being the star player.

So would you say that's the plan for the future, once some of the younger players get more experience and game time under their belt at the top level, to shift around positions to try and find a better setup for you guys overall as a team?

In the beginning, it was really important to us because we didn't have much time in the preseason. We just decided to give prosus and s1n most of their old positions, which of course you can't do on every map, for them to feel comfortable because they're not so experienced on LAN. It's so they can play more in their comfort zone at the beginning of this team. So yeah, that's definitely an option. But right now, I would say it's, everything is going well, so let's see.

The other player I wanted to ask about specifically was mantuu, it seems like he's settled into the team pretty well. From the outside at least, breaking the old German roster seemed a bit of a strange situation, but he settled in quite well. How is the team feeling with mantuu now that he's in the squad?

We feel great. I think the chemistry has never been this good since I'm on the team. We all really like each other, we communicate really well with each other, and for me, it wasn't any problem to speak English and it's kind of natural to me.

Because you play FPL and FACEIT, with international friends, and talk a lot, this was the key feeling for all of us, so we decided that we should kind of look for international [AWPers] since it's not such a problem.

How do you think he compares to syrsoN in the server? Are they similar types of AWPers in your eyes? Or is there a big difference between the way they play?

I would say mantuu is definitely more of a team player. When needed, he definitely sacrifices for his team, and you get that feeling that we are a unit, we have a good feeling that we are a team. As a style, I would also say he is pretty aggressive and he can make all these moves. I think in terms of style, he's a bit similar to syrsoN, but at the end of the day, I would say he just sacrifices a lot, so you just get the feeling that he is doing everything to win.

The other thing I wanted to ask about was the in-game leadership situation. We heard at BLAST that was a developing thing. How's it going now?

So, right now, tabseN is calling. We decided at the beginning that we wanted s1n to call, but we felt like it was a lot. He got promoted to the main team, he played his first LAN after one year... You have the IGL, the team captain role, playing against Heroic, in your first game at BLAST, so we said: 'Okay, let's do it like this, let tabseN IGL for the next few months now so that s1n can learn, get in his comfort zone, and just play as a normal player without having any duties in terms of calling.' Then, maybe, a few months later, we can see.

Is the desire from the team to try and get tabseN off of in-game leading so that he can frag a little bit more?

Maybe not completely, because he's a top IGL in my eyes. But you know, just definitely helping him more with it, so he has fewer duties and he can focus more on his game. I think it's really hard to say not to do it.

For example, in G2, I also think NiKo's calling a lot based on his positions because he's the room taker for his team. This will always be a thing for tabseN. So you know, to lift a bit of pressure from his shoulders and help him the best we can.

So just in general, how is the team feeling about the results so far? There were definitely some promising signs at BLAST, but the Cologne Play-In didn't go so well. And then you've been doing really well online. How is the team feeling overall about your progression so far?

We're feeling the best we have so far. I think BLAST was also a really good starting tournament for us. I mean, we beat OG and Astralis and only lost versus teams like NAVI, Heroic, and Vitality, so I think I think that's not a shame. Cologne was also a different kind of breed. We were without mantuu, we have been bootcamping in Berlin, then we have of course two weeks of BLAST where we also bootcamped there.

So Cologne was a bit off the road and we could have won a few games there, but I think it was just a bit of a completely different thing, back to Germany again. But yeah, especially these online tournaments, the practice, the CCT win, it's all been going really great. Especially for mantuu, because at the beginning, when we played with him, we felt he hadn't been playing for over one year in a team. You kind of feel this, which is completely normal, and now you can't compare how he's feeling to the point when he came into the team.

What are your expectations going into this Pro League group?

We can say that we want to reach the playoffs. I think that's a realistic goal. I would say we are top four in this group. Top-four contender, at least, or like a top-three contender. I think Heroic and ENCE are really good at the moment, they deserve to be in the top five in the world right now. They've been on the grind, they have been together as a core for such a long time and play great right now.

Also MOUZ, they're a really good team, but MOUZ or Monte, there isn't a huge gap. I think every team can beat everyone on the same day without the other team having a big advantage. So yeah, I think reaching the playoffs is a realistic goal for us.

What are the wider goals for BIG that you guys have? Do you want to be hitting a certain ranking by a certain time? Are there any goals like that set overall?

I won't say that we sat down and said 'We want to be here and there on this point that September.' But of course, we want to establish [ourselves] back in the top twenty and take everything step by step. Reaching the playoffs in this group, in these tournaments, is also kind of a must. Or let's say, we should make it more often, like a playoff qualification at these tournaments.

We take everything step by step, just playing, getting back in the top twenty, and reaching playoffs in Pro League. I also feel like we're making a lot of progress as a team, and I don't get the feeling that everything is the same, like we're not making progress.