Snax: "Some teams wanted me to be the IGL [last year], but I wasn't ready"

In an exclusive interview with HLTV, Janusz "⁠Snax⁠" Pogorzelski shares why he declined multiple competitive offers in 2022 and why he now feels ready to make a tier-one return with GamerLegion.

It's been almost four years since EMS One Katowice 2014 Major winner and four-time top 20 player Snax last had a contract with a top team following the end of his long tenure with the Polish Virtus.pro in 2020.

Since then, the Pole has only played one big tournament in mid-2022, when he helped ENCE reach the grand final at IEM Dallas. It was a successful stand-in stint that earned Snax the opportunity to trial for the team a few months later, when they were looking for a replacement for Lotan "⁠Spinx⁠" Giladi, but that chance slipped away with ENCE signing Valdemar "⁠valde⁠" Bjørn Vangså instead at the time.

It took Snax another year to finally make his return to top competition. Last week he was announced as GamerLegion's latest signing, replacing Sanzhar "⁠neaLaN⁠" Iskhakov as the team's in-game leader just weeks before he and the team make their appearance at the first big Counter-Strike 2 LAN at IEM Sydney.

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Snax joins GamerLegion

Explaining to HLTV why he didn't feel ready to return to top competition until now, Snax begins in a somewhat roundabout fashion. He recalls his brief time with MOUZ in 2018, which ended after just four months due to a "clear mismatch in chemistry" between him and the rest of the team at the time featuring the likes of Tomáš "⁠oskar⁠" Šťastný and Miikka "⁠suNny⁠" Kemppi.

"In mousesports I was told I would have different roles but I ended up in a situation that I didn't sign up for. After that episode I want to be more safe with the things I choose because I don't want to be stuck in a position where I don't enjoy the game," Snax explains. "I would rather join a team where I enjoy positions and what I'm doing rather than getting a lot of money."

The Pole shares that it was for this reason that he decided not to accept two offers last year from teams "in the top 15, even one in the top 10" to become an in-game leader. It is a role he had fulfilled before, even in his Virtus.pro days on occasion, but never in an English-speaking roster.

"After ENCE some teams wanted me to be the IGL, but I wasn't ready. I said instantly to them that I don't think it's going to be good for now, because I needed to see how it would work and if I can adapt fast to this role. So I declined some offers," he reflects on the period in the latter half of 2022.

Instead, Snax finished out 2022 playing alongside ex-Finest, an international team that went on to disband due to a lack of organizational support, and going into 2023 he formed another mixed roster, Let us cook. During this time he established a relationship with fellow Pole Jędrzej "⁠Bogdan⁠" Rokita, who coached the two international rosters and who ended up putting Snax on GamerLegion's radar after becoming their new assistant coach in July.

Snax said at the time of joining Let us cook that he doesn't "think it's the time for me to be the IGL" because of the English component, but through roster changes he fell into the role just a few weeks later anyway, and it was this experience that ended up making the difference when GamerLegion came knocking seven months later.

"When you are a player you can say some small rounds that you want to play when you have a feeling, but when you're an IGL you need to think every time and you need to do it fast, because timing is everything in CS. Whenever I stop using English, it's getting sturdy a bit, and I think it's the same when you're an IGL. But I was doing it for seven months and I would say I'm ready," he says.

"I actually enjoy it. I like to say a lot in-game and in the past years, when I was really good at CS, it was a time when I was calling a lot as well, even before Virtus.pro I was mostly IGLing in my teams."

As if his task wasn't tall enough already, Snax's signing to GamerLegion comes at a time of the switch to Counter-Strike 2. Like many, he belongs to the camp that believes the game has been released prematurely, but he sees good signs when it comes to his new team's approach to Counter-Strike 2 and what value he can bring with his experience.

"I can see already some players like the game, or maybe not like but they are good at the game, and I think they are really open-minded. We talk about CS2 and how we should approach it. The mechanical side is going to change and you need to adapt to it, but some of the things, rules, are going to stay, because it's still kinda the same game."

"I hope I will develop the guys with some of my experience. I hope I will also learn something from them. I think there's potential, but you need to work with it," Snax shares. "People talk more here. This is the big change from tier two and I like it, but to improve it you need to have a fully clear TeamSpeak, to fix all of the rules you have in the game. To make it clearer and understandable for everyone, it should be done with some keywords, rules, and it's gonna get so much easier."

As for his expectations, they are tempered when it comes to the here and now — IEM Sydney will start just over two weeks after his signing was announced, after all — but long-term Snax hopes his legacy doesn't end with CS:GO.

"It's a really big opportunity to overcome new heights in CS2. It would be great if I can do something more, win some tournaments after I first started winning 10 years ago. I know I need to take time, I need to grind a lot, especially when it's a new game."

"I was enjoying playing CS:GO and I think I was a small part of it as well with some things, and I hope I can do the same in CS2."