NiKo: "jks would be out of the team whether I left G2 or stayed"

The Bosnian star explained why the move to Falcons fell through and stressed that he played no part in the recent roster changes.

Nikola "⁠NiKo⁠" Kovač was at the heart of one of the biggest transfer stories in the Counter-Strike scene in recent memory as he looked set to join Falcons in a blockbuster deal. But in a last-minute twist, he opted to remain with G2, which has been his organization since late 2020.

In his first interview since the transfer collapsed, NiKo explained that he decided to stay put because he believes he can win more with G2, at least in the short run, alluding to the fact that Falcons do not hold a spot in either partner league. “I wasn't ready to accept the fact that I wouldn't be playing all the top events, that I might be skipping events such as Katowice, Cologne, and many more,” he explained.

Even with NiKo staying on, G2 decided to fine-tune their roster, bringing Nemanja "⁠nexa⁠" Isaković back and replacing Justin "⁠jks⁠" Savage. This has led to whispers of nepotism, which NiKo vehemently denied. “He [jks] was out of the team before I decided that I was staying,” he said, stressing that the G2 organization has gone against his wishes on many occasions.

NiKo also touched on the recent appointment of Wiktor "⁠TaZ⁠" Wojtas as head coach, saying that he hopes that the Polish veteran will help the team overcome slumps. “There are a lot of good things that he can bring to our team,” he noted. “So I think we are in good hands. He has all the tools he needs, he just needs to develop himself as a coach since this is his first team.”

You are attending your first LAN event after making a change. What's the atmosphere like, and how are you approaching this tournament?

It's been a while since we played our last tier-one event, especially now with the new change. The atmosphere is pretty good, even though we had some struggles during this online tournament. We didn't really take it too seriously and took it more for practice, which is very hard when all the eyes are on you, but it is what it is. The overall atmosphere is good, and we are very excited to play the last event of the season.

Some people were a little surprised about the roster change, and there have been comments about nexa being a bit of a downgrade over jks. What can you say about the logic behind this change and what nexa brings to the table?

I don’t want to get too much into it, since this all happened when I was pretty much out of G2. Justin [jks] is a great player, but like me and every other player, he has pros and cons. I understand that most people are not happy with the move since Justin was putting up pretty good numbers, especially in big games. But it’s not only about the numbers, and there are things that people outside of the team can’t see.

I think that nexa is really good team player that will sacrifice himself for the team a lot and will also bring good communication and more initiative to the team. I think that with Justin, we had too many 'star' roles in the team. nexa will require less space and will do more for the team. I truly believe that Justin will also shine and play better somewhere else as a star player, and I wish him nothing but the best.

I’m not worried about nexa’s individual level, I think he is more than capable of putting up really good numbers for an anchor/support player. Since he is not the IGL, he can focus more on himself and do the things that he likes the most. We will also gain a lot when it comes to mid-round calls. He is able to provide a lot of input that should help Rasmus [HooXi] and the team a lot.

You said that you are not putting too much stock into those online results that you just had. You used that opportunity to play a bit of Overpass, a map you hadn't played in quite some time. What are your thoughts about how the team is playing the map? Do you think that it is ready for this tournament?

We looked at Overpass before and even started playing it a bit in CS:GO, but we never had time to actually continue playing and working on it, so we decided to stop again. This time around, we really want to commit to it. The biggest reason we started playing it is because Rasmus believes we have really good players for this map. He had played the map before in Copenhagen Flames and liked the map, and he just believes that we can shine on that map with more time.

Obviously, a map like Overpass is really good for AWPers. I feel like it's really easy to utilize a player like Ilya [m0NESY] on this map.

I’m not sure if we are completely ready on this map for this event. We definitely need more experience playing it at events, but we did the best we could with the time we had. We are obviously not feeling as confident on this map as on Inferno, Ancient, Nuke and so on, but we are willing to commit to it. Time will tell.

You have also just announced TaZ as a new coach. In your opinion, why did the team decide to go for him, and what do you think he brings to the table compared to Swani? Will he be behind the team during the tournament, or will it still be Swani?

Swani will be behind us for this last event. All of this came pretty unexpectedly; everything was decided within ten days. We had a boot camp for two weeks, but we started the boot camp with the news that Swani was going to leave, and we didn't know anything before that. As soon as Swani told us he was leaving, G2 started looking into the options that we may have. There were a couple of coaches on the table, but G2 decided to go with TaZ.

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I think when it comes to TaZ, he has everything that a coach should have. He has a really good understanding of the game, lots of experience, he is a leader, he knows how to win, he has been an IGL his whole life, he knows how to talk to people and has been very vocal throughout his career. There are a lot of good things that he can bring to our team. So I think we are in good hands. He has all the tools he needs, he just needs to develop himself as a coach since this is his first team.

Last year in Abu Dhabi, no one thought much about your team initially. You were the second-lowest-ranked team in the tournament, and you used that to your advantage to win. Do you think that the same thing can happen here?

I don't think we are in the same situation as last year. You said we were the second-lowest-ranked last year, but I don't think we felt that way. This time around, it's a bit different. We don't feel like one of the best teams at this event, but we are looking to prove ourselves. There are a lot of people that want to see us fail, so I think that brings a lot of hunger to our team. I'm not sure if we are capable of winning the event, we need to take it game by game.

It's very important for our team to get as many games under our belt as possible and in order to do that we have to go deep in tournaments. We haven't played a LAN event since IEM Sydney two months ago, so we are a bit behind some teams that are playing this event, but we are looking to catch up and establish ourselves again as one of the best teams in the world.

We are still ranked in the top five, top six, but we want to do better than that. The teams also don't have too much information on us in general, so we can use that to our advantage as well. But in general, we are just very excited that we are back playing tier-one events, and hopefully, we'll do some real damage here.

Talking a little bit about what happened with Falcons: can you walk me through the whole process, from when you started thinking about switching teams to when you decided to stay in G2?

There had been talks since July/August, but it wasn’t anything serious back then. Once they brought zonic and Lars to the team, around November, they approached me again, and we started more serious talks. zonic was the biggest reason why I started considering that option heavily. I have huge respect for both zonic and Lars and for what they have achieved, so I really wanted to work with them. I believed that they could develop me and turn me into an even better player.

Obviously, the offer was great, and I would probably be the highest-paid player out there, but the biggest reason why I was leaning toward that offer was zonic.

The reason why I decided to stay in G2 was simply because I think that at this moment I can win more and be more successful in G2, both as a player and as an individual. I wasn't ready to accept the fact that I wouldn't be playing all the top events, that I might be skipping events such as Katowice, Cologne, and many more. So yeah, when everything hit me in the end, I [realized] I was not ready to give all of this up.

Do you think that there's a chance that this could happen in the future, you leaving to Falcons or another team?

For now, I’m fully committed to G2. I’m here to give my best, improve myself in CS2, try to help the team as much as I can, and try to achieve some great results. I’m really focused on trying to get better, both as a team and as an individual. And I wouldn’t stay in G2 if I didn’t trust that we could keep winning trophies.

You recently wrote on Twitter, 'Impressive how many people think that I have so much power in teams.' How do you deal with this perception that you're the puppet master and with the fact that people keep painting you as the villain? Does this bother you?

It definitely does, because I would be fine if that were true. I would be like, 'Okay, they are right, it's me deciding it, and it's whatever.' But it's really not like that, especially in this case. Justin would be out of the team whether I left G2 or whether I stayed; he was out of the team before I decided that I was staying.

I didn't have any say in this, not even a vote. G2 was discussing everything without me, and all team negotiations happened without me. I came back to the team and was told that Justin was out and nexa was in. And I was like, 'Okay, I'm going to just work with what I have. I'm going to do my best and that's it.'

I never said that I don’t have any power on the team, but I definitely don’t have the power that most people think. Obviously, when an organization wants to build the team around certain player(s), they value their opinion a bit more heavily, if that makes sense. Ever since I joined G2, most of the changes that have happened have been against my say/vote. G2 has always relied on management and coaching staff, and they are the ones making the calls and moves.

Some people said you decided to stay with G2 because you took the bag and signed a new contract. But I was told that that's not the case. You didn't even sign a new contract, right?

I stayed on the same salary I had before, so that is definitely not the case. I did not try to gain money or take advantage from the offers that I had from other teams. I also saw some rumors that G2 had to drop Justin because they had to give me more salary, which is also not true. G2 has never asked me for a pay cut or anything; I have stayed on the same salary as before, and Justin was definitely not dropped because of my salary.

I want you to look back at the year. Some people may not consider G2 as one of the best teams of the year, but you did win Katowice and Cologne. When you look back at everything that has happened this year, do you think that this year was a success?

Considering how the two previous years went in G2, this was definitely the most successful one. I think winning Katowice and Cologne is a big thing for any team, and I think that, at the end of the day, it has been a really successful year. I also think this event could decide for us if it was actually a really good year or not. The BLAST World Finals are actually a really important event since there are only top eight teams.

Overall, it sucks that there is a big gap between winning trophies, that's something that no one wants. But if you look at the bigger picture, winning those two trophies meant a lot, especially for me. I hadn't won those events before and I been trying for a while.

What about your goals for next year? Is it the year when you finally win a Major?

We want to bring in more consistency and try to win more events throughout the season. Not just win one event and that's it for us, which usually happens at the start of the season. We want to try to somehow find more consistency throughout the whole season and try to win more events, or just try to constantly go for deeper runs, go for the semi-finals and finals. I believe that Wiktor [TaZ] can definitely help us with that.

The goal is always the same when it comes to the Majors. But as I mentioned before, we want to have more consistent results throughout the whole year.