Nivera announces CS comeback: "I want to leave my mark on this game"

The Belgian player is ready to continue where he left off in 2021 after a VALORANT spell.

Throughout Nabil "⁠Nivera⁠" Benrlitom’s VALORANT career, even in the special moments and the big games, Counter-Strike was always at the back of his mind.

He couldn't shake the nagging feeling of a job left unfinished after playing at the highest level in CS:GO for only a few months during the online era imposed by the coronavirus pandemic. In VALORANT, he found unprecedented success and realized his dream of playing alongside his brother, Adil "⁠ScreaM⁠" Benrlitom, but the game just couldn’t scratch the itch that he had.

“I missed CS too much,” Nivera tells HLTV.

After months of speculation about his future, Nivera is officially returning to competitive Counter-Strike and is free to join an organization after terminating his contract with French giants Karmine Corp.

It has been over three years since his last match on record, a 2-0 loss against Virtus.pro in the group stage of IEM Katowice 2021 while playing for Vitality.

Weeks earlier, Valve had introduced penalties to teams that substituted out players in the 2021 RMR events. The change, while insignificant for the majority of top teams, had a profound impact on Vitality, who had set a new standard for six-man lineups with their victories in the 2020 BLAST Premier Fall Final and IEM Beijing-Haidian 2020. Nivera, while not part of what could be described as the starting lineup, came on for certain maps and played an important role as a hybrid AWPer, averaging a 1.19 rating in 2020.

In March 2021, Nivera stepped down from Vitality’s lineup, and six months later, he was off to VALORANT and Team Liquid, where he linked up with ScreaM and other former CS:GO players, including Elias "⁠Jamppi⁠" Olkkonen, who had been pushed out of the game by a VAC ban (which later expired after the introduction of a new eligibility rule).

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Nivera announced himself to the VALORANT community with an ace in the first round of his debut tournament. It was a dream start for the young player, who would help his team reach the semi-finals of VALORANT Champions, the game’s annual world championship, just months later in Berlin.

The same level of success did not follow in 2022, though Liquid only missed one of the three international events that were held that year. Before 2023, he and ScreaM were unveiled by Karmine Corp amid fanfare, but the season was marked by disappointment and instability, with the team forced to play with their assistant coach for several months after one of the players had “abandoned” the project.

Looking back, Nivera acknowledges that his strong feelings for Counter-Strike prevented him from showing his true potential in the new game. “I couldn’t focus,” he explains. “I couldn’t be at my best when I had another game in my mind.”

With his VALORANT season coming to an end in July (Karmine Corp couldn’t qualify for Champions), Nivera used the summer break to refresh and assess his options. After two months of careful deliberation, he knew that Counter-Strike was where his future firmly lay, and his brother encouraged him to follow his heart.

“He always said that I should I do what I like,” Nivera says. “I told him that I missed CS, and he just said, ‘It’s fine. If you want to go back, you’re still young, you have talent, you can do it.’

“He always supports me in my decisions, so when I talked to him about CS, he instantly told me to go.”

Nivera has been on the CS grind for the last six months, playing FACEIT, Deathmatch and aim botz to keep his skills sharp. There is also room in his daily routine for poring over demos of other top players. “I always did that when I was playing CS,” he explains. “I watched a lot of demos. I really like the tactical side of the game.”

His adaptation to Counter-Strike 2 has been made easier by the fact that, during his VALORANT career, he kept in touch with CS:GO, watching all the biggest tournaments and frequently playing the game. At the same time, he is returning with a fresh perspective after those years away, and he doesn’t have to unlearn some of the bad CS:GO habits that many players have had a hard time breaking since the transition.

“I don’t have the CS:GO automatisms, you know?” he says. “I lost them a bit. Maybe it helped, maybe not, but I’m adapting really well to the game.”

Nivera is working hard to make up for lost time and get himself ready for when the offers start coming in. His return is bound to generate some buzz in the scene, but he is not content to sit on past achievements and knows that he will have to fight his way back up, like everyone else.

As the conversation shifts to the type of project he would like to join, Nivera acknowledges that international teams “are what’s working nowadays.” He communicated in English for most of his VALORANT tenure, an experience that not only improved his grasp of the language but also forced him to come out of his shell and become more open.

“I’m aware that I took a break and that I have to prove myself again,” he says. “I want to win every tournament, and I’m going to work hard for that.

“I’m confident in myself. I think I was doing well with Vitality and my previous teams, even Heretics. I’m confident about my level, and I know for sure I’m going to be very good at the game. It’s hard to explain, but I have this feeling that this game is great for me.”

A reunion between Nivera and ScreaM in Counter-Strike, as exciting as it might sound, appears to be out of the question. In one of his latest updates, the ‘Headshot Machine’ said that he remains open to VALORANT offers. He is currently enjoying a break from competition.

That leaves Nivera with the task of carrying on the family name in Counter-Strike. Given ScreaM’s tremendous impact on the Counter-Strike scene with his signature one-taps, that might seem like an inordinate amount of pressure for any young player, though Nivera insists he uses it as fuel. Just like when he first broke into the scene, he is determined to chart his own path, but he is proud to carry the torch that his brother left to be picked up.

“I’m not coming to the game to just be an average player,” he says. “I really want to leave my mark on this game like my brother did. So I’m going to work a lot for that.

“Having his surname motivates me to get better and reach his peak level. Even though he is not in the game anymore, I still have his name behind me. So I’m going to do everything for myself, first of all, and to keep the legacy. The Benrlitom legacy.”