device: "I was annoyed a lot of times, I didn't feel like we were playing the way I wanted to play"

device and Astralis' Sports Director discussed the trigger behind the AWPer's surprise transition to in-game leadership, fixing roles in the team, and that exit interview at the Europe RMR.

Astralis' star AWPer Nicolai "⁠device⁠" Reedtz and Sports Director Kasper Straube joined the latest HLTV Confirmed episode, which took place in Copenhagen with a live audience of over 250 people, to talk about the aftermath of the team failing to qualify for the Major.

A series of surprise moves saw device make a transition to an in-game leader, Benjamin "⁠blameF⁠" Bremer put on the bench, and Alexander "⁠br0⁠" Bro take his place on the lineup, and the pair sat down for a nearly hour-long appearance to discuss each part of the change, as well as the addition of Casper "⁠ruggah⁠" Due as the coach.

When asked what prompted device's decision to transition to an in-game leader, the veteran first reiterated his wish to increase his longevity as a player before delving into the trigger behind it, which was his unhappiness with how blameF was leading the team.

"I was pretty annoyed a lot of times, and I didn't feel like we were playing the way I wanted to play. That feeling made me think about how I actually wanna play the game. That's how the thought started in my head," he explained.

"It started when Benjamin [blameF] took over, and I don't mean to disrespect him, and I think also he said he didn't want to be an in-game leader going forward. I didn't enjoy that way of playing, and maybe it already started back then."

device and Straube went on to explain how the role setup will benefit from the change, alleviating role clashes and helping Astralis' star additions from late last year perform.

"The first mission was to move stavn back in his Heroic roles — blame had a lot of those CT roles — and moving jabbi into some of the rotator positions and then try to figure out how we position them in the good situations they're used to," device said.

The addition of br0 will also help with this, as he is expected to fulfill one the positions with fewer resources in the team, Straube added: "We wanna give our resources to device, stavn, jabbi. Then you have Staehr, who doesn't take too many resources, but he can do a lot without them. That's also one of the things with br0.

"He doesn't need a lot of resources, but he adds a lot of resources to the team. That's something we underestimated with the previous lineup. We had blameF, who was a great player and who also needed a lot of resources to be that player. That didn't go as well as we wanted to."

The conversation eventually turned to ruggah, who joined the team as the new coach, and device was faced with a question about why Astralis signed a coach who did not bring OG much success in his years-long tenure there.

"Ruggah's reputation is probably the worst compared to what he actually brings," device said in defense of his new coach. "When you hear about him and the results, compared to what he actually offers is for me the biggest contrast I've seen in my time with CS. I think he's really, really good."

Although device was hesitant to put too much stock into practice results, he said things have been going well behind the scenes, and he's slotted into the new role easier than he had expected.

"I've done a lot of leading by example both outside of the server and in the server, so it's not actually too big of a change for me. That's maybe the biggest surprise. How it's been going in practice is that it's, not that it's not difficult, but it's not that different," device said.

"For the AWPer there's a lot of time to look at the big picture, and you have the overview. The big picture, you don't lose as much as I thought I would, especially on the T side. On the CT side I've always been calling, so that's also why for me it was a more natural transition than I thought it was gonna be."

Towards the end of the nearly hour-long appearance, the Astralis pair spoke of that Victor "⁠Staehr⁠" Staehr interview following the team's failure at the Europe RMR and why neither blameF or device stepped up to take on the responsibility expected of the two senior figures on the team.

"In hindsight, it should have been me. I'm disappointed in myself for not doing it, but I also feel like it's not that often you see the star players doing the interviews. When I thought about the backlash coming to my name, I was also thinking it's a high standard to ask, but it's also what I want for myself.

"I see myself being able to do that stuff, so I don't really have any excuse. I can only say now I am the leader and I will do those things, and I do think I should have done it in hindsight."

You can watch the nearly three-hour show, which also featured guest appearances from Hugo "⁠Hugo⁠" Byron and Harry "⁠JustHarry⁠" Russell, Eternal Fire's in-game leader Engin "⁠MAJ3R⁠" Küpeli, MOUZ's space-taker Dorian "⁠xertioN⁠" Berman, and Jacob "⁠Pimp⁠" Winneche, on YouTube: