ISSAA: "Counter-Strike is in my blood"

The Jordanian spoke to HLTV about his return from VALORANT and future plans with JiJieHao.

After transitioning away from the game in 2022 to focus on VALORANT, former HellRaisers and OG player Issa "⁠ISSAA⁠" Murad made his return to Counter-Strike this year.

With JiJieHao, the Jordanian first attempted to qualify for PGL Major Copenhagen earlier in the year and has now played his first Big Event since 2019 with a revamped lineup featuring Markus "⁠Kjaerbye⁠" Kjærbye at the now-concluded Esports World Cup.

JiJieHao's campaign in Saudi Arabia ended after just one map, as they were thrown into the last chance stage from the get-go and lost in the first round to Sashi.

HLTV had the chance to catch up with the 27-year-old to discuss his comeback. He spoke about the reasons why he first initiated the transition to VALORANT and making a return to Counter-Strike after two years away, and shared his ultimate goal for the rest of the year — to qualify for the Perfect World Shanghai Major.

Read the full interview below:

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Your team got seeded into the last-chance best-of-one bracket, and you lost your match against Sashi, making this possibly the shortest Counter-Strike LAN run in many years. How does it feel that you had just one map at the event?

I don't know. I hate to complain about stuff, and I have no idea why they chose to put us straight in the lower bracket. In the end, it's God's plan, I'm happy with what God gave us, it's okay.

It was our first official in this roster. Everything was shaky. In the beginning we just need more official experience, and I wish we can play much better for sure in the future.

After leaving Eternal Fire in 2021, you went to VALORANT. Why did you decision to make that transition?

I had some stuff going on in my mind. It was COVID time, that period, and deep in my head I wanted to finish my university. If you are from the Middle East it is important to finish studying, it's a good weapon in your hand in the future.

So I decided I would like to finish university and I knew that VALORANT did not have as many tournaments as CS has, so I could actually play the game, take income, and at the same time do my best and finish my university. I knew that if I stayed in CS and played at the top level I couldn't do both things at the same time. You have to travel all the time, you have a lot of tournaments, so this was my main point.

How did it go? Did you get to finish your university, and how was your career in VALORANT?

I played around 9-10 months in VALORANT. It was decent, but my main goal was my university, and I finally finished it during these two years with excellent rates, and I'm happy with this. No regrets.

Why did you decide to come back to Counter-Strike?

It was always in my head that I wanted to go back to CS. Inside me, I wanted to go back. After I finished university I saw that CS2 was coming, so I said, 'Okay, this is it for me.' When I posted on Twitter, I said I only wanted CS offers because it's in my blood, this game.

Some players transitioned back and forth, like nitr0. Do you think there's any chance you will return to VALORANT in the future?

I don't know what God decides for me, but for me as ISSAA I don't think I will do it because I like CS much more than VALORANT, and I tried both of them. CS needs more game sense, in a way, because VALORANT is a much easier game in some situations. They have abilities that can help you to play, [for example] you have Sentinel where you can put a rock behind you and you never care about the flank. But in CS you always have to rely on communication, about getting flank, you can play on timing much better in CS than in VALORANT.

Can you tell us a little bit about JiJieHao? They have a history of featuring mixed teams with cores from the Middle East to play the regional qualifiers. Can you tell me how this works? On what conditions were you invited into this team? What are your goals in this team, and does this organization operate on a per-event basis, or is there a bigger plan in mind?

We have a bigger plan in mind. Right now our focus is on the next RMR, to win the closed qualifier in MENA and then go to the RMR, and hopefully we qualify since it's three slots [at the Major] right now. This is our main goal right now. In the future, we'd like to play more events for sure and to get more official experience. As you see, we practiced these months, but then you come and you just play one best-of-one.

Every top player knows that when you make a team at the start, you know mistakes will happen when you play officials. Every team needs official experience before they start to achieve in the long term.

So what are your plans after this event? You talked about the RMR, but there is some time before it happens. What are you going to do in the next couple of months?

We will have full preparation. Our main goal is the RMR as I said. We will have around three weeks, I guess. I think we will have some rest now, around one week, but we will see after that. Maybe we'll play some events before the RMR, but I'm not sure yet about it. I have not spoken with my team, and I don't know. But our main goal is to practice for the RMR.

Maybe we will get more invitations to these tier-two events, so it's 50/50 right now. Maybe we just need a better ranking to play in these events and get invitations to them.

You're playing with Kjaerbye now. What are your impressions? He is obviously a Major winner, a Major MVP, had a bumpy career in the last couple of years. How does it feel to play with him now?

I've known Kjaerbye for way, way longer. During the time when I played with HellRaisers and OG, I played against him a lot and at events we were having a friendship, so I kinda know his personality. In my opinion he's a really good player. Right now we just need more official experience in order for him to pump again. I'm happy to play with him.