jkaem: "We are all fighting for our future"

The Norwegian is not sure what is next for him and his teammates.

Joakim "⁠jkaem⁠" Myrbostad began the year in Apeks but was left without a home in May, when the Norwegian organization put its CS division on hold. He quickly found a new team, however, and joined Aleksandar "⁠kassad⁠" Trifunović's BLEED project alongside Apeks teammate Tim "⁠nawwk⁠" Jonasson.

Life in the new organization didn't go well, with the squad parting ways with the organization citing delayed payment of salaries and non-payment of bootcamp expenses, player buyouts, and prizemoney.

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BLEED roster cuts ties with organization over alleged non-payment, BLEED respond*

The team decided to stick together for the time being and is currently attending the RES Regional Champions LAN in Belgrade, with jkaem and company qualifying for the playoffs after a win against PARIVISION.

After their win, jkaem spoke to HLTV about the BLEED situation, the mood in the team, and their expectations for the rest of the tournament.

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Congrats on making it to the RES playoffs, UNPAID is finally getting paid at this point. I guess it's a low-pressure but high-stakes event for you. Does it feel good to advance?

It definitely feels good to advance. As you said, we have low pressure, but we also have a fair bit of pressure at the same time. It's not just one side of the coin. We are all fighting for our future careers. People want new offers, maybe we stay together, who knows. So the result here at RES is very important for us.

Are you surprised by how well you played considering you're in this weird up-in-the-air situation and your roster is not the one that you have been playing with recently?

We spoke a little bit about pressure. The one thing that now, when we have zero pressure, is actually the fact that we don't represent anyone. So if we actually shit the bed, we only have ourselves to blame, and there aren't going to be any questions from anyone. So I guess it's a little bit less pressure there.

We have been playing loose and people have been going for individual moves, taking initiative, and just feeling the flow of the game. Versus fnatic, they were the better team no matter what, but we definitely tried to play a bit more slowly. But after that we had a talk and said 'Fuck it, let's just play and see if we're good enough. Just take fights and show some balls.'

How does it feel to play in the team now? Is there any feeling that it is a mix-team in a way or is it still more of a proper team?

It definitely feels a little bit like a mix-team. The future is very uncertain for many of us, for everyone. We don't know if any orgs will come looking for all of us, if there are some of us that are gonna get some individual offers… Everything is kind of up in the air and the focus is to finish this tournament and Thunderpick.

How do you see your future? Is it more likely that you will stay together or that you will find something else for you personally?

I don't know, that's the thing. Everything is up in the air at the moment. I know that this group could do much better than the results have shown if there was a functional org behind us, because it's definitely fucked with us for too long. And also everyone might look out for themselves and go for individual offers, which is also completely fair.

It's not like we are forced to stay together, but if an org comes, maybe we want to. We haven't had that talk yet, because if everyone just said 'I'm just gonna go my way,' then you kill the little feeling of a team we have left, and then we're just here on vacation.

Coming up to this event, how much preparation did you have? Not sure if it's a secret or not, but I heard you met a sports psychologist at some point before the event.

About the sports psychologist, we had one hour, one session, because we just wanted to test it and see. It was a fun one, an interesting one. We had that here at the event and maybe that's something for the future. Regarding the preparation, we had a bunch of issues before the tournament, like people not having internet, people having other plans, because when you're not paid to play anymore, personal life also matters. The prep was not perfect in any way, but who cares? We just want to show that we can be good and compete with the better teams.

How does the leadership currently work within the team? Who is taking that role?

The leadership is split between many of us. I would say that me and CYPHER are the playmakers, and then also h4rn has a lot of ideas. For me, it's like we're always going for individual moves and for stuff we're feeling, especially if we have a good game, but the one that sometimes takes over and shows the best leadership is definitely nexa.

I can feel when he has some fake calls or some read, it is usually correct, and so far he has been playing amazingly as well. We don't have any specific leader, everyone is chiming in, but nexa is the last voice together with the coach, who also has a strong voice.

The BLEED situation. I know that you are now without an org, but besides that, how did it affect you personally? What are your thoughts on the situation?

I think it affected us more than we are willing to admit. The good thing with an org is that you're paid to play, but also that you don't need to worry about anything other than CS. At this point, some people had to worry about much more stuff than only CS.

kassad, for example, was always in contact with the org, and there were a number of times when he was in practice but not in-game, because he was chasing the players' salaries and people's money. I think it affected us so deeply that we aren't really admitting it, in my opinion. It has affected us a lot.

kassad didn't mention you on the list of parties that are owed money by BLEED. Are you affected by that as well?

I think everyone is affected by it. We're keeping some of it for ourselves. The players that were already out of contract, they are fine to mention, but yeah, there is more, of course.

I wanted to ask you about Apeks. kassad said that they didn't receive the money for your transfer. Is it the cause of any anxiety for you? Is there anything you feel like you need to worry about in that regard?

At some point, there was definitely talks with Apeks, me, and kassad, because he was the one that Apeks reached out to because they weren't getting any answers from the higher-ups in BLEED. They wanted to take me back and sell me to someone else, because there were offers both for me and nawwk at times, where they wanted to buy us both, but the offer was not as high as BLEED's.

So Apeks would lose money on it and they were hoping that eventually they were gonna get paid… But now, I am out of contract and Apeks have to chase the money with BLEED, there's nothing I can do about that. That's a deal between them. There were definitely talks between me and Apeks about taking me back and selling me, but it never went through.

You're now in the playoffs, and you are playing against Sangal. What are your expectations for that game? Do you think you can perform well there?

We can definitely show up. I think we have more experience, but they are definitely hotter at the moment. Sangal is a very underrated team, I reckon people are gonna notice how good they are soon. I've seen multiple smaller tournaments online, they also qualified for LAN and did well there, and now they won the group here.

They have so many young players with high skill, and they've actually managed to make it work. They have an experienced coach, so I think they have something really good going on. I will say we are coming in as underdogs, by a fair bit as well. But, CS is the game that's supposed to be played, and I played it so many times. Anything can happen, and I believe we can take them down.