Jame on his future: "I could switch to rifling at any moment — it would be painful"

Jame foresees one day taking a step back and letting young stars around him do the fragging.

PARIVISION endured a tough campaign at StarSeries StarLadder Fall, picking up a win over B8 before being cast out of the tournament by Ninjas in Pyjamas and Gentle Mates. Captain Dzhami "⁠Jame⁠" Ali took much of the responsibility on his own shoulders.

"I feel sad because I played badly in the last two matches," Jame lamented to HLTV. "Even in the first one, I didn’t play as well as I could because it’s hard to juggle two roles."

Jame believes he may have to address the issue of juggling roles by stepping back from AWPing in the future. "It will be painful, but this is how the next chapter of my career could turn out," he said. "When that happens, I will need strong star riflers that can do their job while I just mind game against the best IGLs in the world"

With PARIVISION's failed run in Budapest behind him, Jame spoke with HLTV about his thoughts on his team's recent grind, his journey with PARIVISION thus far, and his future in CS.

---

What are your thoughts after this series?

Personally, I feel sad because I played badly in the last two matches; even in the first one, I didn’t play as well as I could because it’s hard to juggle two roles. Coming to LAN, we need to change something in our team in the future, how we should interact with each other.

PARIVISION have been playing a lot of games recently, a lot of official matches. What are your thoughts on the amount you’ve been playing? Do you think it’s good for you and your team?

Being a young team, we don’t have a choice to not play a lot of games because each map is experience. [We have] people who didn’t know anything about competitive play half a year ago, all the experience they had was empty, and only now have they started to play CS. We just don’t have a choice because we are a young team and we don’t have any experienced players beside me.

A lot of games you’ve been playing are so that you can get VRS points for the Major. What do you think of the VRS system?

As a player, I’m not too competent in this question and didn’t dive into it. There are just some “kitchen talks” about it. But personally, everything works against us and our chances of making the Major. Grinding won’t help us, you just need to win a tier-one or tier-two event to qualify for the Major. There are a lot of nuances, like small events give a lot of points, but I’ll repeat, I don’t understand it well. Personally, I don’t like it and I would like a different system.

How would you describe your journey with PARIVISION so far?

Time flies fast, it’s been nine months of total grind, hundreds of officials, breakdowns, deathmatches and so on. This year went too fast, same as during the pandemic, and all that was, starting off as a tier-four or tier-three team, to have chances of qualifying for the Major or some tier-one LANs.

On one hand, our ambition is to qualify for big events and make playoffs and we do everything to achieve that, but on the other, this is the reality we have to accept. All of this gives us experience. All these years in CS, all these losses toughen players up and only the strongest remain. I don’t have any regrets, I’ve done everything I could, but this is life.

How did it feel to take a step back in your career after leaving Virtus.pro and to join PARIVISION, a team that is seen as lower down than Virtus.pro?

Partially, it was a conscious decision because [we switched to] CS2, it was a new game, and I needed time to upgrade myself. Excluding this tournament, I think I’ve been playing well these last six months in comparison to the other AWPers I follow. And you also have to consider that I was IGLing most of the time.

Beside that, the scene needs new young talents that you can invest in, and these young talents can win you games in the future. I mean, I could switch to rifling at any moment — it will be painful, but this is how the next chapter of my career could turn out, just like it happened with FalleN. But when that happens, I will need strong star riflers that can do their job while I just mind game against the best IGLs in the world.

When you joined PARIVISION, there were already a few young players on the team. Since you joined, you’ve added more young players: Qikert and TRAVIS were a little bit older and you swapped them with younger players. Is that part of the plan? Do you want to play with young players that you can coach into your style of play?

In general I am not really dying to be a captain, it’s much more enjoyable to fully focus on your own game. Especially when you deal with young players that you cannot fully control and you don’t have much influence over them. You tell them something and it might or might not be heard.

We don’t have a plan like that. We are one of the five or six decent squads from the CIS, and not many players were eager to join us. The situation has improved because we can finally attend some LANs, but… it’s not guaranteed that the players we play with will have big careers. It doesn’t work like that, it’s esports, the majority stay at the same level: tier three or tier two at best. So [we do it] out of necessity, to have better chances of finding talents and adding more synergy. When I’m the only adult on the team and the other four are young and grind all the time, it’s just easier for everyone. They listen, learn new things every day, and everything is valuable to them.