NiKo: "I find myself playing a bit more passive; it's hard to have space for three stars in the team"

The Bosnian rifler says he's happy with how he is performing in his new role.

Falcons have had an up-and-down season since signing Maxim "⁠kyousuke⁠" Lukin, but their performances at IEM Chengdu have been very encouraging.

With Ilya "⁠m0NESY⁠" Osipov finally firing on all cylinders, Nikola "⁠NiKo⁠" Kovač and company made light work of TYLOO in their opener before getting the better of Spirit thanks to a 3-9 comeback on Ancient.

The win qualified them for the playoffs, with only Astralis standing between them and a semi-final spot in China.

"Obviously [Spirit] are still a super strong team, but somehow we just kind of know how to counter them in a way," said a happy NiKo after the victory.

The 28-year-old also spoke about his adaptation to a new role, kyousuke's win against his former organization, and the support of the Chinese crowd.

Listen to the interview here.

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2-0 over Spirit, a tough one in the end. The overtime on Ancient must have taken it out of you a little bit, you were down 3-9 and had to come back. At the start of your CT side, zonic said in a listen-in that you had the best CT side in the world on Ancient, so how did it feel to get that over the line?

Overall, we have a super strong Ancient, on both sides. Sometimes we don't get to play CT side because we usually pick Ancient, we always start on T, and we get a lot of rounds. When you pick such a strong map for us, we cannot let one half affect the confidence that we have on our CT side, and I'm happy that we could just maintain the focus on the CT side and just do things that we have talked about.

Our plan was pretty good overall, maybe besides these two or three rounds that we lost towards the end of the second half, but yeah, I was confident throughout the whole game. Even when we were down on Ancient, I kinda knew that we were going to fight back. I wasn't sure if we were going to win or not, but I don't see us getting stomped on this map right now, so I'm very happy with how we bounced back.

It started off on really good footing too. Dust2 was dominant, m0NESY had an insane map overall. How was it to start out like that?

It was good, Dust2 has been a bit questionable for us, and I'm happy... like we didn't play it that much this season, so I'm happy that we get to play it a bit more often. Teams pick it against us, so we can actually get some more information on ourselves and what we need to work on because practice is not really the same as when you play it at events.

I'm happy that today we showed up on Dust2, we had a good idea about how to play against them and we also practiced on Dust2 versus them, so we had a very good idea of how to counter their defaults and everything. Today it was just about executing the plan and I think we did it perfectly.

We've seen a lot of repeat matchups this year in terms of the top teams playing each other, but this was only the second time you've played Spirit. The other time was back at Rivals, and this was also the first since you've brought in kyousuke. What was the experience like this time, did it change much?

Yeah, it definitely feels like a different kind of Spirit than before, but yeah, we didn't get to play much versus them. I'm happy that when we get to play versus them, we win (laughs). I'm confident going up against them, and the same goes for Ilya [m0NESY]. Right now we just feel good playing versus them, no matter who they change and stuff like that. Obviously they're still a super strong team, but for us... I don't know, somehow we just kind of know how to counter them in a way.

But yeah, I think they still need some time to figure out their roles and how they want to use everyone individually. You could have seen it with us as well at the start of the season, that we didn't know ourselves how to use everyone in the same time, so it's going to take some time for them to get used to it. But they have an insane amount of firepower, it's just about releasing it in a way.

Playing against donk was always a good matchup for you individually. This series win wasn't from your individual excellence, in that sense, is there something you feel like you're missing in terms of that kind of impact or was it just m0NESY and kyousuke being able to take over instead?

I'm not really in positions to play like I used to play against... not just them, but in general. I find myself playing a bit more passive, I'm not really going for the plays that I used to. It's hard to have space for three stars in the team, and maybe on some maps I have more freedom where I can do my things, but on maps like Ancient and some others, we have to prioritize Maxim [kyousuke] and Ilya to control the pace with how they want to play and how they want to counter the defaults.

So yeah, it is a bit more quiet from me, but I'm happy with how I played on Ancient. Even though I wasn't getting many kills, it felt like I was handling my site pretty well. When they came we slaughtered them, I had a pretty good idea of when they were coming, so as long as I execute those things properly, I'm happy with how I played.

A big part of that CT comeback was also Maxim shutting donk down a lot, especially in the openings of the rounds in Middle. Did you feel that confidence coming from him with that as well?

Yeah, definitely. Maxim overall is a very good player on Ancient, and I'm happy that... you know, when you take donk down in the early round, it gives you a huge advantage (laughs) when you go up against Spirit. For him [kyousuke] as well, he was feeling it, he was calling the things that he likes, maybe sometimes overdoing it, but that's just part of the player that he is. I'm happy that he got a chance to play against Spirit, his former organization, and that he got the win as well.

You're also coming into this event after finishing second at EPL to Vitality. What's the mentality like in terms of your aim here now, is it to get a trophy before the Major?

I mean (pauses)... we are not talking about lifting a trophy; I think everyone knows that with the players we have on the team and everything, we are meant to win trophies, but we want to give ourselves time. We don't want to rush ahead of our expectations, we want to make sure we're not too disappointed if we don't win a trophy because we're still in the early stages of the team.

We know that we can win the trophy, we know that we can maybe also lose in the semis or the finals if we go up against Vitality or MOUZ because they still have a wider map pool against us, they have more experience on the stage as a team, so for us it's just about figuring out those important games where we tend to struggle.

We need to figure out what our weakness is and what we need to work on when it comes to these important games, what we are lacking, what are we doing, what are we not doing, and these things take time.

This is just hard to kind of figure out in practice, we just need more matches on the stage. Even though we have experienced players on the stage, we have one rookie as well, but we need more experience as a team. Our goal is to just get as much of that as possible for the Major so that when we go into the Major, we feel super confident and also aim for a trophy there.

Lastly, I wanted to talk about the fan reception for Falcons and for you here. A lot of fans in the crowd supporting you, I'm not sure if you also saw those 'shrimp' memes as well-

Yeah (laughs).

-how has it been having the fans behind you here and with some of the memes that have come out of it as well?

As you said, we have a huge fanbase here in China, all of us in general, the whole team. I feel very happy to play in front of the crowd, and I think they cheer for us most of the time whenever we play, so it's a good energy every time I come here.

When it comes to memes, it's... you know (laughs)... there's not much I can do about it, right? (laughs) It's how they want to see me, if that's the case. Obviously I'm not super happy that people see me that way, but it's fun and that's okay. But I'm just here to focus on myself and enjoy playing on the stage.