nexa: “My biggest goal for this event was to break our losing streak”

OG, the BLAST Premier World Final’s underdogs, started their run at the event in Abu Dhabi, UAE, with a 2-1 victory over a Heroic team playing with Kristian “⁠k0nfig⁠” Wienecke as a stand-in for star rifler Martin “⁠stavn⁠” Lund. The substitute put up a great series against OG, even dropping 30 kills on Mirage, but in the end it was not enough to stop the squad led by Nemanja “⁠nexa⁠” Isaković from securing the match in the Anubis decider’s second overtime.

One of the topics nexa chatted about regarding new developments in the OG camp was bringing on a new psychologist. “He’s trying to shift our focus on the positives, as silly or cringy as it sounds,” he said. “Something he did was make sure that we divide responsibilities among the players.”

The 25-year-old also opened up about some of his personal growth. “We played pretty bad in the past few months and I’ve given too much freedom or too much space for people to play their way,” he said. “So I’m stepping up on that side, taking control of the reins and putting that responsibility on myself so that when we play we actually look like a team that knows what it’s doing.”

Incredible resilience in this last map, you were behind on Anubis and managed to bring it to overtime and win it. How did you find that strength so deep into such a long match?

It’s definitely something we’ve been lacking throughout the last months, we’ve had a lot of games exactly like this against a lot of opponents, during the Major and even prior, and we always fell a step short. That was kind of our focus, trying to remain composed and trying to get some of these 50/50 games to actually go our way and not just crumble every time.

We have a new psychologist who has been helping a lot with keeping our heads in the game and actually focusing on the things that are important and basically for us to not choke to death with the pressure. If we go based off of this game, I think it worked.

Even if we lost I could have said that it worked just because of the way we behaved in the rounds that we lost and how we reset and focused on the next one. Even if we kept making some silly mistakes or losing advantageous situations, I think we did a much better job of resetting and focusing on the next rounds and we did whatever it takes to win it out.

Tell me a bit about this new psychologist, how is he helping you guys?

I can’t share a lot, but in general he’s trying to shift our focus on the positives, as silly or cringy as it sounds. He’s giving us little reminders throughout the game to focus on ourselves. Something he did was make sure that we divide responsibilities among the players. He doesn’t know a lot about CS, but in a group of people one person has some responsibilities and another has others, so we’re dividing those responsibilities accordingly between the players.

Also releasing some pressure from me and some of the players, in the sense that if something goes wrong it’s not always one person who is responsible. Or if something was supposed to happen and it didn’t it’s not always my fault or this guy’s fault. So basically to somehow not have a mindset in which whatever happens the person just blames himself all of the time, or even going in the other way and blaming another person for a mistake. That’s something that has been really helpful and I hope it shows in the next games.

It’s the last tournament of the year, how do you hope to end the season strong?

My biggest goal for this event was to break our losing streak. We’ve done that and even though Heroic is playing with a stand-in I still think it’s a big scalp to take. I’m really happy that we managed to do it. We don’t really have any set expectations, we’re the underdog against pretty much any team here.

Some might say that we don’t even deserve to be here, you know? But we’re here, and we’re going to make the best of it regardless. For now we’re taking it game by game, opponent by opponent. This tournament is basically to find out exactly where we stand and how much we can give, if it’s not working out we can figure out what changes we can make; not roster changes, but changes inside the team like role swaps or having a different approach in the game.

I take the responsibility on myself, we played pretty bad in the past few months and I’ve given too much freedom or too much space for people to play their way. I think that the visions in a team differ too much if you don’t have a single voice, or the unity that comes from the in-game leader. So I’m stepping up on that side, taking control of the reins and putting that responsibility on myself so that when we play we actually look like a team that knows what it’s doing. We played decent T-sides today and you could already feel the difference between the way we played at the Fall Final and now.

As you say, taking down Heroic is a huge scalp. Of course they’re missing their star rifler, but they have a very good stand-in that played well against you. What’s the importance of this victory for you?

The most important thing is not just this Heroic team, but to beat any of the teams that would be here, to break our losing streak and show that we’re not just going downwards, that we’re putting in a lot of work and effort. We’re not just chilling and doing nothing, we’re working hard and I’m just happy that with this win some of our hard work gets rewarded, but we still have more games to play so we’ll see what happens.

You won your series on Anubis, so what are your thoughts on the map and the new patch in general?

I like the new patch a lot. I didn’t expect Anubis to come into the map pool, I don’t think anyone did, to be honest. I think the map has a lot of potential and it’s really nice to play. It’s always interesting when you bring in a new map into the pool and you’re trying to do new things and be the first to discover this and that. It’s a good change of pace, it’s refreshing and it was the same when they added Ancient. For me, I really like playing the new map that gets added, I feel comfortable trying to create a meta to beat everyone. I really like doing it.

As for the M4 nerf it was a long time coming, it should have come sooner. I still think the silencer is more viable than the A4, but I think that now it comes down to personal preference because it’s not really a laser that you’re stupid for not playing it. Now you kind of have a valid reason to play the A4 as well for people who actually prefer playing it or feel better spraying with it.