NBK: "I don't know what happened"

We interviewed VeryGames longtime member Nathan "NBK" Schmitt after his team's shock 15-15 draw against ASES and asked the 18-year-old what went wrong in that game.

The French team got off to a flying start at DreamHack Valencia, conceding just three rounds in the first two matches, but then looked way off the pace against ASES and were made to work hard to secure a draw, which still leaves them at the top of Group B.

In this interview, Schmitt comments on the result against ASES, the team's sniper-oriented strategy and also NiP manager Emil "HeatoN" Christensen's comments made on Friday about the two sides' chances in the tournament.

Your team won the first two games very easily, but were held to a draw against ASES. Is nuke a bad map for you, were you overconfident or were you saving strats because NiP’s players were watching the game behind you?

We played the match as best as we could. We did not care that NiP were behind us, we just played our game. We had already practiced against ASES, so we knew about their level, especially on de_nuke. I do not really know what happened. It was probably because of the individual performance of some players, including myself. We are really satisfied with our performances in the first two matches, but we struggled against ASES. But even that match showed that we have the experience to come back. So we are pretty satisfied with our overall performance.

I noticed that sometimes three of your players used the AWP, which is not very common amongst 1.6 teams. Do you think that this strategy will be an advantage in the first tournaments?

Actually, I think it will not only be in the first tournaments. We have four snipers on the team, and on some maps against certain teams it will be very interesting because it gives an advantage in long range over players who use rifles. Right now, few people master the AWP, so it is an advantage for us.

Yesterday, NiP’s manager Emil "HeatoN" Christensen said he thinks his team can beat yours. What is your opinion about his comments?

I think he should not be so quick to talk. We are still a good team and we are expecting some good games against NiP. We practiced against them like once or twice, but we had just started playing the game, so we were not very good at the time, but I think we have the strategies and the skill to overcome them.

Last weekend, you attended a CS:Source tournament. How did  you prepare for DreamHack Valencia, considering you also had to play at that CS:S event?

We knew the teams who were going to the tournament, so we did not really practice for it and we did not play Source before the event. We just practiced CS:GO throughout the LAN.