Nikola Kovač

But that being said, I think that professional players take out their stresses and frustrations in different ways.

And I'm not going to judge him too much for that because even Donk and Niko slammed the table too.

You're allowed to if you're Duncan Nico.

But yeah, I think overall, I think Liquid is just more proof of what we were saying earlier, which is that CS is sometimes a more simple game than we want it to seem, which is just, you just strip it all the way back.

So I'm never taking anything for granted and why I think that just like you should with your very favorite athlete because you don't know when they're going to have a career-ending injury, you should try to just watch every game you can and take it all in because...

There's only been a few people that have seemingly been impervious to time, and it's an incredibly short list.

You'd put Niko up there.

You'd probably have to put ZywOo up there for the fact that it's been seven years now of him just dominating like this.

remind myself to put in a timestamp because this diversion's become like a fucking topic.

Alexi V, Niko, Munnessy.

All three were at G2 at the same time.

It blew up.

Yeah, it's on someone around him to have never seized the reins.

At some point, you do have to just say, you guys had to do this.

G2 CEOs claimed the Niko leaving was on him.

So he took that bullet, saw what he'd wrinkled, He took that fucking bullet.

But it's like one tournament per year.

Of course, I have a lot of respect towards Niko.

He's a good player, but he's not a good player in team.

And I watch almost every game of Falcons and... game by game i can see what's improving i always see the same stuff i always see like it's it's like fpl super mix where all best players they just never played before with each other and they are on server and they're trying to show their good game About Zonic, why I don't feel like he's a good coach.

But you gave it more reasonable here.

So on this answer you just gave, you did flimsonic a little bit and the organ on it.

But you said, like, I respect Niko.

Didn't you blame Niko as well? You added Niko in the list of everyone who was wasting KSOK's time, right? Why did you list Niko?

'Cause everything is set up for him, everything is set up to be as simple as absolute possible for him.

But you have NiKo, who arguably is the greatest mid-round caller in the game has to offer right now.

But you can't really call mid-round with a guy who's just all aim, no brain at that point.

Like, you're limiting what NiKo can do in that department, you're limiting what Karrigan can do in that department, and you're limiting what zonic can do in that department.

So it's not even about for me, you know, whether he returns to form or not.

If Kyosuke was steadily delivering a 1.25 rating, you know, as an output on the server, that'd be great if he doesn't have this dip in form that we're seeing right now.

But even with that, how much is he tanking the players around him? For, for me, it's not about NiKo's roles per se, it's about how much are you limiting what he can do.

Is he feeling uncomfortable when he has to play around Kyosuke, 'cause he's a, he's a player that is just all over the place.

In fact, he came on our show once many, many years ago just before he joined G2, so.

What's weird is my take with HooXi, my entire beef was just I don't think you should be in a team that has fucking Prime, m0nesy, and NiKo.

I don't even see how that's like a crazy diss, bro.

Like I actually think, hasn't history proven I was somewhat right? And actually the joke is Snax and others were able to do similar things without HooXi being there, and it was comparable even if I think HooXi is better than Snax.

You have to convince them.

I don't have to, mate.

I don't have to go, 'Now, now, NiKo, watch my PowerPoint presentation about what Apex did at the ba...' I don't have to do any of that.

You have to do that.

But no, it, it's fucking silly.

Even if NiKo is now making more calls than he was before, maybe that could just be a transitional thing, right? Maybe they do know-

Also, bro, have you not noticed-

...

Karrigan is retiring

...

the same people saying Karrigan should retire because they think NiKo...

Here's the real reason they're doing it, guys.

But I don't want to report on things that I can't think probably true.

I knew about Niko going to Falcons and his contract drama ages ago, but Pekka told me on WhatsApp that it was false, so I didn't report on it, and it is what it is.

Such is life.

Like, that is-

I know maybe ESL was trying to push this as more of an agenda, but, like, they were trying to put a lot of these voice clips in there, and I wanna make sure I frame this correctly to the community.

ESL will obviously, as a production company, make some clips where they're giving you what Niko is saying, not what Karrigan is saying.

Yeah? So we don't know everything Karrigan said.

We don't have the full voice comms.

Karrigan's gonna release it, right?

Yeah, Karrigan will release it, right? So then we'll hear some more, and we can, we can look at that, 'cause that's always very helpful for us to get a bigger picture.

But if the narrative is actually Niko's talking more, Niko's keeping them in the game more than what Karrigan is, maybe that's a worrying sign.

But I'm not gonna read too much into that right now.