Our next interview ahead of the SL i-League StarSeries Season 3 Finals is with Nathan "NBK-" Schmitt, who sheds some light into his first months with G2 and the team's preparation for this event.

For Nathan "⁠NBK-⁠" Schmitt and the rest of G2, the upcoming StarSeries finals will be a special event. It will mark the offline debut of the French team, formed in February by bringing together players from both the country's two strongest sides, under the leadership of Richard "⁠shox⁠" Papillon.

It has been a bumpy road so far for the French team, who failed to qualify for IEM Katowice and currently languish near the bottom of the table in the ESL Pro League, with a 6-8 record. Still, expectations will be through the roof when G2 take the stage on Tuesday, with their first match pitting them against Ninjas in Pyjamas.



NBK discusses the first couple of months under G2

Read on to find out what NBK- had to say about G2's latest results, the benefits of last month's bootcamp in Berlin and the process of building a team many hope will rise to the top.

The StarSeries event will be the first offline competition for your new team. What are your thoughts and expectations, heading into this tournament? This event is very important for us. First of all, it is the first big event we will attend since the creation of the roster. We have undergone a bootcamp and we know how to work with each other and the kind of spirit we will approach it with. Regarding expectations... We have been playing almost all the top teams from Europe and we are having satisfying results against all of them. It is only up to us to translate that into official games. That is something we have struggled to do, but we are getting better at it. Even before the team was officially created, the community used the words “French Super Team” to describe the roster. Do you agree with this label? Is this the best team you have ever played on? The good thing about this label is that the community expects us to do big because we have managed to put together players for roles in which they excel. We are trying to build a different project from the ones we have seen before in France. But we are definitely aiming to fit into the "Super Team" label! This team so far is the one in which I have been the most comfortable when it comes to mixing things up and finding the right balance between playing our style and adapting to what the opponent is throwing at us. Results-wise, we have obviously not been where we or the community expect us to be, but we are getting there. Aren’t you afraid that being called the “Super Team” is an extra source of pressure at this point, when the team is still trying to get the basics covered? This label is mainly a reason for people to trash talk us when things go wrong or we lose a game. It doesn’t add any pressure, and with the talent contained in this roster we have to deliver some kind of results. It is a step by step process, and we are still changing things in our game (positions, style, strats, etc) so that every player enjoys their role. The team’s first online results have not been the best, leaving many fans worried. Did you expect such a slow start, considering this is a new roster? Are you concerned about these first matches or confident that things will eventually fall into place? I think none of us expected a slow start like that, but we are not worried about it. It obviously sucks to lose games (especially missing IEM Katowice and having a bad start in EPL), but so many teams play great CS in different ways that it is hard to work on everything at the same time. These games have helped us to know what to focus on and also to find the big synergy problems in some positions. Now I feel that we have the kind of balance that will help us to be more consistent, and those losses were definitely a factor that helped us move forward in that direction. You recently had a bootcamp in Berlin. What kind of aspects were focused on? Were you happy with this first real experience as a team? Our week was split into two halves. In the first one, we played a lot brainlessly, focusing more on fixing the "bigger picture" problems during the second half of the bootcamp (mentality, fixing positions, changing the way people worked together, etc.). We also had some media activities for HyperX and for G2, some talks with the management and a visit to the LCS studio in Berlin. We feel great as a roster. The staff and the players have the same goals, and it feels great to have everyone moving together and on the same page. Everyone is in high spirits and we have spent some great times together!



NBK believes the team will peak in the Summer