Nathan "NBK" Schmitt is a support player for G2 Esports, which is home to the French super team that formed from G2 and Team EnVyUs. It will be the first pairing between French superstars Richard "shox" Papillon and Kenny "kennyS" Schrub, however the team has not had the hottest start as they did not qualify for IEM Season XI Katowice.

NBK took the time to answer questions from theScore esports, talking about moving forward with his new team and the current state of the roster.

With this new French super team, it looks as though you guys are already on a good path in 2017. If 2016 was the parity era, ​as Thorin put it​, is 2017 the year of recovery, both for your team and other teams? What are your predictions for the CS:GO scene as whole in 2017?

I think 2017 will be the most competitive year of all time on CS. So many teams are looking great on paper, and with the end of 2016 with many tied teams, it’s only getting harder from there!

For ourselves, we obviously want to wipe out the past year but also want to build something together on the long term. It will take some time for us to be on the same page but we also want to perform as soon as possible.

Thoughts about the past two years and side note about the current times! -Long-



Read: https://t.co/U9DEUVvVOc pic.twitter.com/BDS2AklGKn — Nathan Schmitt (@G2NBK) February 7, 2017

This roster, or at least a similar configuration of it, has been the community’s dream French team for a long while now. Was this a similar sentiment from yourself or other players? How long in the making was this team?

Not especially our thought. We put this roster together because we felt that it was the right thing to do, to have a team hoping to last on the long run. It was rather clear who was going to play together and it didn’t take too long to sort it out.

The current setup for the team is shox retaining the in-game leader role, though some had theorized yourself or even Alexandre "bodyy" Pianaro taking over as IGL. Why was this ultimately the setup that the team decided on? Will the other expected roles be kept (e.g. Dan "apEX" Madesclaire entry, you and bodyy support)?

It just feels like the natural thing to do. We are all going to handle our “natural roles” and will be able to focus on them.

shox has had some good results as an IGL with G2 during the past year and it was natural to have him continue that way, especially with SmithZz [Edouard "SmithZz" Dubourdeaux] as a coach to help him now!

Even though this is a dream team, there’s undoubtedly a lot that will need to be worked on. What are some of your first impressions with the team? What are the primary areas of focus (individual play, team play, map pool, etc.)?

So far there is a lot of things that we need to work on. From the get-go we wanted to work on six of the seven maps and get the basis everywhere, establishing a kind of standard that we can play on each map.

We need to all follow the same ideas and aim towards the same point, and that’s gonna be our biggest challenge as we come from different backgrounds. All in all, we have SO MUCH to work on but at least we have the time to do so.

Inferno instead of Dust II will be used in the latest Active Duty map group, what are your thoughts on this? How does this potentially affect G2?

I think getting Inferno in the map pool is a great thing. The map was always home to many intense games and I’m looking forward to see intense best-of-three finishes on that map! We obviously loved Dust2 too, but it has to be visually changed. Let’s see how that goes!

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.