Nikola “NiKo” Kovac will go down as one of the most talented players to have ever played CS:GO.





His raw mechanical ability, game sense, and consistency make him one of the greatest prodigies in the game’s history. He proved that in 2016 when he hard-carried Mouz. From 2017 to 2018, he shined as a superstar among superstars as he became the primary carry of FaZe through all of their different iterations. In 2019, however, his success won’t be defined by his individual play. Instead, it will be his leadership.





FaZe have all of the skill in the world, but they need a leader. No such leader currently exists, however, and so it falls on NiKo to fill the void.





The NiKosports era





In some ways, NiKo taking the leadership role in FaZe is deja-vu. It happened once before back when NiKo was playing for Mouz in 2015. At the time, the Mouz in-game leader was Fatih “gob b” Dayik. Mouz had a brief spike in mid 2015 where they looked to be breaking into the upper echelon of CS, but it fell short. At the time, gob b didn’t have the fire to keep leading the team to the top and so Mouz replaced him with Timo “Spiidi” Richter, and NiKo took on the in-game leadership roles.





During his Mouz period, there were three distinct periods to his leadership. In the first half of that year, NiKo’s leadership was based around his own individual skill. He called tactics or setups that allowed him to shine as a superstar player. While NiKo shined as an incredible superstar player, the pieces around him were diminished. Outside of Chris “chrisJ” de Jong, none of the other players were ever able to step up and deliver the performances that Mouz needed. This was the period where the “NiKosports” moniker was penned as his carry performances during that period were some of the largest that anyone witnessed in CS:GO history.









While NiKo played brilliantly, he didn’t get the results he wanted. Thus we come to the second period of NiKo’s leadership. At ELeague Season 1, Aleksandar “kassad” Trifunovic was a temporary coach for the Mouz squad. During that event, the team play, utility, and consistency of the squad looked better than it ever had before. Kassad seemed to gel well with NiKo as an in-game leader, and Mouz beat FaZe, G2, and Astralis to make it to the semifinals of the event. This period lasted for only one event, though, as Mouz decided to go a different direction.





The third period of NiKo’s leadership was the latter end of 2016. Frustrated with how his performances weren’t getting the results he desired, NiKo reversed course as he tried to enable his other teammates to look better, in hopes that was the answer. While his teammates looked better on the server, without his superstar prowess, Mouz became a worse team.





The rest of the Mouz NiKo period was a tumultuous shuffle period as coaches, players, and the leadership role swapped around. In the end though, we can conclusively say that NiKo was never able to solve the puzzle of what it meant to be a good in-game leader. It was a question that looked like it would never need to be answered, though, as he joined Karrigan’s FaZe soon after.





But then Karrigan left, too.





History repeats itself





Photo via BLAST Pro





At the end of 2018, things were deteriorating for FaZe. The extended break that Olof “olofmeister” Kajbjer took from pro play put FaZe in limbo. They were unable to progress as a team and were stuck waiting around, hoping that olofmeister would soon return. Once he did, things were no longer the same. Karrigan addressed the situation in an interview with HLTV.





“When Olof came back after his break, he came back to a team that was really tired, a team that had lost its progression...Even if the team knew I was a good in-game leader, they lost belief in my calls and started doubting myself in the game.”





The Greek philosopher, Heraclitus once said that your character is your fate. That given a similar set of circumstances, the solutions we come to are based on our character. In this case, NiKo’s character defined FaZe’s fate.





In many ways, NiKo is a self-made man. Bosnia is a country that has no Counter-Strike history to speak of. Despite that, NiKo broke into international CS and established himself as one of the best players in the world, with the potential to be one of the greatest of all-time. NiKo’s rise to power was based on his own strength as an individual. So when confronted with problems, he tried to resolve the problems personally. That was why he joined Mouz, that was why he took over the leadership duties from gob b, and that was eventually why he took the in-game leadership role from Karrigan, too.





History had repeated itself on a far grander scale on FaZe. The Mouz lineup that NiKo took over was a small tier-two team trying to solidify itself in the top 10. In contrast to that, FaZe Clan is one of the most stacked rosters in history. The lineup includes: Havard “rain” Nygaard, NiKo, Ladislav “GuardiaN” Kovacs, olofmeister, and Dauren “AdreN” Kystaubayev. Based on the names alone, this team should be fighting for top fours, finals, and trophies.





An unfillable void

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Everyone who watches FaZe understands that there is a void in leadership. Janko “YNk” Paunovic touched on the issue in a recent interview with HLTV.





“...there is that void in the IGL role that we will most likely try to fill, but not by force,” he said. “If we see an option that we think is suitable for us, then we'll get into the process of seeing if we're going to make that change, and if we make that change, thinking about what it will look like.”





This is a sentiment that has been echoed by the analysts and the community at large. Even NiKo himself seems aware of this. In another interview, NiKo echoed YNk’s statements in a more emphatic fashion,





“Yeah, I don't want to be the in-game leader, I don't think it's good for our team,” said NiKo in an HLTV interview, “I'm ready to just give up on it as soon as we have an option that we really want to go for.”





The problem for FaZe is that great in-game leaders are the hardest resource to come by in the CS:GO scene. If we’re talking about world class in-game leaders that have the force of personality and legacy to force teammates to bend to their wills, only three fit the bill: Karrigan, Lukas “gla1ve” Rossander, and Gabriel “FalleN” Toledo. FaZe have already tried Karrigan. Gla1ve has no reason to join considering he is leading the greatest lineup of all time. FalleN has tied himself to the MiBR brand, and his recent results with mixed international rosters have been lacking.





The truth for FaZe is that the leadership problem is an unfillable void. No one in the world can fill out this job the way it needs to be filled. This is why the FaZe situation is a cul-de-sac. They reached the apex of the international superstar mix that Karrigan envisioned when he brought the team together, but there was no logical next step they could take after that lineup stopped working. The only path forward is through, and everything relies on NiKo.





Great power, great responsibility, great rewards





Photo via BLAST Pro





For NiKo, this is the biggest responsibility he has taken in his CS:GO career. Before 2019, NiKo was only judged as an individual player and has always been exemplary. He is one of the strongest superstars we’ve seen in the game, and he’s the only player that has the potential to rival Oleksandr “s1mple” Kostyliev.





Individual excellence is no longer enough. While there is a certain sense of déjà vu, and therefore dread, of another NiKosports situation, circumstances have changed this time around. The first change is the amount of experience that NiKo has had. During his time on FaZe so far, NiKo has acted as the second caller, and when he did primary calling, he was good enough to impress both YNk and Karrigan.





“To be honest, I am really impressed with NiKo,” YNk said in an HLTV interview. “I thought it was going to be a lot more work with him. I thought he would have a hard time, especially during mid-to-late round calls as the game develops, but he has been also doing a really good job fragging at the same time.”





It’s easy to take YNk’s appraisal of NiKo with a grain of salt as he is the current coach of FaZe. His appraisal, though, was reinforced by NiKo’s ex-captain, Karrigan.





“NiKo is a great caller, he's on the way to learning everything about the role and I tried to help him as much as I could when we were together. He has a great way to call and the team is able to play according to that style, which is different from the way I call.”





A big factor that can change the equation for FaZe’s leadership is his relationship with the coach YNk. When we look back at NiKo’s leadership in 2016, the best event he ever had as a leader was when kassad was the coach. That event foreshadowed the future of CS:GO as many of the new rising in-game leaders of the modern day (Nicholas “nitr0” Cannella, Aaron “AZR” Ward, and ChrisJ) have paired off with coaches that have helped them as leaders (Wilton “zews” Prado, kassad, and lmbt respectively). In NiKo’s case he has YNk.





Thus far, the YNk-NiKo pairing has shown linear progress. FaZe barely scraped by at the IEM Katowice Major. At StarSeries i-League Season 7 they looked...better. While FaZe failed to make it out of the group stages, they still showed a level of improvement when it came to their teamplay (particularly in the Renegades series). At BLAST Miami, however, they started slow on the first day with a loss to Liquid and a draw to MiBR. On the second, they smashed the group stages and then beat Liquid in the finals in a 2-0 stomp.





Before YNk joined the project, the FaZe team looked lost. They had lost their identity, their players had become inconsistent, and their T-sides were incoherent and lackluster. Three months later, the sinking ship has started to rise again. They’ve started to rebuild their map pool, overall player consistency is getting back to where it was, and their T-sides have a level of adaptation that wasn’t there before.





For instance, in the second map of the BLAST Miami Finals, Liquid let FaZe take long control on Dust2 and execute onto the A-site. Each time FaZe took the site, they were low on utility, and Liquid then executed a full-on retake that FaZe couldn’t hold back. To counter this, NiKo called for more aggressive lurking, which resulted in more trades in B halls and cat, which disrupted Liquid’s ability to pull off the full retake.





NiKo has been the in-game leader for a small period of time. During that period, he was criticized for when the squad was doing poorly, yet heavily praised after FaZe won BLAST Miami. Both reactions are justified, though, as NiKo has taken on the ultimate burden as he is both the superstar player and the in-game leader of FaZe. Thus he holds the greatest amount of power on his team and thus the greatest amount of responsibility. In return, he gets the most blame if FaZe falls, but the most praise if they succeed.





While Miami was a good achievement for FaZe and NiKo, it was just one event. For any team to solidify their place at the top of CS:GO, they must do it consistently. For NiKo, the rest of 2019 will be his test. If he fails, then the entire FaZe project falls with him. If he succeeds, then he will be one of the few in-game leaders in history to have done it while being the superstar player of his team at the same time.