



Had a chance to catch up and chat with Sprout's own young German star faveN for an interview





Being relatively new to the level of the scene you're in now, what was it like adjusting to a slightly higher level of play? Did you have to change the way you played at all to match your new opponents?





faveN: In EURONICS Gaming I had more of the “Starplayer role” where I had the position where I could do the most damage and got supported really heavy. Since I joined Sprout, I have more of the solo positions, for example, A on Mirage, so I almost completely changed the way I play, because I never played solo positions in my career.





Upon joining Sprout, did you fit in the team easily once you had joined, or has it been taking time to become comfortable with your roles and teammates?





faveN: It took some time to get comfortable with my new roles and teammates, but they were all very nice to me and now I feel really comfortable within the team. From match to match, I also feel more comfortable on my new roles/positions, so I think if I get more experience on it I will play much better than I do now. Tobias "tow b" Herberhold also helps me a lot, so I feel way better playing the roles and positions which I never played in my career.





I believe this is your first team with more than 1 non-German player in it, so I was wondering if this is your first English speaking team? How has communicating in English affected you so far?





faveN: It is my first team where I talk English, so in some situations where everything goes fast it’s hard for me to call in English, but with more practice it will become better. I also got invited to FPL where I can practice my communication.





I understand the sixth season of StarSeries was the largest event in your career so far. How did you feel going into that event?





faveN: I always wanted to play a StarSeries Tournament. Watching them from home was already nice and playing them is even nicer. Even though we didn’t play for such a long time together, I felt confident going into the tournament, I felt really comfortable within the team and we also had good results in practice.





Even though you went out in last place, you took every map you played very close against other strong teams. Were you guys happy with the progress you had made taking teams like mousesports and HellRaisers to the edge or was it not enough for a premier showing?





faveN: As a player I always want to win, I don’t go into a match and think: “If we get 10 rounds against this opponent, I’m already fine”, doesn’t matter who the opponent is. From another point of view some people probably said that we should be proud playing so close against these teams, but we could/should even win these matches. We did some mistakes which didn’t happen in practices and these mistakes made us lose these games. At the end we really learned a lot from these matches, but watching these demos just made me sad because we really could have won these matches.





What was going on internally in EURONICS before you had left? Things seemed a bit unstable seeing the moves that came after your leave.





faveN: In EURONICS we had some internal issues. Everyone knew that a change had to happen and the majority of the team considered a roster change. After realizing that the wanted changes couldn't be finalized, Sabit "mirbit" Coktasar and Marko "kressy" Đordević decided to leave and I continued playing with the temporary roster until my transfer to Sprout was done.





Were you receiving offers from teams other than Sprout? Why did you find them to be your best option?





faveN: I received several offers, but I said to myself, if Sprout wants me, I will join Sprout, no matter what. I watched Denis "denis" Howell & Timo "Spiidi" Richter on Twitch for a long time and now playing with them in a team is feeling so nice. Also in my opinion Niels-Christian "NaToSaphiX" Sillassen is one of the best AWPers in Denmark and Martin "PERCY" Wessel can teach me a lot of things.





Do you think that Germany has more talent to offer in the near future and are there any names that come to mind in specific?





faveN: Germany has a lot of talented players, for example "devraNN" who is playing for WiseWizards currently. He is not that known in the international scene but in 1-2 years he definitely will do some damage in it. Another good player who isn’t that known is "s1n". I recognized him when I played GPL and he has great aim. There is one more player, named "prosus", who is only 15 years old and has such a great aim - if he plays with a player who can teach him CS, he will become very good.