Insider Gaming spoke to Astralis IGL Rasmus ‘HooXi’ Nielsen following Astralis’ Round of 16 exit to G2 at EWC 2026’s Counter-Strike 2 tournament.
Astralis added CS legends and former FaZe coach Filip ‘NEO’ Kubski in the offseason, so we spoke to HooXi about how that change will be seen on the server.
Insider Gaming interview with Astralis IGL HooXi at the Esports World Cup
What are your reflections on the match?
I mean, a really clean and good map 1, I think, with some clutches here and there. A lot of good energy, and I think a good plan from us.
Dust 2 was pretty much the opposite. Lost all the close rounds where we maybe had a chance, and then they also just play the map better than we do, I think.
I’m not really sure exactly what happened without watching it back, but it felt like they were running us over a bit. Then we tried to come back, but it was too late, unfortunately.
Then third map, we had the chance to get off to a really good start by winning the pistol. Then we lost the second round on B, which is obviously a huge hit in the stomach.
With economy and everything on Inferno especially, it’s really tough. So, I think the story would be different if we convert the round. Then it was just a bit of back and forth on CT. I think after that, we went quite even.
On T, it just felt like, despite winning this hero AK round, we didn’t really catch momentum fast enough, and they kind of ran away with it.
So, very unfortunate and disappointing, I think.
Is there anyone on Dust 2 and Inferno that, from a tactical sense, you didn’t quite get right?
Yeah, I mean, as I said, I’m not quite sure what actually happened on Dust 2, especially on the CT side. We’ll have to go back and look at that.
On Inferno, I think maybe we could have done a better job in preparation to be more on the same page.
Like, knowing how to use all the information we had. And maybe me and Staehr should have had a better way to deal with this gimmick thing they did towards us two times that worked for them both times.
I think on T side, as I said, we didn’t really quite find our footing. I think maybe we played a bit, tried to play a bit too brutal for us without momentum.
Maybe we could have played a bit more like default and slow, but it’s hard to say without watching the game.
In the offseason, you’ve added NEO as Coach. What is he going to bring to the roster that you didn’t have before?
I think new ideas, a new perspective on the game. He’s super smart about the game and, yeah, I think he knows what it takes to win. He’s been a player for 20 years and, you know, won a few trophies with FaZe.
So I hope to just, you know, bring some new ideas, a new look, and hopefully just improve a lot on fundamentals as well, so we can keep up.
I think fundamentals right now in CS are the most important thing, and so we can keep up with the Tier 1 teams because sometimes that’s what we lack, and that’s what we’re working on right now.
And I think we’re going in the right direction. We just need a bit more officials, a bit more time, and then hopefully it will show.
How do you think NEO’s judgement differs from the way you were previously playing Counter-Strike?
Yeah, I mean, I think the whole team in general, even if we stayed with Ruggah would have changed style. So we’re playing a bit more of a loose style where we’re not scared to change how we play from game to game.
Also in the games, we’re coming up with ideas for how to counter and stuff.
I think that is definitely very different from the end of last year. I think maybe Ruggah is a bit more structured than NEO, and that is also something that feels a bit different.
But we are still trying to find our footing with how we do things because he’s only been coaching one team.
And, you know, to get into a team that is already a team is kind of hard as a coach. So he’s just trying to figure out how it works and then bring his stuff in slowly.
You seem to also be a person who has a very strong kind of idea of what is good Counter-Strike. So in those chaotic rounds, how are you dealing with all the crazy stuff that’s happening?
I mean, most of the crazy stuff on T side comes from me, at least. No, I think everyone is chiming in with ideas and what they like.
We have this idea that if the players like what they’re doing, they will also perform better. So everyone is chiming in to the chaos, I would say.
At the end of last season, we saw some frustration from you. From an internal perspective, why do you think the decision was made not to make a change and continue with this roster?
I think we fell into a hole of adding more and more structure because there were too many mistakes and we thought structure maybe could fix it.
But it just made us make the same amount of mistakes without having the reward of actually winning on taking risks.
So now we are back to like a bit less structure where people can make decisions on their own and sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t. It’s just a give and take you have to deal with. And I think the frustration mostly comes from somewhat of a good place.
We have expectations for each other, and I think we were just performing worse than what we can expect from each other.
I think like in terms of controlling the roster and stuff, that’s obviously the staff doing that. So I cannot comment on that.
But I think that we can still do better than we do right now with this roster and we have not shown the best days of us all yet.
End of Interview
Do you think Astralis will improve under NEO? Share your thoughts with us on the Insider Gaming Discord.
Meanwhile, FURIA announced that their CS2 female roster will move to Valorant. And for even more Insider Gaming delivered directly to your inbox, sign up for our newsletter.
Darragh is an Esports Journalist for Insider Gaming specialising in Counter-Strike. He loves to explore how esports teams work, or why they very often do not.
More from Darragh Harbinson
Comments