This year turned out to be quite fruitful for the CS.MONEY Blog. Not only in regular compilations, guides and other types of articles but in interviews with top players and coaches. We even managed to snatch a Major champion long before he became one! Moreover, as a special dedicated series, there are a bunch of interviews with skinmakers who got into the Recoil Case.
Here, we recall the best interviews our blog had during the year. But also, we compare some moments with how everything eventually turned out.
In this post:
Players
Liquid Gang
Four interviews with Team Liquid players sound like favouritism, but we assure you it's not. Three of these are still in the organisation, and only Richard "shox" Papillon is currently a free agent.
So, we start with the French player. This chat happened in early February. By the way, Richard himself planned to set an age record:
"The most important right now, as for an individual, is that I want to break the limit of the age that everyone is in the CS scene putting in their heads. Organizations, media, players, whoever makes you think that around 30 is going to be the end of your career. I don’t agree with that mindset. I believe that if you want to compete, if you still put your work in, and if you are still bringing things that is needed to win to your team, then why can’t you just continue?"
Next, one from the old guard and one from the young blood: Jonathan "EliGE"
Jablonowski and Joshua "oSee" Ohm. The former shared his fears about the North American CS, told his Liquid story (which is very long!), thought about his team's future, and emphasised his love for vanilla skins. The latter was a bit nervous, but he looked positively into the future, carrying the heavy sniper's burden after Gabriel "FalleN" Toledo, who had just left the roster. By the way, oSee also mentioned that he is a genuine skins enjoyer and loves to trade.
And at the end of the summer, Liquid's newcomer Marek "YEKINDAR" Galinskis joined. The entry-fragger came to the team and gave it the right vector, significantly improving their tournament results. A star player indeed. And besides, he enjoys popularity. In the interview, in addition to various important topics such as transition, communication and EF gameplay, we also talked about style, clothes and the most handsome esports persons.
A Dupla Brasileira
In the first half of 2022, Rafael "exit" Lacerda and André "drop" Abreu were our guests. Even before the Rio Major announcement, they unanimously stated that Brazil needed more large and significant tournaments. And while Rafael was talking about Brazilian esports in general and the youth, Andre was sharing his secrets: origin story and superstitions (he wears the same skins and the chain)!
Rio Finalists (and a winner!)
When David "n0rb3r7" Danielyan, being a K23 player, had a chat with us in March, he set a goal for his team to be in the top 5 of HLTV by the end of the year. But who could have imagined that he would get into Outsiders, win a Major and hit top-2? A great retrospective read, considering all the events that happened on the pro scene since then. Martin "stavn" Lund tried to beat him in the Rio finals, but unfortunately, he couldn't. Still, his interview is decent: he talks about Denmark, Casper cadiaN, football and much more. Both interviews are full of revelations about team relationships.
Yellow-Black Bees
Interviewing Mathieu "ZywOo" Herbaut and Danny "Zonic" Sorensen is an honour. They do not disappoint as interlocutors, providing incredible and exciting stories. In general, these two articles have something in common with each other: lots of stories about Vitality's restructuring, internal communication, plans for the future and limited things like coaching worries and Mathieu's diet.
Promo code for GameChanger Hub: 335VSZ.
Bookmark this page to read all the interviews at your leisure!
Skinmakers
In addition to the usual interview with esports athletes, we also pulled out six skinmakers. Their works were included in the recent (is it really recent, though...) Recoil Case. And for some, it was a debut, but for others, it was 'and another one' thing.
Let's start with the best interview in the compilation: cimota and chrisparra present their P250 Visions. It's an incredible story: Chris is a tattoo artist and never played CS, but cimota found him, fell in love with the style and forced Chris to try his hand at skinmaking. Three months later, Valve accepted them into a case.
Then, Hexeth dropped in for a visit. Judging by the number of skins accepted, he's one of Valve's favourite skinmakers. Hexeth spoke about the biggest fear of all skinmakers, the inner kitchen, and gave some tips for beginners. And, of course, he shared a story about his Glock Winterized!
Promo code for XMAS DROP: XMAS-2J5OKSFN.
It's confirmed: if Valve accepts your skin, you will have enough to pay for an American college at least. This is what JTPNZ, the author of the legendary Printstream series, tells about. Two interesting facts from the interview: the original idea for the Printstream skin is a fluorescent bike sticker on a PC case; also, JTPNZ has an unreleased skin showing his eyes. More by the link.
Skinmaking can grow roots in game dev. Moreover, it can return you to it! De Puiseau is a pure demonstration of this. He's known for P90 Vent Rush and a signature style of very detailed and false-volumed skins. Now, he creates his own co-op shooter, and a couple of years ago, he used to be part of Ubisoft!
Remember that in each interview, we asked about heroes' favourite hero skins, so you can refresh your memory or learn new stuff just by scrolling to the very bottom of texts! If you want to be like your favourite players and play CS:GO with the same skins, we advise you to jump on our CS.MONEY Market!
