Freya: “It’s important to associate yourself with TOs that align with your identity”

Freya Spiers has been a constant staple of Counter-Strike desks in recent years. From interviewer to desk host, Freya has done it all, with her first chance at a Major coming as a stage host in the FACEIT Major London 2018. At the StarLadder Budapest Major 2025, we got the opportunity to catch up with Freya, and chat about how she views the role of talent in Counter-Strike, her Hall of Fame talent desk, and more!

Sophie McCarthy: So the first thing I wanted to ask you was about Counter-Strike Majors. They are, of course, the pinnacle of Counter-Strike. Every player wants to win a Major, but I wondered what that is like for talent. Is a CS Major the pinnacle for talents as well?

Freya Spiers: Oh, yeah, 100%. It’s crazy. We were just talking about it in the green room, how many between us that we’ve done and obviously, you know, it’s been kind of different years that we were all starting from. Jacob [Pimp] was a little bit before myself and Maui, obviously. Devilwalk’s now back. It was nice to do PGL Antwerp, I think it was with him. So he’s had a little bit of a hiatus. It’s kind of the, I guess, the purest form of CS. Obviously there’s little tweaks here and there that might need to happen with, you know, Stage One, Two, and Three and how that all works. It’s kind of the biggest, along with Katowice and Cologne, It’s kind of where you feel like the biggest community coming together for CS, right? And particularly the arena and the fans here. Surprisingly, no bias towards MOUZ. Like actually the other way, which was wild. So, yeah, it’s kind of like a… I don’t know, it just feels like a big party for the community and happening at the end of each season as well is perfect.

Sophie: I thought this about the Hungarian crowd as well. I thought everyone would be super behind torzsi, but, you know… We cheer for good Counter-Strike, what can I say? So as talent, you guys really help to bridge the gap between the players and the fans. What do you think is the most important role for talent in the community and the ecosystem for Counter-Strike?

Freya: I think, it’s funny, we were just talking about this as well. Like, the bridge that we have between community and players is something that I think is important for us to be able to show the players in their best light. I think there’s always discussions about the analysis desk and whether it’s okay to critique players, whether it’s okay to critique performance, which I think it is. We’re in a competitive game, after all, and everybody wants to be the best. If you’re a player, you’re not content with, you know, a subpar performance, I think it’s fine to call that out, but I think it’s about offering a platform to the players to display their truest self. Whether that’s as people within interviews, when I’m doing the interviewer role, or whenever we get a player up on the desk, it’s about giving them a platform to succeed. Or in game, and being able to highlight those kind of achievements. I think that’s what’s something that’s really special about, particularly at Majors, is being able to look back at the history of certain players. Like for karrigan and apEX, being able to kind of go through the litany of majors that they’ve competed in, maybe not one, but just how much impact they’ve had on the scene. I kind of see that as our main role, right? We are essentially the everyman who have been lucky enough to get into this position and be able to kind of give it to the world.

Sophie: I mean, it’s kind of similar to journalism in that way. I’m like, we’re just nerds with cool jobs. So I wanted to look forward a little bit to next year. Over the last couple of years, we’ve seen the Counter-Strike calendar get more and more and more packed, even with international events. More so than other games, I would say. And now we’re getting to the point where they’re starting to kind of clash, especially like IEM Krakow is going to finish the day before PGL starts. So I wondered how that impacts you guys, because obviously this has a huge impact on the team’s participation. But what about from a talent perspective? 

Freya: It’s a really good question and it’s something that I do get asked a lot because I’m obviously more heavily affiliated with some TOs and other talent, more so with others. I think, one, that’s perfectly fine. I think each TO should have their own identity and they should have certain talent that they see as going, “Okay, we want it to be more like this rather than like this.” Like BLAST, for example. They use a lot of TV people behind the scenes. They like things to be looking a lot more polished. There’s certain people that have skills into that. Whereas ESL Pro League is much more about the fun and things looking a little bit rough around the edges, which is amazing too. And I think it’s important that this can all coexist in the scene. It’s inevitable that there will be clashes, but I think it’s important for you to associate yourself with TOs that align with your identity ultimately. I get a lot of questions for people asking me, “Why don’t you work with certain TOs?” It’s like A, the clashes, you can’t. But, B, it’s totally fine. There’s other people that are out there that are desk hosts, that are interviewers, that offer something different and that competition is healthy.

Sophie: I just had one last question for you, which is, I would just love to know about who your favourite talent are to work with. Who would be in your ultimate Hall of Fame. What desk would you absolutely love to work on?

Freya: Oh, that’s such a tough question. I’ve really enjoyed working with dupreeh this year. I kind of said it at the end of Rivals to round it out, but because he was part of a team for so long, not saying that the talent team isn’t like that, but he was part of one of the greatest teams in all the Counter-Strike, he knows what it is to be a team player. Aside from what he brings to the desk, like we’re leaving the green room, he’s never leaving anybody behind. He’s making sure we’re all in the shoulder together. He’s asking us to do activities and stuff. You can see that real team vibe with him. Just to give a little peek behind the curtain. But I also think what he does on the desk is excellent. And it’s very rare that we get a player that has been so recently competing. Obviously that changes with the more you do desk, the less you’ve competed. And with his retirement this year, he offered a very, very unique insight into a lot of the more up to date Counter-Strike meta as well. And this might be a crazy controversial take, I don’t even want to use that word. But I work with Thorin back at Flashpoint a lot. I was very new, I was very green. So I wasn’t ready to kind of be able to bring out and react to some of Thorin’s opinions and stuff. But I love being a guest on his podcast and stuff. So I would very much enjoy to work with him. Obviously I love working with Maui and Pimp, I get to work with them all the time. No shade to them. If I could have a real random grab. Yeah I’d have Thorin back on the desk, that’d be fun.