huNter- at BLAST Open Spring: “The most important is to have a good team around you”

They may be out of the tournament already but G2 put up a fight in at BLAST Open Spring 2025. Before their elimination game against MOUZ in the quarterfinals, I got to speak with Nemanja “huNter-” Kovač about his career best map and preparing to face the best teams in the world.

How are you doing, huNter-?

huNter-: I’m doing well, thanks for asking.

Sophie: Good. How long have you guys been in Lisbon now?

huNter-: Today is the second day. We arrived two days ago, so. Yeah, it’s nice here.

Sophie: Have you managed to do anything outside of the hotel or you just practicing?

huNter-: Not really. We had like yesterday, Prague day. We had a chill day as well after that and today we went outside a bit for a walk. But yeah, we didn’t see much. I was here three years ago, I saw some things. But yeah, it’s really nice city.

Sophie: Yeah, fantastic. I mean, I guess it makes a bit of a change from Copenhagen, right?

huNter-: Weather wise at least.

Sophie: Absolutely. So I wanted to start by talking about your run through the tournament so far. I mean it’s. It’s been pretty strong. You took down, I think Imperial, it was M80.

So how are you feeling about it so far?

huNter-: I mean we’ve beaten Imperial M80 and at the end Mongolz. I think the only game that I was satisfied with was the last game against Mongolz where we played well. Other games even that we won, we didn’t play that good. And we know about that. And yeah, I think we are getting back into form. I think we are playing better every event, every game. And that’s the most important for me.

Sophie: Absolutely. Because you guys are playing a really packed schedule at the moment, I think. Is it Cluj Napoca is the only one you’ve missed?

huNter-: Yes, exactly.

How are you handling so much counter strike and playing at this high level?

huNter-: Yeah, I mean this is how it is. This is our life and we got used to it. I mean, I’m in tier one like five, five years. Five to six years already. So you just get used to it.

And the most important is to have a good team around you, good people that you can spend even of time with. You know, go outside, have fun together. And that’s the most important. So yeah, we got used to it and that’s normal for us.

Sophie: I see, okay.

What do you guys do to keep that bond going off the server?

huNter-: We have some team activities. Of course, we are going outside, we are going for dinner, for walks. We try to spend time together properly. We even play some sports. You know, we are just trying to always have some activities. We have our performance coach, our managers who are helping us find something good that we’ll all enjoy with. And yeah, we are trying to always be in a good mood and a good atmosphere.

Sophie: Absolutely. Do you guys play any games together apart from CS?

huNter-: Not really. Sometimes. Scribble was the game that we played sometimes, but not much. When we are off, we like to leave PCs, you know, because we spend so much time already on PCs.

Sophie: Yeah, absolutely. Okay, cool. So I really wanted to ask about this one incredible map that you had a career best, I think it was what, 36 kills, three clutches.

Are we expecting a repeat of that?

huNter-: I mean, hopefully. I will do my best. I mean, I didn’t think about it, that that just comes, you know, you take your chances if you have them. I took them all and that’s just how it was. That day was my day. Sometimes it’s like that. Sometimes you have bad days, like, you know, all work you can do. So yeah, that’s just how it is. I’m very happy that I broke the record and if somebody told me before event, I will do it, I wouldn’t trust it because before I had so many good maps. But yeah, I’m happy because of that and I just hope I’ll keep going.

Sophie: What’s going through your mind when you’re in these clutch situations? Like I cannot do them, let me tell you.

huNter-: I mean you don’t think what was happening before, you are just focused on what is in front of you, you know. But after, when you kill them and when you finish the round, everybody was screaming, you know, everybody was fully surprised, full crazy. Fully crazy, you know, talking good about me. So yeah, feels good, of course, but this, I mean, bad. Really, really good feeling.

Sophie: Yeah, absolutely. Okay, because I guess your next match is coming up against Mouz, right? In the quarterfinals. I think it seems kind of weird to me that a lot of people are still considering them as underdogs even after the Cluj-Napoca win.

How are you feeling about that series in particular and what have you been doing to prepare?

huNter-: I mean, we didn’t do anything yet crazy to prepare for them. We are just practicing the maps, what we expect. We’ll play against them and tomorrow we’ll have a day where we prepare before game and maybe a bit tonight. So I think they are not underdogs. They are absolute favorites against us tomorrow. Not absolute, but I think they are favorites because we lost to them couple weeks ago in pro league in quarterfinals.

So yeah, I think we are more kind underdogs in that game because they are doing really good lately. Only team that they were losing to was Vitality, who is the best team in the world right now. And yeah, I think we will just do what we what we do usually, our preparation, our routines, and hopefully it will go well tomorrow.

Sophie: Yeah, absolutely. Because I guess you won’t be facing vitality if you do until a grand final. So do you think you could be the ones to break the win streak?

huNter-: I mean, they are far from us. I don’t think about it. I always focused on the next open, and next is Mouz for me. And. Yeah, we’ll see. After that, we can do one more interview.

Sophie: Absolutely. I’ll look forward to it. Okay. Thank you so much for your time, huNter-.