Tech Girl: “If we don’t have more LANs like the Thunderpick World Championship… we’re going to kill Counter-Strike”

Sam ‘Tech Girl‘ Wright is one of Counter-Strike’s best broadcast talents. Her career in the game has propelled in recent years, taking on the role of desk host at multiple Majors as well as enormous events like Katowice and Cologne.

Now, Tech Girl is one of the desk hosts at the Thunderpick World Championship 2025. We had the opportunity to catch up with her to get her take on the importance of smaller LANs, her history with Counter-Strike, and more!

Tech Girl on smaller LANs and her history in Counter-Strike

Sophie McCarthy: How you doing today?

Sam ‘Tech Girl’ Wright: Hello. How cool is this setup? I’ve been having the best time here. This is such an epic, massive tent, really.

Sophie: Yeah, it’s a lot bigger than it was last year. It was just in a bar in Berlin last year. So this is something of an upgrade.

Tech Girl: I’m having a good time. I really like it. I like all the noise. And obviously yesterday you brought the thunder for Thunderpick as well, which was quite fun.

Sophie: I think we had a couple of leaks in the press room, but it’s fine. We styled it out. So let’s get into it a little bit. How are you finding Malta so far at the hotel? All that sort of stuff.

Tech Girl: So I’ve had the best time because we’re in like a really epic hotel. We’re right on the beach. There’s a lot of retired British people on holiday, which I’ve quite enjoyed. At breakfast I have lots of conversations with old ladies trying to figure out what I do for a living. So that’s really exciting. And they keep asking if we’re, if we’re with the gaming thing because there’s obviously a big Thunderpick sign in the hotel lobby. It’s been really cool. And then obviously we’ve had a chance to be here. We’ve got such cool teams. I’m a huge FalleN fan, so obviously FURIA’s here. The MongolZ as well. Aurora. I mean, I’m just going to mention all the teams now, but it’s been epic, right?

Sophie: Yeah, yeah, it’s been fantastic. I mean, I did want to ask how an event like this would compare to the likes of a Major and IEM. Like from your perspective, how does it compare?

Tech Girl: So it’s obviously slightly different because we don’t have as many teams and there is a massive prestige. But what I love about these events is, like, it always feels a little bit more like, community-orientated, like everyone’s a little bit more chilled in the hotel, they’re a little bit more chilled here, they want to chat. And it is, it is still a high-stakes event because of VRS, right? So you can still feel that pressure. I think for a lot of the teams that made it through the closed qualifier, there’s the pressure of VRS, but also finally having a chance to be on LAN, being able to, like, show what they can do. And then for the bigger teams, it’s… These are the events that they desperately want. The prize pool is epic. You want a chunk of that, but also you want to be able to lift those trophies. It’s important for these orgs.

Sophie: Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, obviously, the invites have already gone out for the Major, but we’ve got a lot of teams, Tier 2 teams that have come up through the qualifiers. So how important do you think it is for this CS ecosystem to allow Tier 2 teams to play at this level?

Tech Girl: It is so important for us to have more LANs for Tier 2 teams, especially with how VRS is now. And I have been going on and on and on about this. I have a few podcasts I do, and I bring this up all the time, so I’ll bring it up here as well. It’s like, if we don’t have more LANs like the Thunderpick World Championship, where these Tier 2 teams get a chance to play on stage, we’re going to kill Counter-Strike as we know it, because it will mean that the same top teams are constantly at events, but we never see new blood come in. The MongolZ obviously won last year, and now one of the top teams in the world last year, they were this up-and-coming team. If you want more stories like The MongolZ, you need more LANs like the Thunderpck World Championship. That’s why these are so important.

Sophie: Absolutely. I mean, we could say the same thing for esports as a whole. Right? It’s super, super important. Yeah. I think that’s. That’s really interesting because I wanted to ask a little bit about yourself as well, you know. So how. Tell me about the first moment that you heard about Counter-Strike and you were like, “I’m gonna get into this game.”

Tech Girl: Okay. So what actually happened, I can like even tell you, is my brother used to play Dota competitively. And we had the best internet and also ur mom was pretty chilled. So everyone used to come to our house to play his team and they would all sit and play Dota. And then sometimes they’d be studying as well because they all went to school together, and every so often they’d take a break. Dota was not my jam. I did not understand it. When the floating fairy was hitting the tree, I’d get pretty annoyed. But then I saw some of the guys, I was quite young, they were playing CS and I was like, it’s pretty cool. Like, what is this? And they were like, this is CS:GO. And I was like, oh, it’s pretty sick. And then I started watching them. I was like, I actually kind of like this, and it’s something that straight away, I was like, it’s easy to understand. That was my first thing. Also, my brother didn’t play it, so he wasn’t there telling me, like, how dumb I am because I don’t know what’s going on. And I just really enjoyed it. And that was it. And I started watching them when they were playing, and then some of them got rid of Dota and moved into CS and I started going to these little underground LANs to watch everyone play. And then I would try and play. I’m really bad, but I do try.

Sophie: Me too!

Tech Girl: Yeah. So. And that was kind of how CS became a thing for me.

Sophie: Oh, that’s so interesting, because, correct me if I’m wrong, but you started off in PUBG, right? You do a lot of PUBG work as well?

Tech Girl: So I started in CS, ironically enough. That was always the jam. That was the game I loved. And then what happened was I was working in Counter-Strike in South Africa, and then when I started getting opportunities overseas, they were like, “Oh, well, there’s no real CS opportunities, but you can try…” I think it was Overwatch. And then PUBG. I still do PUBG because I love my PUBG fam. I’m very loyal, but CS was always the one I wanted to be in. So when I could eventually do that, I was just like, “Yes!”

Sophie: I mean. And here you are. Right? That’s fantastic. So I wanted to ask a little bit about the teams that we’ve already got here. So at this point, we’ve seen… FURIA took down The MongolZ today… So if you were gonna call a winner right now…

Tech Girl: For the whole damn thing?

Sophie: Yeah, yeah.

Tech Girl: This is easy for me. Our lord and savior of Counter-Strike, FalleN, he will take FURIA to victory. They will lift the trophy, and then they will go on to win the Major. And I know you’re all gonna hate me for saying that, and I don’t care!

Sophie: I mean, you’re not the only one who said FURIA. stunna said FURIA as well. So it’s looking very promising.

Tech Girl: Probably jinxed it now. Damn it.

Sophie: Let’s hope not. So some of these Tier 2 teams that have come up, we’ve got Team Venom, we’ve got 9z. When we were talking to the likes of FalleN, he was saying that they’ve got some tricks up their sleeves. So, what is your impression of that from a desk host perspective?

Tech Girl: I think a lot of these Tier 2 teams, I agree with FalleN when he says tricks. I mean, I wouldn’t go so far as to say tricks, but I do think that you can see them trying some new innovative strats, trying to figure out ways to… where they know that they’re lacking, they’ll try and come up with a game plan where they can make sure that they can still carry on in those places and fill the holes, if you like. I think that’s quite exciting. And I think they are getting better. Right? The fundamentals are getting there. We saw this yesterday. I think Imperial looks really great. And Venom, I mean, no one even knew who they were, but yesterday when we watched them, they did go down 2:0 to Aurora, but they put up a good fight. And I think that those are. Those are the things we need to keep an eye on. Because again, the more LANs that they’re at, the more opportunities they have, the more experience on these big stages, the more we’re going to see that confidence rise and some of those tricks, if you like, that FalleN’s talking about coming into play.