Talking Counter
Episode 132: ft. JustHarryGG, IEM Melbourne, G2/Falcons/m0nesy triumvirate of engagement
26 Apr 2025
SPUNJ, YNk-, and Harry are down in Australia taking some time away from all the tim tam slamming to Talk CounterJoin our Discord to discuss the episode with other listeners. Stick around to hang out watching live events and talk some CS!https://discord.gg/VHSZRSxZhow do your timestamps taste today?
Chapter 1: What is the main topic of this episode?
Come on, let me hear you. Let's get louder. Welcome to Talk Encounter. Come on, let me hear you. Let's get louder. Welcome to Talk Encounter.
Chapter 2: What interesting experiences did the hosts have in Australia?
Loads. And we have a washing machine. It's kind of nice. I have two suitcases, bro. That's the life.
Oh, is that because you're in the big boy class?
Yeah.
So you get an extra bag.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And also, I knew I would want to bring stuff back because Australia is cool. I'm bringing back two cases of grog.
Are you allowed to take that many liquids?
I don't know.
Probably not.
I'll see how it goes. I think I'm wanting each suitcase. Should be fine.
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Chapter 3: What are the challenges faced by G2 in the current esports landscape?
Two insults that I want you guys to take back and use in your day-to-day. So they're essentially the same thing, but either of these will stick. So it depends on the level of sting that you want to go at someone. You could say someone has a face like a drop pie.
Yeah, I like that.
Face like a smashed crab.
Smashed crab in a dropped pie.
Right.
Think about it. It's a fucking mess. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's good.
I like it because it's not very... It's not too profanic. Yeah, you don't need to swear. Yeah, exactly. But you still get the message across.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And these are good, man.
It's like, hey, you're not the dumbest guy in the world, but you sure as hell hope that guy doesn't die.
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Chapter 4: How is the performance of Falcons compared to G2?
Yeah, but Liquid came up two months after. He was on the bench for two months. Like, as soon as you see that, if you're G2, I'm getting him. I'm sorry, Snacks. You've been a soldier for us. You did a good job. We need to think about the future of this organization. Go get him. Yeah. Taz, you had your chance, didn't quite work out.
It wasn't terrible, really, but, you know, we have to go a different way as well, pairing this guy up with a coach that he's worked with. You know, that's it, right? Tell me that doesn't make sense.
Yeah, and I think, you know, it gets even more wild when, like, now knowing what we know, it's like, you know, it didn't... You couldn't get the squad to work fully with Nico Amonessi, and now they've gone over to Falcons, and, like, Falcons are doing fucking sick, you know, back-to-back playoffs.
Sure, one of them was with Dexter, but, like, regardless, if anything, like, makes it more wild, you know? Like, it shows the kind of pitfalls of G2 in other ways.
Yeah, man, like... Falcons have played in one grand final in Cluj, won a tournament in Bucharest, and are okay now in the... playoffs here while G2 has made the final in Bucharest lost to Falcons 3-0 and they haven't really played any good great teams along the way they made one playoffs in Lisbon where they got smacked around by Maus that's it
No, I... Dude, the thing as well with Falcons is, like, I think whenever... You know, we're gonna... Like, we should be talking about them the same way you would, like, a FaZe or a G2 from back in the day. Like, when they get to stages, you know, they're really... They're, like, a scary team. I think, like, even in the game today, Malz... I feel like on paper should be favorites, right?
I think they are because of the crack time.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
But even then, I think, like, firstly, just the duo of Niko and Monacy can be so hard-hitting and terrifying. But even outside of that, like, looking at the rest of them, Magisk, I think, plays his best CS when you get him in these sorts of, you know, like, stage games. Tess says Wildly has been fucking cracked as hell, like, yesterday.
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Chapter 5: What are the implications of roster changes in esports teams?
Yeah, but unfortunately, you don't get a guy who's going to go out there and recruit players to the team, right? He's back on the G2. He was not committed to helping us build a lineup for the future. The guy's 19 years old. Like, can he just be allowed to play CS? If you were actually paying attention to your team, you would see that if Niko goes, he's probably going to leave.
Where, that doesn't really matter. But he wanted to stick with him. So if you really wanted to secure your future, you should have probably done a better job at trying to keep Niko. The wildest thing to me was, it was a very good interview. He did very well, right? Yeah. except for a couple of times where the mask slipped. He's taking responsibility. He's saying sorry. He's apologizing.
He's taking the blame, shielding his management and all that stuff. But then he says, when the Nikko deal didn't go through with Falcons in 2023 and Nikko comes to G2 and says, okay, I want to stay, the first thing they said was no. So that's the mindset. That's it. That's it right there. Instead of thinking, okay...
we got him to stay you know he's gonna stay right like how do we make sure that he doesn't want to leave six months from now or you know what can we do your that's not your thought your first initial thought is oh you're feeling spiteful and well I don't
we're not going to let you come back, you know, like, just sit on the bench now, I guess we're going to get next and fucking JKS to play instead of you, because that's going to turn out so fucking great. You know, and that shows you that it's just, you got a second chance. That was the second chance for them, right? Like, you got the opportunity to maybe keep it together, and you didn't, right?
For whatever reasons. I think it's obvious that... The thing that Nico wants and the thing that he's missing in his career is silverware. He just misses trophies, obviously the major one, but just also trophies in general. You know, for a player as good as he is, he doesn't have nearly enough trophies in his cabinet.
So that's why he's most with that roster, though.
Well, the two biggest ones, yes. Cologne and Kato was with G2.
It's just like, I also think like after seeing just some of the shambolic moves out of G2 over the years and some of the missed opportunities, it's like, yeah, you know, the one thing Falcons do have is like...
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Chapter 6: What is the significance of the recent IEM Melbourne event?
You know, in this round, if we've called it, you have the things you can do within this round, depending on what the opponents are doing, right? You have sort of and it's up to the in-game leader to decide, okay, we're going to go from this thing to this thing and going to end with this thing, right?
And that can change along the way in the mid-round because CTs might aggress on you and you need to make an adjustment because a player might... you know, get good timing and get into a good position or something like that. But the plan exists. You know, meanwhile, in some other teams, you open up with a default and the players have a lot more freedom.
I'm just going to run up and go for this peak. And then the other guy says, okay, I'll just play off. If that happens, I'm going to like go through this, walk through this smoke and stuff. And you're playing more off of feel and individual skill, right? And that makes you a little bit more unpredictable as well, which is a good thing. And...
Also, you need to have players who are willing to take initiative even when things get tough. Have players who know how to react and aren't going to play scared and are going to make the correct play despite of the risk. And I think the...
Na'Vi players with time as they started having some results and were playing within that system you could see them play with a lot more confidence and you can see them go for more ballsy plays and feel better and become better players why because they know everything that's going to happen because they've done it so many times they had so many reps you know one great thing about Na'Vi when you
watched them play when they were winning tournaments and stuff, it's like the score is 11-11. Blade takes a timeout, and always after the timeout, it's a default, right? Like, they never resort...
to these poppy play you know let's just roll the dice and let's just hope maybe you know you're trying to get a read that they're going to you know play heavy outside and we're going to call an upper rush on you you know or something like that it's like sure that might work or might not work but no we're going to play default because we're so good at taking map control punishing if they go for any early aggression plays and we're so confident in what we know that as the round goes on
we're going to be in a bigger and bigger of an advantage even if it's a 5v5 you know because we understand we will figure out their setup we will piece the puzzle together and we have the answers you know blade has given them all the answers alexi knows okay if this is how the round goes this is the call right and the players have done it so many times that they know that this will work right we just need to execute and then even if you're wrong
they'll execute it with conviction, and maybe someone steps up and gets, like, a double kill where they're not supposed to, you know, and wins you the round.
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Chapter 7: How do personal experiences affect commentary in esports?
And, you know, they win that round, they didn't equal once until the third map. But what you're talking about, variety, and just even within rounds that you already have, to change them on the fly just because you know, like, this is what can work, it's what makes them great. Dude, I think, like, the...
Oh, man. I love the renaissance for Apex. It's been a while now.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
But you know what I mean? Not only is his team really fucking sick, especially with ROPS coming in. Now they are firmly the top dogs, but like... just he's also playing well within, like, the team. It's not like he's fucking getting carried over the line in every one of these games. Like, he's a frag in IGL. I think he's calling some fantastic games. Dude, he brings so much to the show as well.
Like, the presence of him as a player is so good. Like, you know you're good. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, there's kind of no one like him right now. Like, it's crazy, man. And I also think having him and Ropz on the same team with how, like, nerdy they're down to get. I mean, fuck. Fucking ZywOo's a bit of a geek and all. There's a lot of nerds in this team, man. And I know, you know, like...
Even on nights where they would have won, and you see them back at the hotel, and maybe they're having a drink or whatever, but it's just like a beer. It's very low-key, and they're all just sitting around talking about Counter-Strike. I've had Apex talking about all of his memories of old CS. These guys just love the game.
They love thinking about it and talking about it, and I think that's why they have all this variety, bro. It's like a team of just...
cs nerds that love nothing more than a sit around thinking of things to do well they all but it feels like i think what you pointed out there with you know the downtime as well they have a really good balance i've spoken with with jack he's the the mental coach for them the aussie bloke rugby player um so you know i've had a couple of times we've sat we've had you know lengthier conversations and i remember as well going back to shanghai major last year
And, you know, me and Alex and Connor and Mohan, we rock up late. They'd all been there for what had been forever because of the RMR. Yeah, yeah. For a month. And I remember and I go down, I'm like, how are you guys finding China? And they're like, oh, we love it here. And I'm like, no, like, you know, how are you enjoying it? And they were like, no, we love it here.
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Chapter 8: What are the future prospects for the discussed teams?
Hugo doesn't put his personal life out there. I won't say what he's doing. It's for a good reason.
I'll consider it, guys.
Okay. We'll send an official letter in the mail.
All right. This is good. We'll have our guy from G2 reach out in like six months after the tournament.
When you're already playing for another team.
Lifting trophies, yeah. Sounds good. All right, so, yeah, we're going to do a warm-up tomorrow. No hard feelings after that. I can't have you carrying it through to the matches that we're going to play next week, Harry. I need you locked in.
Oh, no, no, no. It's fine. I'm going to go to those matches so confident because I'm going to win the cashes for the first time for the Brits. Never happen. Dude, I'm going to... It'll be a historic Sunday.
You see how he swallowed this icy dick thing? Like, he's locked in, mate.
Don't worry about him. I'm locked in. We were talking about Lily Phillips. That's a Bonnie Blue type situation right there. That's the Lily Phillips spinoff.
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