nitr0: "I'm grateful that I had the opportunity to try again"

HLTV was able to speak to Nick "⁠nitr0⁠" Cannella shortly after the curtains closed on his Counter-Strike career for the second time.

Liquid made the journey to IEM Dallas with a desire to give nitr0 the best possible send-off. The 27-year-old, who was his team's in-game leader for a number of years, announced his plans to step down from the starting lineup after the event in Texas, citing the hectic travel schedule and the birth of his second child as the main reason for his decision.

The move, now official following Liquid's elimination to FaZe in the Group B lower bracket semi-final, brings an end to a near eight-year career in Counter-Strike, and the second time he has stepped away from the game — first doing so in 2020 when he transitioned to VALORANT.

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nitr0 to step down from Liquid after IEM Dallas, future unclear

HLTV was able to speak with nitr0 shortly after the tournament-ending series, where Captain America touched on his immediate emotions, the differences between competing in Counter-Strike and VALORANT, his future plans, as well as offering some reflection as he looked back on his storied career.

nitr0, your last match with Liquid before you step down. What is the moment like for you right now?

Obviously it kinda just sucks losing like that, in that fashion, but it's bittersweet, you know? I'm retiring for a reason and not just quitting for no reason with no plan. It's bittersweet, I obviously enjoy the game a lot, I love Counter-Strike, I've been playing forever, as long as I can remember because my brothers would play.

The game is still going to be there and I can find competition in other ways like streaming, if there is a serious VALORANT offer, something like that. If that comes to fruition then I'll have to consider it because I'm still super competitive. I think the community thinks I'm older than I actually am, I'm only 27. I feel like they think I'm 35.

I still feel really young, I still feel really good mechanically, it's just this last year and a half has been pretty rough for me coming back to Counter-Strike after not playing the game for a year and a half. It was obviously a risk that I was willing to take, and I had some good moments, some really bad moments. It is what it is, and I'm grateful that I had the opportunity to try again.

In what way has it been rough for you?

When I first started I was in-game leader, under the shox roster, and coming back I had to catch up to the current meta, watch a lot of games back, it was a lot of work, a lot of work. The update with the grenades dropping was huge, back then it was a lot more simple. It was like this player has this nade set, this player has this nade set, let's call in this certain way and it was very easy to understand.

Now it's like this person can drop a flash, it just opened a bunch of opportunities for the macro-game and it was really cool, I think it was a super good update, but coming back it was a big update for me and it was something that I had to really think about and build my game around that.

Between you first tenure in Liquid and now, what would be the biggest difference for you?

It wasn't that much difference to be honest. I guess just the personalities on the team was probably the biggest difference, I feel like YEKINDAR and Stewie have a similar personality, obviously EliGE is still the same, NAF is still the same, and then we have an AWPer.

Bringing an AWPer into the dynamic was different for us, because we never really had that when I was on the team, we were kinda throwing it around a bit, and after the jdm drop I started AWPing. That was a big difference.

Even when I was in VALORANT I wasn't really IGLing, I IGL'd for maybe two months toward the end of the game because steel was the main IGL, but I was also there to help and give my input and stuff. It was a different mentality change for me going into CS, and obviously I had done it before in Counter-Strike so it wasn't that big of a difference, but I had to rewire my brain in a certain way and think about the game.

When you announced you were stepping down, you said one of the big factors was the travel, but here you're saying you're still willing to compete, maybe in VALORANT. What's the difference between competing here and in VALORANT for you then?

The biggest difference is that VALORANT is a franchise game, so you know that you live in LA, you go to work, come home. It's more traditional, whereas in CS you don't know exactly when you're going to be gone, you have to base your whole entire schedule around flights and stuff. If you want to do a bootcamp it's usually a two-week bootcamp into a tourmament, so you're usually gone for about a month, minimum. Depending on what tournaments you want to accept, what tournaments you want to deny, it's pretty hectic.

Even then it's like CS2 is coming out, when is that game actually going to be released? What tournaments are going to have the game? It's just a lot of ambiguity within the scene right now with the new game being released. It's a lot of travel, obviously, for a North American player because you can't just be at home. We tried playing NA to EU with 120 ping and I'm waking up at 4AM to scrim, and it's just really hard.

It's funny you talked about how old you are people thinking you're older, because even rain was saying the same thing at the Major, huNter-, the second you have a kid people are like, 'oh, you're 35 now!'

[laughing] Yeah, I mean I read a lot of comments that people think I'm washed and old and all that stuff, but I'm like... I don't feel washed or old at all. I still feel like I'm the same person I was before, I just have kids. It's just a bit of a mentality change once you have children obviously.

Reflecting on moments of your career in Counter-Strike, is there something in particular that stands out, or a couple of highlight moments that you can reflect on?

There's three that come to mind, the Columbus Major being the first one, where we made semis and we beat some good teams there — and choked, at the same time. The Cologne Major final was really fun for us, especially with our situation since we had a stand-in and stuff, it was crazy that we made that run.

Obviously the Grand Slam is number one for us because it's just the peak of all of our careers on this team. It's just a surreal feeling winning Cologne, one of the best tournaments in CS history, in the Cathedral. That was a really cool moment.

A lot of peaks, a lot of lows as well. What would be the biggest regret?

I don't really regret anything in my career, to be honest. I think I've had a pretty good career considering the region that we're from, and the players that we played with, I feel like we've done a good job.

It just sucks that throughout my eight-year career, we were only winning one year. That kinda sucks if you really think about it in the large span of things, but we still had a good 2018 and stuff, we had some tournament wins in 2017, so it's hard to even regret anything to be honest. I really love the game and my teammates.

As I said, last event for you. Any plans after this event, whether it be sticking around or long-term going into the rest of the year?

Well, I have plans because of the player break — well, doesn't really matter anymore, right? But I have plans for the player break to just go home, see family and stuff because we moved away, but not really man, I'm just going to start my stream, see if I can build something there within my community. I've always wanted to help people and I feel like helping people in Counter-Strike would be a plus. If I can teach them something then that makes me feel good about myself.

I feel like I have a lot of knowledge because I have so much experience playing and especially being an IGL, I have a lot of solutions for things. So if I can somehow figure out a way to help people, and even if it comes to VALORANT just helping people in general when it comes to FPS gaming, like what does it consist of, what do you need to be a better teammate, better individual player, doesn't matter. If I can help people in a certain way that would make me feel good and I'll feel way more accomplished as a streamer or whatever I do next.

When you say help people, do you mean mostly teaching them through streaming, or do you mean maybe going into a lower tier and just playing from home?

More through streaming, yeah. I would feel kinda weird playing in a lower tier, I don't know. I've thought about, but it's like... I have so much experience at tier one that going to tier two and playing just wouldn't be the same, it wouldn't fuel my competitive drive. It's just something I haven't really considered to be honest, so it'd be mainly through streaming.