HooXi: "If I was anyone else, I would put all my free time into [CS2]"

The Danish IGL is in favor of an immediate switch to Counter-Strike 2.

G2 have ended the last LAN CS:GO event with a quarter-final exit after falling to a warmed-up MOUZ in a three-map series. Despite their setback, the European combine has had a fruitful year. They won IEM Katowice and IEM Cologne and currently stand at No.3 in the HLTV world rankings.

As the professional scene enters a period of uncertainty due to the release of Counter-Strike 2, G2 look to continue their bid to become the number-one team in the world despite focusing on the new game being harder for established teams, according to Rasmus "⁠HooXi⁠" Nielsen.

HLTV spoke with HooXi after G2's quarter-final loss to MOUZ to discuss his career in CS:GO, his feelings about CS2, and his future plans.

First of all, commiserations on the loss. Did you have bigger expectations for this tournament?

Our expectations were to win, so that's of course disappointing. We had really unfortunate circumstances, the whole team besides me got sick during our off days here. Four players, a coach, and one manager got the flu. Not that it's fully an excuse, but it's obviously not optimal, and that just sucks.

This tournament is pretty much the end of CS:GO. Looking back, I think you can be happy with your career, especially after winning Katowice and Cologne in the final year. How would you look back at your career as a whole?

A long, long journey to get to where I want to be [laughs]. It took me ten years basically to get to tier one. And I think it was only starting to become really fun in the last few years when we went to a Major with Copenhagen Flames, and now on G2.

If you told me two years ago that I would be playing at three Majors and having a Katowice and Cologne trophy, I would probably have said, 'That's all good.' So I cannot be unhappy, but it would've been nice to at least play a bit deeper in the Major playoffs. That's what I regret the most.

You now move on to the BLAST Showdown, which is still played in CS:GO. Do you have any comments about that?

I definitely think that even though the game is not fully ready, the worst thing we can do as a community and the competitive scene is to sit there and switch between CS:GO and CS2 all the time, it's just annoying for everyone. We need to take a leap of faith and just switch. There will never be an optimal time to switch, it will always be a problem in some way. And I think we should just get going on CS2 as soon as possible.

And what are your general feelings on CS2? Did you play it much?

I haven't played it since the last season of EPL, so I have no clue. But from what I watched in the practice room when the other guys were playing it and what I see on streams, it looks decent. There's still a lot of room for improvement with the general feeling of movement and stuff like this.

I think that 64-tick, or sub-tick, whatever they want to call it nowadays, is a bit unlucky that we didn't manage to get that done in a new game. But there are also a lot of positives, and I just hope that they will remove this HE-smoke mechanic, and I'll be a happy man [laughs].

What are your plans now for the future? Will you transition straight away to CS2 or will you practice some more CS:GO for the BLAST Showdown?

I hope that BLAST will realize that it's better to play CS2, and that they will switch when they hear the opinion of the players, the organizations in general, and also for their own viewership. I will go to my hotel room now and play CS2 deathmatch [laughs].

You're at the top of the competitive scene now, but how much do you expect the scene to change when the new game comes out?

A lot of fundamentals, like understanding the game on a high level, will stay the same. But I think you will see some new players, some new young talents that grind the game, having like 150 hours in the past two weeks for the first two months. Then obviously they will be on top of everything.

For teams like us, what I have in front of me right now is like 80 hours of traveling, going to Sydney, and then to China, and that's 80 hours where I can't play CS2, and also it's just really exhausting. It's the best opportunity for any aspiring young talents and people who just want to give it a shot in the competitive scene. If I was anyone else, I would put all my free time into it.