Nicolas ‘Keoz’ Dgus has certainly had an interesting few years, from the highest of highs after reaching the Grand Final of the Paris Major, the Belgian rifler went on to an Into The Breach organisation, which ignominiously collapsed, pulling the rug from under their various rosters.
Now with TheLastResort at EPIC45, the 24-year-old sat down to speak to Esports News UK. Keoz talked in detail about Into The Breach’s roster issues, the organisation’s collapse, as well as Ash ‘ash’ Battye’s qualities as a coach, and his intent to step up individually and take on more fragging responsibility in his international roster.
Keoz interview at EPIC.LAN 45
How is it to be here at EPIC.LAN?
I mean, first time here and doing a LAN in the UK, it’s enjoyable. Really good atmosphere inside the LAN.
Reminds me of the old days where I was doing LANs in Belgium and France. It feels good to hear some people shouting and shouting back.
Were you aware of this LAN at all before coming?
Yeah, I’ve heard about EPIC.LAN but never was thinking to go there, but here it’s VRS so it makes sense to just go.
Readers will be familiar with you, because of your career, especially with GamerLegion to run at the Paris Major. That has a British connection with ash. What’s it like working with ash, and what makes him a special coach?
ash is actually really involved in the strategic part of the game, especially if he sees that there is a problem within the team – let’s say, the CT side Ancient is wrong – he will put a lot of hours into finding a way to make it work.
He will show you on the server how he wants it, and then the players just need to add up to what he says or add more things on top of that. I feel like people can really trust what he’s saying, because when we were trusting him so far, it was working pretty well.
He’s even helping a lot, individually, with every player. If he sees that one of the players is struggling more, he will come to him and try to figure out something to make him step up.
At Into The Breach, can you talk about how that roster was doing prior to the organisation collapsing? What do you think the prospects of that roster were at the time or what the aims were?
I feel like it was like our expectations were higher than what we delivered. We were, I feel like, overthinking, changing a lot of stuff constantly. We were actually really trying and working, but things were not going the way we wanted.
Besides that, some clash of personality happened. I wouldn’t say it was toxic. It’s just the personalities didn’t fully match at some point.
Is that personality clash part of what led to the roster changes, which happened during that time?
Do you talk about the BOROS change first?
Yeah.
We wanted, especially smooya, who was involved in the creation of the roster, we didn’t want to have [juan]flatroo and BOROS in the same team because they basically are the same kind of player.
They’re both really aggressive, but the org decided to still get BOROS, and so we started off with not positive vibes, let’s say.
In a way that we didn’t get the roster that we wanted, basically, because the roles were not fitting as we wanted.
Okay, and then with REDSTAR coming in, was that who you guys wanted initially?
Yes, we actually wanted REDSTAR initially. He had already talked with ITB before Boros joined but things didn’t instantly go like in an agreement.
Do you think that decision from the org was kind of motivated by BOROS being a bigger name?
Yeah, I think BOROS being a bigger name, and yeah, basically just BOROS being a bigger name.
And when juanflatroo left, was that a big blow to the team?
Yeah, it was a big blow, but at the same time, being honest, it was hard having flatroo and smooya in the same lineup because it was the clash of personalities that I was talking about.
So the mood in the team wasn’t the best, and it was hard to perform there.
What would those clashes come from? Was it someone trying to take too much control of the team?
It was being fuelled by one thing, for example, that we make less mistakes, which means less freedom for the other one and it was like building up and then the bottle of water was too much filled.
So that roster may not have achieved what it wanted to in the server, but then the chance to progress was taken away from you guys by what happened with Into The Breach. Can you talk about what that was like to experience as a player?
It was definitely not a comfortable position going from one day to another becoming jobless, not getting any salary, nothing. It was tough in the moment because you just learn that from one day to another that your CEO is doing weird things with the org money.
He just basically ruined not only our roster, there was also other rosters in ITB.
Yeah… it felt just bad.
What was the thinking initially, kind of coming out of that roster? You guys stayed together for a short time. Was the goal to get picked up by an org or did you understand that you were going your separate ways?
I think everyone kind of was in the mood that that’s just the way it is. Everyone went their ways. We weren’t really talking about it, let’s say, because we were not performing and the mood was not good overall.
So we just naturally split.
You’re here playing for TheLastResort team, how was that initially arranged?
Basically, TheLastResort are helping us to go to different LAN tournaments. We are not getting paid any salaries. It’s just for the LAN expenses.
Besides that, we have a really small buyout that can either be bought or we can buy by ourselves if one of our players wants to leave or the whole team has a buyout, a different price, but also not a lot, just to put some security on the side of TLR.
You’re coming to EPIC.LAN, are you going to be returning to more EPIC.LANs?
If it’s going to be VRS, then we’re going to need the VRS points for sure.
Are there any other European LANs that you’re targeting?
I’m not aware, but as long as it’s VRS LANs, then it makes full sense to play, because we need to really grind those points to get online invites to VRS tournaments. Otherwise, we’re not even getting invites in the start.
Talking about the roster itself, I think the general feeling of the roster is that you have good individuals, good experience in the roster, and let’s say, emotionally more stable players than the Into The Breach roster, but maybe it lacks a bit of firepower.
From your experience in the server, where are you feeling that firepower is going to come from and who’s going to be the one stepping up to make the difference in the server?
I feel like in this team, it could be Vegi. When he’s playing in the most confident way, he can really out-aim anyone, but the hardest part is having him confident.
Myself as well, I need to work on my consistency as well. I’m not the most consistent player. I’m aiming to become more consistent, but in the transition from ITB to this roster, I also changed a lot of roles.
I have more star player roles, which I enjoy, and it helps me perform better within the team. I also get a lot of support, like dropped weapons and good utility from my teammates, which helps me to perform.
Does it make you feel more confident that your team is backing you that way?
Yeah, it does, definitely.
Darragh Harbinson is an esports writer specialising in Counter-Strike. He has written for Esports News UK, Esports Insider, UKCSGO, Dexerto, and Rush B Media.