mithR on kyxsan rumors: "Changes or no changes, I don't really care"

After a lackluster grand final against Virtus.pro, Apeks earned their second, second-place finish in a row after also losing in the grand final of Elisa Masters Espoo 2023 against FURIA. The squad features a combination of experience and younger talent that has set Apeks on a successful path.

Dust2.us Jeffrey "Mnmzzz" Moore talked to Apeks Coach Torbjørn "mithR" Nyborg about the future of the squad, rumors about Damjan "kyxsan" Stoilkovski leaving for Heroic, the trial period of Apeks Rebels' graduate Ådne "sense" Fredriksen, and preparations for the upcoming RMR.

Please note that the full interview can be found below on YouTube, while the transcript has some key snippets from their conversation.

You have nawwk and jkaem, who are very experienced, but CacaNito, kyxsan, and sense are incredibly young players and it seems they have had a quick rise in only a couple of months in CS2. Do you think these young players are something you can continue to build on?

Of course. The process and the team will always be bigger than one player and we have five fantastic players, some of them are veterans, some of them are new talents coming up and, as long as we have a good and positive mix we feel very good and hopeful about our future as well.

There have been rumors about kyxsan going to Heroic, and sense is on trial with this roster. Can you give us any insight about those two players?

I'm very happy to work with Damjan [kyxsan] and will continue to be very happy to work with Damjan [kyxsan]. Changes or no changes, I know there are a lot of rumors going by, we are just taking it one day at a time, and we are making sure that we are having fun. Changes happen all the time, so it doesn't really matter what kind of team you are in, sooner or later you are going to lose a player and if you know that you are going to lose a player at some point within that team, and that makes your development stop until that change has actually happened, then I don't think you are a very good team. You need to build the foundation of growth where you are able to work through that. Changes or no changes, I don't really care at this point, to be honest. Obviously, I can't go into detail on any rumor, we don't comment that on Apeks, but in general we are happy to have these five amazing players and we are happy to work with them continuously.

The Major qualifiers are right after the player break. You guys are going to have very little time to get the ball rolling with your roster post-playerbreak. What's the priority for Apeks, coming out of the playerbreak?

We are going on a break starting now, and I'm going to be back in January 3rd. We are going to go straight to a cabin in the mountains in Norway and get some team-building going. From that point on is just about getting the grind on and preparing for the Major and the RMR. That's the plan for right now, to create a map pool that is even better, and make a set strategy of how we are going to work and play coming into the RMR and just play a lot and make sure that we are ready.