NaToSaphiX has acclimated well to life as a coach

NaToSaphiX on Imperial Valkyries: "There's been signs of weaknesses to the beast"

The NIP Impact coach backs his team at the Finals.

Dust2.us' Jeff "Mnmzzz" Moore had the opportunity to speak with Ninjas in Pyjamas Impact coach Niels Christian "NaToSaphiX" Sillassen ahead of his team's second group stage match with Imperial Valkyries.

NaToSaphiX spoke about his side's prospects at the ESL Impact Finals, his transition from playing to coaching, and his future as a coach.

The full interview can be found below on YouTube, with key snippets underneath. All questions and answers below have been slightly edited for length and clarity.

Looking towards that next, you're most likely going to be playing Imperial Valkyries, the team that all other Impact teams are compared to and the one that all other teams need to beat. You didn't have the chance to meet them in the regular season due to being in Group A versus Group B, how are you feeling your prep's going for that team?

I still have some prep to do. Overall, there's been a lack of time. When you have a new match two hours later, it's always a struggle, but I'm really looking forward to the match, honestly. Imperial's always a really good opponent. There's been signs of weaknesses to the beast.

Hopefully, they've lost some confidence, losing a lot of matches against the better male teams. I'm hoping we can use that against them. A best-of-one is easier to win than a best-of-three, so we start there. Let's hope we win it and we go straight to playoffs.

I don't think they've really taken home any wins against mixed teams. Who do you think comes out ahead on this exchange, is it more important for you team to have confidence from not having to face those losses or is it more valuable that they got to play better teams throughout the season?

Yeah, I think it's an interesting question. I'll have to think about it myself. We had a few tournaments, and I think all teams like even Eco Warriors and BIG, they also played some of the better [ESEA] Main teams, and yeah, every time we did, we basically got destroyed. It's obviously a learning process, and I think when you lose 13-0, or 13-1, or 13-2, 13-3, you get almost nothing from that match, and you almost lose confidence. And I think the hope was they would start making some of the matches closer, and they haven't been able to do it.

So, I'd say it's an advantage for us now, knowing that they've lost a lot of confidence because we don't have as many VRS points as them, we've not had as many invites so we haven't had the chance to lose the confidence. It's hard to say something without someone clipping it and using it against if we lose, but I'd say we are standing better in that exchange and I'm really happy with how things are looking right now.

A lot of people would remember you from your playing career, it might not be common knowledge that you're a coach now. How did that happen? How did you make the decision to go from retiring as a player in either late 2023 or early 2024 to going on to being a coach?

I think it's sort of common knowledge but maybe not that I had a lot of organizations that who didn't necessarily scam me but there was three or four organizations in a row where they told me on the day of signing, "It's not going to happen," or they stopped responding. As you get older, not having that job security and the financial stability, every time that happens, it kills you, it ruins your motivation. It happened to me three or four times in a row.

At some point I was just done with it, there's no motivation left for me to compete as a player. I knew I wanted to go into coaching but I only wanted to do it if I could work with a brand I trust. And then all of the sudden, NIP came knocking at my doorstep, and then the rest was history. If it was not NIP, had it been another organization that I had less knowledge of, I would have never accepted it. It's put me in a position where, yeah, not a lot of people know that I'm a coach but that's part of what I'm here to change.

So, we'll see what happens in the future. Had it not been NIP, I don't think I would have gotten into coaching unless I had another big O\org come my way. I'm eternally grateful for the people from NIP and for the trust and for my team.

NaToSaphiX's NIP Impact team went on to defeat Imperial Valkyries in their second group game, securing themselves a spot in the playoffs. In the semifinals, they await the winner of Supernova Comets v. Zerance/DMS.

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