oSee on re-joining NRG: "It gave me confidence that they wanted me back"

Dust2.us' editor-in-chief Jeffrey "Mnmzzz" Moore had the chance to speak with Josh "oSee" Ohm after his NRG side defeated Marsborne to clinch playoffs at FRAG Miami 2.

oSee commented on the Danny "Cxzi" Strzelczyk-led Marsborne side, his return to competition with NRG, and trying to reach his peak form once more.

The video interview is below, with a complete transcription underneath. All questions and answers have been slightly edited for length and clarity.

Good win for you guys, maybe closer than you expected after that double overtime on Mirage. Overall, how are you feeling coming out of that series?

I feel good. I didn't expect it to be such a close game in terms of being prepared for it. I haven't played for six months or so coming back into it and having a game like that, it really brings me back to when I was competing before.

It was a lot of fun. It was a good game and Marsborne played really well so I have to give props to them.

Of course this is your first time playing the Cxzi-led version of Marsborne who played really great, are you impressed by how he's doing as an IGL?

Yeah, to be honest, when they first picked him up as IGL I was a little skeptical. After watching them play and playing against them he definitely has a good idea of how to run the team. I've only seen improvement from their team since he's joined so he's definitely been putting in the work.

As you said, first event back since returning to replace XotiC on the squad. Good overall individual performances in Miami, how are you feeling about your match fitness?

I'm feeling good. I can still feel a little bit of rust in those tense moments. We also didn't practice at all coming into this tournament, so I just had PUGs to go off of for the last few months. When you actually get in real situations and team environments, it's sometimes a little hard to pick up on. I think I did a pretty decent job.

Let's talk about your return to NRG. You were benched in the lead-up to Fragadelphia 19 following the Austin Major. What have you been up to since you were on the bench? Were there any offers you were looking at?

I would say that I did have a few offers. I felt a little bit of burnout towards the end of my run in NRG. I decided that a longer break than the usual one-month player break that you get would be good for me.

During that break, I took time for myself to step away from Counter-Strike, do more things outside the computer, and focus on my health a little bit more. Overall, it was a great time for me to take a break. Now that I'm back I feel a lot more motivated and high-energy. I feel really good coming back now.

You've been a tier-one pro for a long time now, stretching all the way back to Extra Salt, Complexity, Liquid, etc. I'm interested to hear that you ended up feeling burnt out toward the end of your first stint with NRG. Why do you think you got burned out at NRG this summer?

I would say, overall, the time I had on NRG before was pretty tough for me. We built a new squad, we had daps and me come in with three other players who we never worked with. Starting from that to getting to the point we were before I was benched was a lot of trial and error. I was pretty disappointed in myself in terms of how I performed on NRG.

It's hard when you don't take enough time away from the game or social media, it's hard to get out of that mindset when you lose confidence and try and get that confidence back. I was at an all-time low in confidence towards the end of that, so I think that, combined with not really having more than a month break at a time in the past few years, accounted for it.

XotiC leaves the team and then they go and re-add you to the squad. I don't know if that was a certain thing where if XotiC leaves we're gonna bring oSee back. How do you feel about that vote of confidence from your former teammates to say, "Ok, we can bring oSee back and we think we can be successful with him." Is that vote of confidence inspiring to you?

Yeah, it gave me confidence that they wanted me back, it shows that I was doing things right. Maybe my individual form wasn't the best or I was low-confidence but my way of being a teammate and how I thought about the game showed that they still believed in that. It gave me a lot of confidence knowing that they still wanted me back.

I don't think that there are many teams that want to bring a player back from the bench. It was really nice to hear from them again and re-join with my past teammates.

Speaking of your past teammates, now you're reuniting with Sonic who you worked with on Cloud9 and Extra Salt. What's it like being with Sonic again, and how has he changed as a player in the few years you guys have been apart?

Re-joining with Sonic was some of the reason why I was really excited to come back. We have a lot of history together, not just inside the game but outside the game, as well.

For him has a player, he's been a lot more vocal, he isn't afraid to do whatever he wants. Not to say he was afraid to do things in the past, but I think he has a better idea of how to coordinate the team and relay information better. He's more of a leader figure than he was before and that's nice to see.

With your return to NRG, we've had this conversation a couple times over the years where you're always chasing that high at Extra Salt where you were the unstoppable killing machine. Do you feel like that form is in reach again?

I think it's in reach in terms of getting to that consistency. I don't think it's possible at the part of my career I am now, I'm not here to be a selfish player and have everything made for me. I want everyone to succeed and feel comfortable. Before, I cared about myself the most. While I do want to get back to that level, I think CS2 has shown that it's been harder for AWPers.

The best AWPers right now are ZywOo, sh1ro, and m0NESY. ZywOo is basically a rifler and m0NESY is just m0NESY but he doesn't have the same numbers as he had in CS:GO, so I think this is just a different game and MR12 plays into that as well. I think in general, I can get to that level I was at in Extra Salt, just in different ways.

NRG went on to defeat GamerLegion in the Grand Final of FRAG Miami 2 to book a spot at IEM Krakow later this month.