N4RRATE: "After I got kicked, I didn't know if I wanted to keep competing [this] season."

Note: This article is a text port of our live interview with N4RRATE . The video interview can be found here.

N4RRATE, it's been a year for you, but how are you feeling now? You've come a long way from [an] 0-5 group stage to now lifting the Stage 2 trophy. Can you tell me a little bit of the emotions, the journey that you've been through this entire year?

It's definitely been like a bit of a roller coaster for sure. Obviously starting off with Sentinels and then moving to KC, [a] different region mid-season and then going from 0-5 to winning a trophy is very unexpected, I would say. I mean, it's very hard to be able to match that level of inconsistency where you're so inconsistent that you're going 0-5 and [then] you're just winning. So it's just weird for me. But overall, I think that I'm definitely on a super upward trend with [Karmine Corp] because I was definitely not very happy on Sentinels and after we went 0-5, and I think a lot of that is due to us losing and kind of losing myself a bit. But I think ZE1SH and our performance coach Youenn did a very good job of putting us on the right path and being able to use our negative motions not against each other and being able to build on top of each other and trying to be a real, real team. I think that helped me a lot. And I think it's part of the reason we have such great success today is that everyone is very happy to play now. Before, we probably weren't as happy to play, and now we're just giving it our all every single day.

I'm sure…We've seen before just from posts put out [on social media] that you have a lot of passion for the game, so I'm sure it can get frustrating when things aren't going your way. I do want to talk about the change and the adaptation you've gone through since coming from Sentinels, because you're actually a really interesting player; you didn't really start competing until around [2023] with MAD LIONS officially. And then you go from there to Karmine Corp and then to Sentinels and then back. So what's it like, moving between regions, between teams? I'm sure it can't be easy for you. But what's it been like competing across all these different teams over the years?

It's been a bit of a speed run, I would say. I started playing in, like, mid-2022, hit rank one very fast and then, like, instantly started competing with MAD LIONS within, like nine or eight months of me playing the game. So I think it's kind of just been really fast. I instantly went from playing on MAD LIONS for, like, only two months because our season ended instantly because we lost every game. But I got a lot of trials because of it. Trialing with infinite teams, getting accepted, but then I got rejected, [a lot of] weird stuff happened. And then, I got my only real offer from KC because [of] ENGH; he was on TSM that season and I played against him. So he always wanted to trial me because he knew I had potential. From there, everything just went really fast. We practiced a lot, won Kickoff, and then dipped really hard after. Joining Sentinels for me was kind of like, ‘All right, I'm on like the best team,' you know? And then we didn't really show such results as we expected, even though our results were very good. Our results were very good on Sentinels. But for us, we kind of set way higher expectations, which is kind of why [I'd say] maybe we didn't achieve as much as we wanted to. And then coming back to KC was kind of like, ‘Oh, am I really doing this?' Because after Sentinels, after I got kicked, I didn't know if I wanted to keep competing [this] season. So yeah, I didn't really know what to do, especially after. I wasn't surprised and I don't know if I would have continued competing if I didn't get kicked anyways; I might have just benched myself. I spoke about this in my stream. I was planning on benching myself before we played LEV last game because I felt like I wasn't impactful for the team and I wanted the team to succeed. So I knew that was kind of the only way the team would play better. And then just joining KC randomly just because I trust ZE1SH a lot. I felt like he would, you know, put me in good positions and make me happy at least playing the game. I think going 0-5 is obviously not happy, but after that I think it's been smooth sailing.

I want to compare your form now. You guys are in really nice form. You've played a bunch of different roles on Sentinels, but now you've kind of shifted over to a different role on Karmine Corp. You're pretty proficient with the attack OP as well. What's the difference between your form going into Champions this year as opposed to last year with Sentinels?

I mean, my form going into Champs last year was actually insanely good, to be honest. In the group stage of Stage 2, I [had] very good stats. I remember just dominating everybody and then [in] playoffs I definitely dipped off a bit. I had two good games against NRG, but that was kind of the end of it. Overall, I was very confident going into Champs. But I think I was very sick during Champs 2025. I was just very sick. I was not feeling good at all. So it was kind of hard for me to fully be engaged with the game. I feel like I could have provided a lot more effort? Not effort. How would I say this? More value, I guess, provided more value to the team that I know I can do. I think since coming to KC I've been playing a lot of Initiator. Then, I switched back onto kind of [a] Duelist role, especially on the start of SEN. Mainly, I'm just a confident OPer. I know how good I am with the AWP. When I first started playing the game, I was just playing a lot of Chamber and stuff. So I think when Chamber is meta now again, I'm able to just translate my skills even better than I was because I was a worse player [before] and now I'm a better player and I know exactly what I can do with the agents. I think going into this Champs, obviously, I think our form is really good. I hope the main thing for us is just to keep working hard and not really to think about the past. We won the trophy. Yes, we can celebrate for today, but [we need] to keep moving forward and just try our best to keep the same system and continue to work hard and adapt to what we need to adapt to. I think we'll go into Champs with a very good form.

Are there any teams outside the EMEA that you want to play at Champs?

Obviously I want to play every team, to be honest. I respect everybody. And it's always fun to play against new players, old players, like old as in like they've been competing for a while, not elderly.

We got a couple of those in the league, though.

I mean, sociablEE. This guy's old and he's destroying completely. I mean, it's scary. Like, you see that you see these uncs, but they're actually just shooting like babybay as well. I don't know. I don't know if they qualified to Champs yet. I don't think they have. But it would be cool to play against these teams that I've played against, like NA teams. Obviously, I'm very experienced with playing against them, same with EMEA teams. But most likely we focus on the group stage first. Obviously, Chinese teams are very not crazy, but their playstyle is so different from other regions. So it's always a cool game to play against them, and especially imagine playing against a Chinese team with the Chinese crowd. I think it'll be very, very entertaining. So I'm honestly hoping to play [against] any team. If I had to pick specific ones, Paper Rex. Obviously they're [an] amazing team. TYLOO, very interesting. I don't think we can play them, though, because we're first and they're first seed as well because they won, so we can't play them. But I think EDG, any of these Chinese teams, I think would be very fun to play against.

You're one who – as a result of being part of SEN, a pretty big org with a lot of eyes on them – [has] drawn some criticism to yourself. I'm sure you might have noticed maybe when the results weren't that great. Is there anything you want to say to the haters or fans alike?

I mean, there's nothing really to say to the haters or fans. I think people on the internet just like to troll and people like to say everything that's on their mind on the internet nowadays. I feel like people don't really have [the] social skills or know what they're saying on the internet. Even I don't have that good of social skills, I would say. Like when I'm streaming on Twitch, sometimes I'm just saying stupid stuff all day, because I'm just saying what's on my mind. And to be honest, it's just like [that] on the internet, it's like that times 10 and people have no filter at all. And I don't think people are confident in what they're saying; they're confident [in] what they're saying, but they don't have all of the information. So I think overall, if you see results are bad, they're going to hate. And if they see results are good, they're still going to hate. Nothing changes. People are going to hate you. People are going to love you. But at the end of the day, I'm still getting paid.