The Sixth Player: CS:GO Coaches

DreamTeam.gg
Sep 6, 2018 · 5 min read

Most people can easily understand the concept of coaching. After all, we all had gym classes as a kid. We can remember the irony of the out of shape coaches telling us how important it is to run and stay in shape. And remember the endless laps gasping for breath as we wonder if running for 30 minutes was part of the activity or they simply forgot to blow the whistle. While running, I always wondered what kind of life decisions had to be made in order to end up as one of those coaches. Surely it wasn’t a life-long goal to teach a bunch of kids activities that didn’t want to do in the first place.

The coaches we remember growing up aren’t all coaches. There are actually coaches for just about everything. While playing the original Nintendo as a child, not once did I ever think that one day there would be coaches for video games. In fact, I never even thought about video game players needing a coach. However, that was back in 1990 before I had ever heard the word esports spoken.

Fast forward 28 years and esports is in full swing; quickly becoming the most popular sport in the world. And being a coach is an integral part.

So, let’s take a look at some of the most well known CS:GO coaches.

Danny “zonic” Sørensen

First up, Danny “zonic” Sørensen, the coach of Astralis.

Zonic has actually been in the game for some time finding success as a pro CS 1.6 player playing for teams mTw, NoA and Mousesports. Throughout his career, Zonic was able to build quite the resume of wins, including tournaments like Dreamhack, ESWC and World Cyber Games. It was around the summer of 2012 when Zonic decided to take a break from gaming; right around the time CS:GO came out. Zonic has said on multiple occasions that if he had known how big CS:GO were going to be, he would have never quit playing.

Three years after hanging up his mouse and keyboard, Zonic decided he wanted to make a run at CS:GO. He gathered up his old 1.6 crew and planned to create a team and launch a 2015 comeback. However, that dream was quickly fragged when the sponsor pulled out at the last moment. Moving forward, Zonic decided to start coaching Team Dignitas while dabbling as a player for mTw. Giving up on playing, Zonic started coaching team Questionmark and then transferred to Astralis in January of 2016, where he remains the coach or arguably the best CS:GO team in the world.

Mykhailo “kane” Blagin

The next coach we are going to discuss is Mykhailo “kane” Blagin, the coach of NaVi.

Kane first got into CS 1.6 after being injured while playing football. His first nickname was “SolomonKane”, later cutting it to just “Kane”. He played for a Ukrainian team named Pro100 from 2001 until 2007. Kane stepped away from esports in 2009 to play poker. It is a little-known fact that Kane is actually a really good poker player. During his time playing, Kane won many tournaments on PokerStars. However, winning 12,000 dollars was never enough for Kane to call it a career.

Deciding to venture back into the CS:GO world in 2015, because he noticed that he understood how to improve the current level of team play. Kane started working with FlipSid3 and then led Gambit Esports to a PGL Krakow Major victory. In 2017 Kane unexpectedly joined Zeus and became the coach of NaVi, leading what many consider to be NaVi’s best CS:GO squad of all time.

Wilton “zews” Prado

Wilton “zews” Prado is up next.

Zews is currently the coach of Team Liquid. His first nickname was Dark Angel. However, Pedro decided to change it after watching a TV show based on a character of the same name. While playing American football in US, Whilton saw the word “zews” graffitied on the field. He decided to steal the nickname and often jokes that Zeus from Na’Vi is merely a copy.

Zews understands that he has never really had much success at playing. He played for TargetDown from 2012 to mid-2013. Zews actually had more success in Source than he did in CS:GO. Zews transitioned to coaching in 2015 where he was the coach for LG and SK. He helped lead LG and SK to 2 Majors. Zews been the coach for Team Liquid for a little more than a year.

It is worth mentioning that Zews is not only the coach for Team Liquid but has also had the unusual experience of playing as a team stand-in. Zews stepped up when Liquid’s newest player, Lucas “steel” Lopez was ruled ineligible to compete due to the league’s roster lock. Steel was unable to play as he had earlier competed in qualifiers for the Americas Minor with the Immortals.

Sergey “lmbt” Bezhanov

Number four on our list is Sergey “lmbt” Bezhanov, currently the coach of mousesports.

Imbt has been around for quite some time. He was a professional player in both CS 1.6 and CS:GO. Having retired from gaming in 2010, made the transition to coaching when he joined forZe. From there he went on to coach the original Virtus.pro team, Astana Dragons, and HellRaisers. After six years away from playing, Imbt decided it was time to dust off the mouse and keyboard and give it another shot.

So in 2016, Imbt formed the team Selectah with four other Ukrainians. The team never really went anywhere and after a short stint playing again, Imbt returned to coaching to lead mousesports to 1 Major and 3 Premier victories to date. As the coach of mousesports, Imbt has to deal with 5 players from 5 different countries; meaning he has to deal with 5 different mentalities. Imbt says that synergy is very important. So important in fact, Imbt has gone to the mothers’ and girlfriends’ of all of his players to gather information that he can use to better unite the team.

Read more on our blog…

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The Ultimate Teambuilding and Skill-Growing Platform.

DreamTeam Media

DreamTeam is the ultimate teambuilding and skill-growing platform that solves problems for hundreds of millions of gamers who want to find teammates, improve skills, manage teams, and earn money.

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