KennyS explains why returning to his 2014 form isn’t his focus on G2

Kenny ‘kennyS’ Schrub might not be at his explosive best all the time on G2 Esports compared to his peak in 2014 and 2015 with Titan and EnvyUs, but the French star believes he’s feeling “much better” as a player than he was back then.

Cast your mind back to 2015. It’s the grand final of the DreamHack Cluj-Napoca Major. EnvyUs are playing Natus Vincere.

While the CIS squad were overwhelming most of the Frenchmen, kennyS was pulling clutch-after-clutch to carry his squad. He finished the map 26-18, while the rest of his team went negative. EnvyUs won the map 16-14, despite seized and GuardiaN’s best efforts.

They went on to win the series 2-0, and secure kennyS his first and only Major CS:GO title. The mantra of EnvyUs in 2015, and the Titan squad in 2014, was “in Kenny we trust.” He was a star player, but with that status comes ebbs and flows that affect your team.

If kennyS wasn’t having a good day, then Titan would struggle. However, six years on, the same problems don’t exist within G2. Sometimes Nikola ‘NiKo’ Kovač pulls out a huge game, or his cousin Nemanja ‘huNter-’ Kovač does. The team is more well-rounded.

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While you can put it down to age, kennyS believes it’s an entirely different thing. He might not be playing at his absolute peak on G2, but he’s become a better player ⁠— a consistent player ⁠— and it’s paying off.

“My objective is to — if we are going full transparency, what I’m doing right now ⁠— I’ve never done it in my whole career. I’ve never really worked in a constant way. Right now that’s what I want to do, that’s what I’m doing, and that’s what I intend to keep doing,” he told Dexerto.

“For the first time in my life I actually feel like my performances are much better than they were a few weeks ago.”

kennyS admits his peak is “not where everyone and myself want [them] to be,” but he’s taking it in his stride as part of G2’s surge to the top of Counter-Strike. He has found a way to weaponize his talent into consistent results through hard work, and it’s rewarding.

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“I feel like everything I’m doing has been rewarded by work and that is a mindset I’ve never had before because I always felt that everything I was doing ⁠— all of my performance were related to the fact that I had a special talent,” he said.

With NiKo now truly finding his footing in the squad, the pieces are falling in place for G2 to make another run at a Major in 2021 and maybe secure kennyS’ second title.