KC N4RRATE: "I'm not really focused on my own happiness. I'm really happy for the organization"

Karmine Corp have qualified for the VALORANT Champions for the first time in the organization’s history following a very convincing Summer Split in VCT EMEA. On Friday, the Blue Wall defeated FUT Esports 2-0 in the Upper Bracket Final, sending them through to the Stage 2 Grand Final.

After the match in Barcelona, Marshall “N4RRATE” Massey joined us for an interview to discuss the series against FUT, what has changed within the team over the past few months, Ahmed “ZE1SH” Sheikh’s impact on the team, and Chamber’s place in the current meta.

Marshall "N4RRATE" Massey: “Overall, I'm very happy that we were able to achieve this. In our heads, at least, we haven't achieved anything yet, but obviously making it to the Champions is a very good thing, especially for the org. So I'm happier for the org than I am for the team. We're mainly focused on just taking each game one by one.

As for beating FUT, they're a very strong team, and I'm always happy to play against them because they're strong. I like playing against strong teams. We got a bit of revenge because they beat us in Stage 1 and they kind of spat on our faces a bit. So I'm happy to win this in this fashion.

N4RRATE: The thing that changed the most, at least what made us go from a losing team to a winning team, I would say, is our team culture. We had the hard work and all the dedication we needed, but nothing was working. I don't think the hard work changed at all. In fact, we probably worked slightly less than we did before.

The main thing we focused on was team culture as the biggest change. Focusing on being nice to each other—I know it sounds stupid—and giving feedback in good ways and understanding your teammates that you're around. How do they receive criticism? How do they like to be talked to? How do they think about the game and themselves? And giving everybody a voice inside the team. Everyone is very vocal around each other, so that's kind of the most important thing that we were able to change in between then and now.

N4RRATE: I've always thought ZE1SH is an amazing coach. I've always wanted to team up with him. Even after I left, I still thought about it. In the back of my mind, I was always like, "I want to team up with this guy," because he's such an intelligent coach and he knows how to work with people. The thing he's doing the best right now with the change is hard focusing on making each other better people and better people to be around.

He's very social, so he understands social cues. He understands when someone's feeling bad, he understands when someone is feeling good or whatever, and he's just trying to play around with this a lot. That's his main focus: trying to get everybody kind of like a friend group, so we all understand each other, and we're not sitting there with resentment. He's helping people talk with people.

The same thing with our other coach (Simone "simoz" Giovannini). They're both working together to help us become better people. And other than that, ZE1SH is mainly focusing us on win conditions. Obviously, the comps we're creating are very similar.

Most of the time we're playing one or two comps on all the maps. We're changing one or two agents, so everyone's playing the same role. What we're focusing on is how we're playing and not caring about what the other team is doing. Focusing on our own win conditions and how we like to win is a big thing that he's doing.

N4RRATE: I would say it doesn't feel that good, like as good as you would expect. Obviously, I'm happy to be in the Grand Final, and I'm hoping that, on the Grand Final day, I'm not thinking, "Oh my God, this is the Grand Final." Hopefully, I'm just going to take it as another game. But obviously, it's a very good accomplishment for this team, and I'm very happy to be able to do it for the org itself.

I'm not really focused on my own happiness. I'm really happy for the org and the fact that we're able to qualify for Worlds with this org. I just feel like they've created such a very good organization and environment to play in, and it's deserving of them to be able to make it to this spot. I'm just very happy for the org. Proud, I guess. It's just the feeling of being proud that I helped the team get the org to this spot, and I'm just happy for them.

N4RRATE: I would say we did not invent the Chamber meta. It was definitely Leviatán; they were leaning into Chamber a lot. Even during Kickoff, 100 Thieves in 2026 were playing Chamber as well. I kind of knew that Chamber would be very good in the meta, and obviously ZE1SH knew as well. So we tried to focus our comps around, "Is Chamber good on this map? Let's try to play Chamber," and try to focus on how we're going to make the rest of the roles work.

A lot of the maps where I'm playing Chamber are very slow maps. You can play very slow. On maps like Haven, we're playing Phoenix. Even though Chamber is very good on this map, we just don't have the correct team for it. We can still play it, but it's not putting us individually in our best roles. Chamber is just a very strong agent.

When I first started playing the game, I literally one-tricked Chamber in 2022 when he was super broken. I was just spamming Chamber and Jett, so I'm very good at these kinds of roles. I understand how to play Chamber at a very high level. Even some of the Chamber players you see, like Demon1 (Maximilian Mazanov) or Neon (Bruno Rodríguez), they're not actually that good at Chamber, but they're very good players; they're insane players.

Their Chamber tech is just not that good, and I feel like my Chamber tech is extremely high-level because I've been playing it for so long. But overall, the character is just very strong, and people who are very good at the game can abuse him.

N4RRATE: If you think about it, most teams are playing double Duelists, so a lot of the time you only have one Cypher trap or whatever. When you're playing Chamber, you yourself are the Sentinel setup. It's way harder to deal with a Chamber player fighting you than it is when you know, "Oh, this Cypher is going to put a trap here" or "this Vyse is going to put a wall here."

When a Chamber is just walking out in front of you, you throw a piece of utility at him, and he doesn't move; he breaks your utility, and you don't get anything off it. You still have to do more, and it makes it very difficult to save utility and take space. You can see it in the matches: people are using a lot of utility on Chamber and not capitalizing on it.

It's very hard to play against because at any time this guy could be on a random angle, and then he has a get-out-of-jail-free card. That's just the most annoying thing. That's why Yoru was so good, and he's starting to come back a bit. Any agent that has that get-out-of-jail-free card is just very annoying to play against.

N4RRATE: To me, it's hard to tell who will make it to the Grand Final. It's very hard. Fire Flux is a very interesting team. Kachoww (Samet Arıcı) is a very good player, and he's been—I’m not going to say hard carrying them, but he's been really impressive. It would be cool to play against him. That's what I'm hoping for a bit, that I get to play against somebody who is just very talented and who I haven't played against that much.

I don't really know him. He knows a lot about the game, and he's very smart. That's why I don't like when people say, "Oh, young kids, they're just aiming. They're running around aiming." No, these guys are insane. They're insanely smart and insanely talented. So I would like to play Fire Flux, but overall any of these teams can make it to the Grand Final.

TL is a very strong team. They're one of the most consistent teams in EMEA, and they have a very high floor, so you're never getting a bad Team Liquid. At least they will play well or they'll play very well, and they can win, so it's hard to tell. Since FUT lost, it might be harder for them to make it to the final just because they have to play back-to-back-to-back days, so it might be a bit more difficult for them.

But it might be a good experience for them that they lost to us so they can learn from it and maybe come back stronger as well. They're already a very strong team, so it's scary. But overall, whatever we face in the Grand Final, we don't really have expectations of winning, I guess. We're just going to play another VALORANT match.”