After showing strong promise at
Project Blender and unveiling a new roster for the 2026 season,
Karmine Corp have already been eliminated from the
VCT EMEA Kickoff following last week’s loss to
Team Heretics. Despite a steady improvement over the course of its matches, the French organization remains just short of qualifying for an international event.
The team has not competed at a Masters tournament since Madrid in 2024. Despite this prolonged wait, the club’s staff remain confident moving forward. Entering his fifth year with the organization, assistant coach Ahmed "ZE1SH" Sheikh shared his initial impressions of the new roster with Sheep Esports.
What is your first feeling after today's loss?
Ahmed "ZE1SH" Sheikh: "I'm tilted because I think we were better than them. We always had the reads, we were always in the right place in defense and there are a lot of rounds we should have won. So it's frustrating. That's also how you recognize great players and a great team. When you don't troll in these moments, that's where you win. That's what makes the difference on VALORANT. Unfortunately, we couldn't do it now, but I have great hopes because we're not the same team as we were against NAVI in first game. I'm still on a lot of positive.
Team Heretics didn't make the best start in this Kickoff. How did you prepare for this game? Did you expect it to be more within your reach than the previous ones?
ZE1SH: Honestly, on VALORANT and, especially now in EMEA, apart from BBL, I don't think there is a team that is much better than the others. Gentle Mates are good, but I don't think they are unbeatable either but it's only my opinion. I think we could beat everyone on a good day, apart from BBL and their way of playing, because it's a bit annoying for our team. But overall, I don't care who we play. I just want us to play our games and not be afraid. And we improved compared to the games against NAVI. But there are still small moments where we hesitate too much and that kind of thing.
You started with a 13-2 win on Abyss against them and won on the same score against Team Liquid before. Would you say it was your comfort pick, and why can't you play the same way in other maps?
ZE1SH: Maybe people will not believe me, whatever, but when we practice, I swear that the way we play is very different. We play a lot better than that regarding the decisions we take in the moment of chaos. That's why, as I said, I'm staying on the positive, and I know that when we find our comfort on stage and stop shaking, we'll be better. What we do on Abyss, we do it on other maps in practice. When we roll, we roll, but when it's a bit hard, we fall too much on the pressure. As I said, I'm very positive because I know there's been lot of improvement on this tournament. Unfortunately, it's not necessarily what we wanted.
How do you explain this problem to suffer from the pressure? Is it related to the new roster, a lack of experience or something else?
ZE1SH: It's the beginning of the team, we need to build relationships between each player, make sure they are more connected. We have an IGL that is not an IGL at first, so we have to rework everything. I don't think there are a lot of magicians like that, who can make a team works from the beginning. We don't see a lot of rosters like Gentle Mates who rebuild everything and who can click from the start. For example, Team Liquid is struggling a lot, Fnatic is struggling a bit, even if they won against NAVI, they won on a lot of clutches, but still time. I know that as soon as we will fix our problems, we'll be much better than we are today. Even if, as I said, I don't want people to only see the negative side. We showed a lot of positives in the last three games. We throw, but we show a lot of good, whereas against NAVI, we just didn't connect to the server.
To talk about your last offseason, you already had some issues with the IGL role, so wasn't it a risky bet to get Bogdan "Sheydos" Naumov, who wasn't one before this year?
ZE1SH: Risky or not risky, when you don't have a choice, you must deal with it. Either you take an IGL from tier 2 who is bad and who doesn't shoot straight, and because you don't have the budget for the guys above, who are really good or already IGL in the profession. Either you take a guy, and you bet on him to train him, and that's it. Unfortunately, that's the reality of the market, you do with what you have, and that's it. We made with what we had, it's true, but we don't show bad things, we trolled micro rounds, micro situations. I think we play well enough in-game. All I know is that we don't lose on our way of playing or on what we do, we just make stupid mistakes.
What do you think about the individual performances of your new players so far?
ZE1SH: We had a big rise in power from LêwN (Burak Alkan) and Dos9 (Dastan Zhumagali), who had a hard time in the first match, and then they did well. SUYGETSU (Dmitrii Iliushin) is always consistent on his level; he's very good. Sheydos had a hard time getting into this tournament, but as we said, there's a lot of pressure on him, he has a lot more work to than the others, he has lot more stuff to hold on to than the others, so he's not at the top of his individual but he has brought a lot of other things and I trust him for the future. Then avez (Hazem Khaled), as always, is very important in the vocals, brings a lot of things to the team, very good aim individually etc. I think he's a little bit frustrated because he expected more from himself. But he didn't underperform or overperform, he was normal.
Last year, you were working with him to make sure he had as much confidence on stage as he had in scrims. Did he make progress on that, or are you still working on it with him?
ZE1SH: He's a lot freer, honestly. He takes less pressure, but it's stuff you have to work on constantly. I have a stronger relationship with him as I'm Egyptian, so I obviously talk directly with him. Like Engh (Andrey Sholokhov) will talk directly in Russian with Sheydos, SUYGETSU, or Dos9. We try to make things better. I think he's more comfortable than in his rookie year.
Was it acceptable to say that your team would need time and aim to be better after a few months of competition or did you expect a better start?
ZE1SH: I never think that it's okay to be eliminated from a tournament. Right now I am just disappointed we don't have more officials, because as we have seen since the beginning of the league, we were gradually getting stronger. Even if we lose our matches, people who understand the game know that we fixed a lot of things and that's what I like. I'm very positive because I see evolution every week, from match to match, review to review, I see evolution and I see that we manage to move some demons that we have, not all, but I see positivity and progress. If I don't, it's the moment when I understand that our ceiling is right there. But from what I've seen in our games, on the reviews and between each game, our ceiling is very far away. And after maybe we will never be able to fix our problems, and that's life, that's competition. But in any case, we have evolved well since the beginning, even if it wasn't translated by victories, I'm still proud of the players, I'm proud of the team because they implemented a lot of things that we had problems with in the first match.
What's the next step for you now? What do you think you must improve for the next competition this year?
ZE1SH: I think I need to think about it, I don't have clear ideas now, I'm a little emotional. I think we will have to work on communication in chaotic moments. But it's just hard to find solutions to emotions. You can have keywords like we have. But sometimes when you're getting excited, you'll give it to everyone next to you and no one will be calm, no one will be just "relax". These are moments as a coach it's hard to fix. I never found the solution, but we'll have to. I'll look at some psychological aspects on the internet some ways, or people who have already studied it, even if I've already done it many times. But I currently don't have the solution to our main problem."
