After emerging victorious from a hard-fought series against
BBL Esports,
NRG have secured their place in the
Esports World Cup Grand Final. The reigning
VALORANT Champions 2025 winners have rediscovered their winning form in Paris and will now look to claim their first title since the end of last season in an all-
VCT Americas final against
100 Thieves.
Following their quarterfinal victory over Gentle Mates, Logan "skuba" Jenkins told Sheep Esports that he was particularly wary of BBL's highly aggressive playstyle. The Turkish side showcased exactly why, cruising to a dominant 13-4 win on Haven before taking control of Breeze. However, NRG refused to back down, mounting an impressive comeback on the second half to steal the map before closing out the series on Lotus, a map they have mastered throughout the tournament, remaining undefeated on it so far.
Ahead of Sunday's Grand Final, Georgio "keiko" Sanassy spoke with Sheep Esports about his team's current form and confidence heading into the tournament's decisive match.
What’s your first feeling after the game?
Georgio "keiko" Sanassy: “Super happy, we bounced back after the Haven loss. It was a pretty hard series, not gonna lie, but we pulled through, we're really resilient and I'm happy for that.
BBL are known for their very aggressive play style, they show it on the first map. How did you prepare to deal against them today?
keiko: We've practiced them a lot, they're like our best scrim partners, so we are used to them already. They just had some really good anti-strat on Haven for us and they played really well aggressively. They have really oppressive, sort of like aggressive rounds and they're all aiming really hard so it's a hard thing to deal with in the moment but we did it well.
Tomorrow is going to be a 100 % VCT Americas finals against 100 Thieves. How do you feel about the matchup against them?
keiko: I am pretty confident against 100 Thieves. I think regionally we played really good against them. And every time I played against them I feel pretty confident in myself.
Are you satisfied with how you've been playing in the tournament so far? Do you feel like you've been able to show what your team is really truly capable of?
keiko: I'm happy with my comms this tournament. I think my fragging is a little bit worse just because we haven't had much time to prepare some of these comps so we're kind of like freestyling a little bit. So it's a little bit harder for me to get more value. But you know we're just trying to figure it out day by day so yeah.
Do you feel like you are at your best level now since the beginning of the year as a team?
keiko: I'm not sure. It's pretty hard to tell just because we're playing new comps and everything like this so yeah, we're going to see it by the end of this event.
So far, the crowd cheered against you most of the time because you played the local team and there was a lot of BBL fans today. How are you dealing with the crowd on stage personally?
keiko: It's pretty fun. Obviously there's going to be a home crowd advantage to the French teams but it doesn't really affect us. I think everyone in the team is very experienced, so we're kind of used to the shouting, the booing. I've experienced it with Gentle Mates fans before, in a sense.
What is your best memory with a crowd on stage?
keiko: Definitely my best experience was Santiago. It was when we made our run to top three, and it was a really loud crowd.
Some fans tend to think EWC’s level is not as high as Masters London or that teams are playing it less seriously or not with the same intensity. What’s your feeling about that?
keiko: As a player, I would way rather win Masters but you know this is how it is. I think it's different because it's a single elimination bracket. There's not a lot of time between matches, not a lot of practice that you can put in. So I think it's not as intense as a Masters in terms of competition level.”
