HLTV caught up with the Outsiders rifler after the Russian team dispatched of NIP in the lower bracket.

Outsiders kept themselves alive in the group stage of IEM Katowice, bouncing back from an opening round loss to fnatic by seeing to the elimination of Ninjas in Pyjamas following a 2-1 series victory.

Dzhami "⁠Jame⁠" Ali's side came into the Polish tournament fresh off a roster change, replacing David "⁠n0rb3r7⁠" Danielyan with Aleksandr "⁠KaiR0N-⁠" Anashkin despite having just won the IEM Rio Major in November.

To get some insight into what prompted the change and how the integration with their new 19-year-old rifler is going, HLTV spoke to Alexey "⁠Qikert⁠" Golubev, who discussed what the youngster has brought to the team so far, their performance at the event, and what the team are looking to do in Katowice.

So far so good, still alive after this NIP match and a close loss against fnatic yesterday. Can you run me through these couple of series and how you've played so far in Katowice?

How we play so far, we can't figure it out yet because we had only two best-of-threes. We are not really good at playing the first map like you saw on Vertigo, we're playing really shaky there and we're not playing our situations. It's not because we are completely bad, it's more likely because we are right now a new team, we got a new addition KaiR0N-, and our team structure changed a lot. It's really hard to get used to playing all five together for one month. We were training for one month and right now we are a new team, so the results are shaky now.

Can you tell me what happened on Vertigo here, only one round on CT side?

Against fnatic, they were just very quick in doing some plays and we didn't expect it on ramp. Ramp is a zone where everything can happen and we couldn't guess what they were going to do. They were forward in their decisions and their aggro decision were completely good, and we couldn't handle it.

Today against NIP, it was kinda the same, but a little bit different style. I think we were a little bit unlucky because we won the first buyround and there was an important round for economy, but we couldn't take it, so our economy was pretty fucked (laughs). It's hard to play on Vertigo without economy.

Tell me about the Inferno finish as well. At some point it looked like they were going to run away with it, but then you managed to have a really good run at the end. What were the adjustments made and how did you finally close it out?

On CT side it was kinda good, but then we lost offensive rounds and we lost our economy, but we just came back and got 7-8. Then we just came back on T side because we were completely confident in our T side. Right now it's kinda questionable, which side is this map, T-sided or is it CT-sided? It's kinda weird.

I wanted to go back and ask you about KaiR0N-. What was the reasoning behind looking into making a lineup change after the Major victory and this change specifically?

We wanted to move forward and test some new things in our CS. We are not a team which is satisfied with special wins like we did in the past. We want to win more and we made a really hard decision in replacing n0rb3r7 with KaiR0N-, and it's kinda like an investment into the future. That's why we took him.

Why him, what did you see in him, and how does he differ from n0rb3r7?

He brings to the team, we say to him like 'go first' and he goes first and does a lot of headshots (laughs). He's like an HS machine.

How difficult was it to introduce him into the team and into the system you have in place in comparison to n0rb3r7? Was it a simple one-for-one exchange, is he playing the same positions, or have there been any changes?

It was hard to introduce him because we only had one month in training. When you have a really big map pool in six maps and you're aiming to play these maps perfectly, at least on the tier-one level, it's really hard to introduce a new player for one month. I think he's doing good now, but we still need a lot of time to work with him to make our map pool tier-one fully.

Has there been anything you needed to improve on specifically? What are you looking to address moving on in Katowice?

First of all, we want to get to playoffs and there we will see who is strong.

What do you think about KaiR0N-'s performance so far? He has been consistent statistically, have you been happy with his individual showing?

I'm not really focusing on individual performances, I'm more focusing on macro and where he moves, what decisions he is making during the games, because usually it's more decision-making on his roles. I think he is doing really good in decision-making roles, so I'm really proud of him, but still needs a lot of time.

n0rb3r7 has remained with the team and in the language about the change it was somewhat hinted at there being a possibility that he could come back in the future. Can you clarify that?

(Leans into the microphone) No, I can't (laughs).