The level of Counter-Strike on display from G2 here in London was nothing short of fantastic, and you’d be forgiven for thinking they’d been established for a long time. But not only is that not the case, it was also Nemanja “huNter-“ Kovač’s first time calling the shots in front of a crowd.
G2 took the title at BLAST Open London 2025 and ruined the home crowd’s hopes of seeing their king, William “mezii” Merriman, lift it instead. Truthfully, however, the crowd was evenly split between G2 and Vitality for the Grand Finals, and huNter- made good use of that to help propel his side to their first event win this year.
Speaking to UKCSGO after the finals, huNter- talks about his feelings after the win, the 24th round on Inferno and the support of the UK crowd.
First Crowd event with iteration of G2. First crowd event for yourself as an in-game leader. What are the emotions going through your head now that you’ve taken home the trophy?
It’s just an amazing story; it feels like a dream. I need to sleep tonight to understand what we did at this event. It’s an amazing story and I cannot believe that we did it. Just enjoying the moment right now.
For the first map and the fifth map of that series, it was really comfortable for you guys. What do you think went so right for you during those two maps?
I think it was our confidence; we have been building confidence since the group stage. We beat Spirit, and then we came here and kind of destroyed FaZe and Furia. That confidence and the crowd, of course, supported us and pushed us to our limits. I think we played our game, we’ve played a lot, we’ve worked a lot, we’ve practised a lot, since we met each other. There are a lot of aspects why we did so well.
Hunter lifting his first trophy as an IGL
Speaking of the crowd, the last two matches you played have been fairly one-sided in favour of the team you were playing against. This time around, for the final, it was fairly 50-50, especially considering mezii on the other side. Were you expecting that?
No, not at all. In the quarter-finals, when we played against FaZe, it felt like we had maybe 10 per cent of the crowd, then against Furia, it was a bit more, maybe 20 or 30 per cent. But today I felt that it was even. I don’t know why, mezii is kind of the king here in the UK, so I didn’t expect that. But I’m really, really happy because of it. There’s a reason people like us here, and I’m looking forward to playing more events here.
Take me to round 24 on Inferno. You’re one round away from pushing it to overtime, and the money is not looking great. For you as an in-game leader, that’s got to be one of the most stressful rounds of Counter-Strike you may ever play. How did you push through that, and what was the call you made to make sure you got it over the line?
My call was to just play four A in case they want to do fast pops. I know they have a few fast pops on A, and they like to play a bit slower on B. Then, if they don’t come, at a certain point, we over-rotate and push them at the back. That was the plan, nothing special. There was not so much pressure because we were underdogs throughout the whole event. Especially in the playoffs against every team we played, and especially today. So we just came here, we knew that we had nothing to lose, we could only win. That’s how we played. We enjoy playing with each other. We enjoyed this crowd, we enjoy the moments, and whatever happens, it will happen, that’s all.
Finally, how are you going to celebrate here in London now that you’ve won that trophy?
I mean, I am really, really tired, and everybody is really tired, and we have a lot of early flights in the morning tomorrow. We also travel in two days to the next event. So tonight, of course, we will celebrate until some point, but we need to be a bit more chilled, but yeah, some beers would be good.
