During an interview at the BLAST Open Porto 2026 tournament, IC Esports captain Viktor "onic" Babii shared his impressions of working with the new coach, Klesti "stikle-" Kola, discussed his development as an in-game leader, and highly praised the contribution of sniper Daniil "headtr1ck" Valitov.
According to onic, the arrival of stikle-, who additionally acts as a manager, has helped the roster look at Counter-Strike in a new way. The coach pays a lot of attention to individual work with the players, thoroughly analyzing and correcting their mistakes. Since Viktor had previously only worked with coach jR, this new approach significantly contributes to his professional growth as a captain. onic considers his role as an in-game leader to be challenging but interesting, and he aims to lead the revamped roster to significant progress.
The captain paid special attention to Daniil "headtr1ck" Valitov, noting his experience playing at a high level. onic emphasized that the sniper not only demonstrates excellent individual play but also relieves some of the pressure from the captain. Thanks to his experience, headtr1ck is able to calm the team down in stressful situations and, if necessary, take over the calling, which makes the gameplay much easier.
As a reminder, IC Esports ended their run at BLAST Open Porto 2026 after losing to FUT Esports in the group stage with a score of 0:2 in maps. The Ukrainian squad left the tournament in 9th-12th place, earning $32,500 in prize money.
The next challenge for onic's roster will be the Logitech G Play Connect 2026 tournament, with matches taking place from September 17 to 23 in Poland.
As a reminder, NAVI eliminated, Inner Circle surprise, Vitality survive: BLAST Open Porto 2026 group stage recap