In the eyes of CS:GO pundits and fans around the world, there’s no doubt that zonic, current Vitality CS:GO coach and former Astralis coach, is the best of all time in his job. The veteran won five CS:GO Majors in total—more than anybody—now including the BLAST Paris Major on May 21.
On top of that, zonic helped his players win several other tier-one international events over the years and was the skipper in charge of the most dominant CS:GO team ever witnessed: the 2018-19 Astralis, a squad that won three CS:GO Majors in a row.
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But, when asked by Dot Esports following the BLAST Paris Major victory over GamerLegion on May 21, zonic said he doesn’t think about whether he’s the best or not and shared precious insight about the coaching role in CS:GO.
“Obviously, yeah, stat-wise, you could argue, but for me, I don’t really think about it because there are a lot of good coaches,” Zonic told Dot Esports’ reporter Mateusz Miter after winning the BLAST Paris Major. “A lot of people have the perception that coaches are just tactical geniuses and that [this] is what makes them good, but there are just so many layers to it: how you approach the players, how you handle them individually, and how you structure their life, how you structure the planning to make sure you’re ready for every tournament.”
Many people in zonic’s place would have taken credit for winning five Majors as a coach, but the Dane actually downplayed his importance and said that the players he coached are the reason he’s so successful—because in the end, they’re the ones in the server.
“They [players] feel the game a lot more, [the coaching] work is mainly done up until the tournament,” zonic said. “I’m not thinking too much about the five Majors I’ve won, I’m just focusing on the teams that I’ve had under me, and it’s [all] definitely because of them.”
Although zonic was humble, he does have a point. The former Counter-Strike 1.6 pro coached terrific players throughout his coaching career since 2015. He guided godlike AWPers like dev1ce and ZywoO, and powerful riflers such as dupreeh, Magisk, Xyp9x, and Spinx.
Aside from winning BLAST Paris Major with Vitality, zonic won the ELEAGUE Atlanta Major in January 2017, the FACEIT London Major in September 2018, the IEM Katowice Major in March 2019, and the StarLadder Berlin Major in September 2019 with Astralis. Other than the Dane, Wilton “zews” Prado is the only other coach who has won more than one CS:GO Major, having helped the same core of players on Luminosity and later SK Gaming win back-to-back titles in 2016.
