NEO Reveals His Plans for Astralis in Exclusive Stake Interview

Filip “NEO” Kubski wasn’t planning to rush into another coaching job. After almost three years behind FaZe Clan, the Polish Counter Strike legend had earned the right to slow down. Coaching an international team means months of preparation and long tournament trips, so with two children at home, NEO was ready to enjoy a period without flights, practice schedules and the constant pressure of elite competition.

Then Astralis called. In an exclusive interview with Stake.com, NEO admitted that he initially had doubts about returning. At the time, he wasn’t actively searching for a coaching position and had even considered whether his next step might take him in a different direction, but the invitation from Astralis changed his mind.

The opportunity wasn’t simply about rebuilding a famous team, but a chance to work with a young international team that had already shown promising signs but hadn’t yet found consistency.

NEO’s arrival was officially announced on July 16th, alongside performance coach Urszula “Xirreth” Klimczak. It also marked the first time Astralis had appointed a non Danish head coach.

His first tournaments will arrive quickly. Astralis are entering the BLAST Bounty Summer campaign before turning their attention toward the Esports World Cup. There will be no long, quiet preparation.

NEO, however, is not promising an immediate transformation. His first objective is much simpler: make Astralis stable, respected and increasingly difficult to play against.

NEO’s Plan Starts with Consistency

NEO’s early targets are ambitious and realistic. He’s not guaranteeing an Esports World Cup title or that a few weeks of practice will return Astralis to the level that dominated professional Counter Strike a few years ago. Instead, he wants the team to be part of the top teams again.

That begins with consistency. NEO would like to see the team regularly reaching the playoff stages rather than producing one impressive run followed by an early elimination. He also wants Astralis to become the type of opponent that teams would prefer to avoid.

NEO was genuine when he said that the current roster is not going to yield immediate results. His preferred starting point is more practical: become dependable, establish a high level and make sure no opponent expects an easy series.

As he explained in the Stake interview, reaching the playoffs at every tournament would be meaningful progress. From there, Astralis could begin moving from a dangerous outsider to a regular title contender.

NEO Is Still Learning as a Coach

NEO began competing a long time ago, and his career stretches across multiple versions of Counter Strike, from 1.6 to Global Offensive and now CS2.

He was a central member of Poland’s legendary Golden Five and won the EMS One Katowice Major with Virtus.pro in 2014. He later moved into coaching with FaZe, helping the team reach three Major finals and win tournaments including IEM Sydney, the CS Asia Championships and IEM Chengdu.

Yet NEO still describes himself as relatively new to coaching. He played for around 20 years but has coached for only three, for the same team. Joining Astralis means adjusting to different personalities and routines.

NEO must first understand how the players work before deciding what needs to change. He has already noticed areas that can be improved, but his approach won’t be based on replacing everything Astralis currently does. The players already understand Counter Strike. The problem is that their best version isn’t consistent.

Xirreth Gives Astralis Support Beyond the Server

Urszula “Xirreth” Klimczak joins Astralis with experience from ENCE and NAVI. She worked with NAVI’s Counter Strike and Valorant teams for more than two years, including the team’s successful run at the 2024 Copenhagen Major. Before that, she helped ENCE during a period in which the team climbed to second position in the world rankings and won IEM Dallas.

As a performance coach, Xirreth will work on preparation, motivation, player relationships, communication, and the ability to handle pressure. NEO didn’t have that level of support during his time coaching FaZe. He believes Xirreth can make his work easier while also helping the players improve away from the tactical side of the game.

Switching from Danish to English affects more than basic communication. Players must explain complicated ideas quickly, react to unexpected situations and remain precise during the most stressful rounds of a match. Small misunderstandings can change an entire match.

The Astralis Roster Has More Than Individual Firepower

Before accepting the position, NEO examined what each Astralis player could bring.

Martin “stavn” Lund is no longer part of the current lineup, but the roster still includes several players with different strengths and levels of experience. Victor “Staehr” Staehr and Jakob “jabbi” Nygaard provide the established Danish core, while Rasmus “HooXi” Nielsen leads the team in English. NEO was already familiar with those three.

Staehr had earned a reputation as a dependable rifler. Jabbi had shown his ability across several roles, while HooXi was widely known for his work as an in game leader. The two less familiar players were Oldřich “ryu” Kovařík and Love “phzy” Smidebrant.

NEO had seen phzy produce difficult AWP shots and understood his potential. He knew less about ryu before studying the lineup more closely. Rather than identifying one obvious star, NEO saw a roster with a range of personalities and qualities. His belief is that Astralis can become very strong when those pieces operate as one team.

Jabbi May Be the Player Holding Astralis Together

One of the most interesting parts of NEO’s Stake interview concerned jabbi. From the outside, players are often judged through ratings, opening kills, clutches and highlight rounds. Those statistics reveal plenty, but they don’t show who is organizing the team’s communication.

After listening to Astralis in practice, NEO began to understand how much jabbi contributes. He described the Danish rifler as one of the team’s crucial figures. Jabbi brings ideas, controls parts of the game and regularly helps HooXi with leadership.

The exact contribution changes depending on the map. Staehr may become more involved in certain positions, while other players can also speak up. Jabbi, however, appears to have a particularly important influence on the team’s connection. That type of player can be easy to underestimate.

HooXi Knows What Astralis Should Do

HooXi previously explained that Astralis often knew what they needed to do but struggled to execute those ideas during official matches. NEO recognizes the problem.

Practice can prepare a player for certain scenarios, but it can’t completely mimic the pressure of an elimination match. Repetition gradually turns decisions into habits, allowing players to react in difficult moments.

NEO’s responsibility is to create a daily environment in which those habits can develop. That includes tactical practice, but it also means setting clear standards for communication, preparation and decision making. If Astralis repeat the right actions often enough during practice, they are more likely to trust those actions in a real match.

Cache Gives NEO an Early Tactical Project

NEO is beginning his Astralis career just as Cache returns. His long playing career gives him previous experience on the map. The earlier version of Cache belonged to a different game, and several current players never competed on it at the highest level.

Preparation begins with basic positioning, map names and grenade lineups. From there, teams can develop more advanced strategies, rotations and responses.

Astralis have already started playing Cache in practice. NEO said the early experience had been positive and that the map already felt good, although the real test will arrive once teams begin using it in official matches.

NEO’s familiarity with older versions of Cache should help Astralis begin the learning process. His success will depend on how well the team updates those old principles for modern CS2.

BLAST Bounty Summer Will Show the Starting Point

NEO is not setting a specific target for BLAST Bounty Summer. He doesn’t want Astralis to enter one event believing that anything below a final would represent failure. The team has only recently begun working with its new coaching staff, so expectations should be at a lower level.

NEO wants the players to produce their best Counter Strike one match at a time. The Bounty format leaves little room for a slow start. It is a single elimination competition, so one poor series can end a team’s tournament.

Astralis will need to find a balance between introducing NEO’s ideas and retaining the parts of their existing game. Too many changes could create hesitation. Too few could leave the same problems unresolved.

The first matches should offer a clearer picture of what NEO has prioritized. Supporters can look for more stable mid round decisions, better recovery after lost advantages and fewer stretches in which the team appears uncertain about who should take responsibility for the next move.

Results will receive most of the attention, but Astralis’ general response to pressure may reveal more about the early coaching work.

The Esports World Cup Brings a Different Level of Pressure

The Esports World Cup will provide another major test. Large international events bring a level of attention that can’t be recreated in practice. Every mistake receives more scrutiny, and teams have less time to recover from a poor map.

Astralis will arrive with a new coach, a developing international roster and high expectations.

NEO has experienced that environment from both sides. As a player, he competed in some of the biggest matches in Counter Strike history. As FaZe’s coach, he worked with a team that entered almost every tournament to challenge for the title.

That experience doesn’t guarantee that Astralis will have immediate success, but it gives the team a coach who understands how quickly a major event can change. He knows the difference between a disappointing opening map and a genuine structural problem. He has also seen teams recover from difficult periods.

NEO Is Watching FURIA, Spirit, Vitality and Falcons

When asked which teams are currently pushing CS2 forward, NEO didn’t select only one. He mentioned FURIA, Spirit, Vitality and Falcons as teams worth studying. Each approaches the game differently, which is exactly what he enjoys about the current level of professional Counter Strike.

Top teams now use the video footage to analyze and copy new ideas from others. That doesn’t mean Astralis should simply reproduce a Vitality execute or use a Spirit defensive setup. NEO explained that borrowed ideas must be adjusted to fit the players using them.

A strategy is another thing Astralis has to work on. The team may see an opponent use a particular grenade sequence, but the full idea could depend on the positions that follow, the information gathered elsewhere or the individual player trusted to take the opening duel. Copying the visible part without understanding the purpose won’t produce the same result.

Astralis Are Building for More Than One Tournament

Astralis CEO Jonas Gundersen described the appointments of NEO and Xirreth as an investment in the team’s future. Ambition is not limited to winning one trophy. Astralis wants to build a stable performance capable of supporting long term success.

He places responsibility on the new staff, but it also gives them some protection from unrealistic short term demands. The team is publicly accepting that improvement may require time.

NEO has been equally careful with his promises. He would love to reach the point where Astralis are regularly mentioned beside the leading CS2 teams. His ideal outcome is for opponents, analysts and supporters to view them as genuine contenders before every event.

He’s not claiming they have reached that point. The immediate work involves learning the players, strengthening their habits and helping them produce the same quality under tournament pressure that they sometimes show in practice. BLAST Bounty Summer and the Esports World Cup will provide the first evidence of how quickly that work is progressing.

The Astralis Name Still Comes with Expectations

NEO understands that patience has limits when a team carries the Astralis name. Supporters remember Major titles, era defining tactics and a roster that made reaching finals appear routine. Every new lineup is compared with that standard.

Recreating the past is not a realistic target. Becoming respected again is.

NEO wants Astralis to reach the point where playoff appearances are expected, not celebrated as a surprise. He wants opponents to prepare for them with genuine concern. Eventually, he wants the team to arrive at major tournaments as one of the favorites. That journey will require more than one strong performance.