Christoffer “Chr1zN” Storgaard is one of the best young IGLs in Counter-Strike. After taking OG back to a Major in Austin, the former MOUZ NXT man has now moved to HEROIC, and is looking to push them back to the top in 2026.

Although the beginning of his tenure as their leader has been disrupted by Alimzhan “Alkaren” Bitimbay’s visa issues, the results so far are already promising big things for the year, with a run to the BLAST Bounty playoffs already showing the team’s potential.

In our interview with Chr1zN, we discussed stepping up from OG, the importance of AWPers to tier one teams, and why young Danish players are better off looking for international teams than domestic ones.

Stepping up

In terms of the ranking difference between OG and HEROIC, there’s quite a big step up. Does it feel like a big step up in terms of your career?

It definitely does in the sense that I’ll be playing in different tournaments than I’ve been used to. For me, it’s just about trying to get used to a different environment and a different kind of pressure, so it’s new and a step up, but it isn’t something that bothers me or that I’m thinking about too much.

You’ve said it felt like it was the right time to leave OG, was that purely to play in these bigger events?

With OG, I was very happy there for the time that I was, but I also wanted to play at the biggest stages, so when HEROIC came, it gave me the option I was looking for. With the VRS system, it’s so hard to get up the ranking, and you have to grind a lot, so I think it was just a good time for me to try something new. 

There were quite a few roster changes during your time on OG, while HEROIC have been a bit of a stepping-stone organization in the last couple of years. As a leader looking to build a consistent system and having to get used to new players coming in frequently, do you think that time on OG will prepare you for what might happen on HEROIC if more stars move on?

Yeah, you could say that. Coming from an academy as well, I got used to people being promoted or purchased when they got above the academy level. I think that early on, I’ve been used to having to switch players and integrate people into my system, so for me, it’s just part of the game.

It’s not something I think we’re actively looking towards. We want to be the best team possible, but I’m very aware of the fact that it can happen, and that’s okay.

How are you feeling about the HEROIC team in general?

We haven’t had much time together, but I’m very impressed with everyone. People are very skilled. I had my expectations coming into it, and I can tell you that they have been met. 

There’s a lot of firepower, and the people are also good at making sure I feel comfortable while also not overstepping some of the boundaries or things that they want to do. We’re getting a good mixture right now, learning a lot about each other and making sure we get equal say in stuff. I’ve really enjoyed my time so far.

How much of a benefit is it having already worked with TOBIZ before?

It’s really nice, of course, but there’s a lot of new ideas from both me and TOBIZ. It’s been two years since we last worked together, so while it feels the same, it’s very different at the same time. A lot of the values that we share are very much the same, so we’re on the same page in the sense of what is a necessity in the team in terms of both personalities and how we treat each other. That’s something I’ve always liked about him. 

https://liquipedia.net/counterstrike/File:Chr1zN_at_BLAST_Austin_Major_2025.jpg – Chr1zN made his Major debut with HEROIC 

IGLing for AWPers

In terms of IGLing for AWPers, what do you think the difference in the impact and importance of AWPers is between tier one and tier two?

I think playing at a higher level with the AWP, it’s harder to have the same impact than in tier two. It makes it more important to be better at putting the AWPer in good positions, and also that he feels confident in the way that you’re playing. 

In the last six months or longer on OG, we had nicoodoz, who has a more unorthodox style of AWPing in the sense that he likes to rifle a lot more, so for me, it’s about getting used to having a more traditional AWPer again. I need to make sure that it works in the way I want to play.

Of course, it’s very crucial in tier one that we try to put the AWP in the position to get the impact out of it. There was a statistic recently where you could see that AWPers have dropped significantly in terms of their ratings, but there’s no change that it’s still very important.

molodoy is an outlier in that statistic because of the amount of his kills that come with the AWP, do you think that might be a meta shift we see this year? For AWPers to get more of a focus in systems again?

It’s hard to say. The way that CS2 is still being played, there’s a lot of work to be done by rifles. You see it on all the best teams, they all have three or four solid rifles, so I think it will still be a necessity for big orgs to win trophies. If you don’t have the best riflers in the world, it will just be too hard because of the playstyle.

So, I don’t think we’ll see a mega change in the sense that we’ll see more focus on AWPers, but I also think that there aren’t enough good AWPers at the moment to really make this kind of change in people’s systems.

The difficulties of the VRS system

What are your thoughts on the VRS system?

There’s still some problems with it. The amount of games you have to play is the main one. It’s nice that you can get punished for being bad and quickly drop in the rankings, but it’s too extreme because it’s really hard for a tier two team to get into tier one without a really good run at a Major or at an S tier event from an open qualifier.

For me, the most recent team we’ve seen doing that is PARIVISION, but I can’t really remember another team doing that. It’s not a closed circuit, but it still very much feels like it. There’s still work to be done.

Do you think it’s something that Valve needs to own themselves? There’s a lot that falls onto HLTV.

Yeah, I think most of the blame would be on Valve. I also think the value of games is wrong. You get a lot from LAN, so if I go to a LAN with a group of friends who have never played a HLTV game before, we still get full points. It’s very weird. 

If there was one thing you’d highlight as the biggest change needed, what would it be?

It would definitely be the LAN win distribution. We see different teams play LANs in their own slightly closed regions, and they gain a lot of points from that, which puts them in a lot of positions to get invites to a lot of events or play in qualifiers where they can move up the rankings.

The SAW-core have been abusing this a lot, and I don’t have anything against them because they used the system how it should be, but it is still a problem.

Danish vs international 

You’ve been out of the Danish national scene for a while, so how do you look at it? Six years ago it was the best in the world but now it’s fallen off a lot, why do you think that’s happened?

It’s hard to say. We had a lot of good tier two teams that just didn’t fulfil their potential. We’ve also been lacking some new talent getting used too, there was a lot of recycling on teams, which has also limited options for people. There’s not one correct answer, but when Astralis are struggling, usually the whole chain down to tier three will be struggling. I hope that Astralis will get some stability, and hopefully that will channel through the different orgs.

Right now, if I could shout out some hopeful talents, sirah is really good, and also Tauson has been playing really well on GamerLegion. There are a few out there who will make their mark in the next few years, so I’m not too worried about Danish CS, but it’s definitely not what it has been.

A lot of people forget that the two best Danish teams of all time, Astralis and HEROIC, both had star players as their IGLs. Do you think that where we are now is the knock-on effect of that? There are a lot of role players in Denmark, and not that many stars.

In Denmark, a lot of our success came from the fact that we were really good team players. I think that maybe killed some of the potential star players we could’ve had, but I also think that maybe the problem is that we’ve been struggling to use some of the younger ones that have existed, we haven’t tried to get them on better teams. sirah should have been on a higher team earlier. 

Staehr was also a star player, but then he wasn’t when he joined Astralis, so maybe we have used some of them wrong, too. It’s tough, because now it’s a position where we’re lacking a lot.

https://twitter.com/100T_CS/status/2008244824802296007

You went out and played on an international team, and as a UK CS guy, something that has always been true for UK players is that you’re better to leave the domestic scene behind. Do you think that’s now true for Denmark as well?

It depends what you want to do. For example, if you want to be a star player, it will be fine to be on a Danish team because you’ll get the support that you need. If you’re good enough, you’ll definitely still succeed because someone will pick you up eventually. 

For me, if you want to be an IGL, it’s definitely better to get that international experience if you can. It just opens up way more opportunities further down the line.

It’s been so long since I’ve played on a Danish team, most of my real career has been in international teams and I don’t think I would’ve changed that, I’m very happy with where I started and where I am right now. Maybe in the future I’d look towards the Danish scene, but for most people, international is a good way to go because there’s so many more options.