IEM Cologne may be one of the biggest events of the year for any team, but it means more to one team than any other.

As the reigning monarchs of German CS, BIG always enter Cologne with the weight of the world on their shoulders, however, this year they may have just found the squad that can take them all the way.

With JDC making a name for himself as the star and the arrival of rigoN, BIG now have an aggressive and unpredictable nature that was previously lacking, and it made them tricky customers for FlyQuest as they beat them over three maps in their opening BO3.

After the game, we caught up with JDC to discuss his development as a star, what rigoN brings to the team, and what Cologne means to a german team.

rigoN brings a lot of positive energy that was previously lacking

Jon "JDC" de Castro 

It was a chaotic start to IEM Cologne for you guys, how are you feeling after picking up the win?

[laughs] I'm feeling very energised, it was a nervous game and there was so much happening.

It shouldn't have been that way, I felt like we were in control the whole time, but it is what it is, it's Counter-Strike after all.

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In the third map, you had a very big lead and it ended up being quite close, what happened there?

I don't know, to be honest, I think we have issues closing out games, apparently. It was the same on Ancient, we had a good lead going into CT side and we couldn't manage to close it out there.

Overall, I think we're not shooting to the level we can normally shoot, we were missing on key frags and we just need to be sharper individually to close games out faster.

You spoke to BLAST.tv a while back about becoming a star in BIG, how do you think that's been going since you joined the team?

I have the trust of the team to do exactly that, they're looking at me as the star rifler right now. I play the positions for it on most maps and I take a lot of the responsibility, especially on maps like Ancient where the game is built on me and I need to deliver. I didn't deliver to that extent today, but I would say that my becoming a star is working well in my favour and I'm growing into a player I haven't been before.

Are you happy with how it's gone on BIG so far then?

I'm happy with the improvements we're showing, but it's not even close to what we have in practice. If we played officials like we play practice we would have many way deeper runs and many playoff appearances, we just struggle right now to translate the performances to officials.

For me individually, I'm a bit unsatisfied because I expect more and as a star, I need to put up better numbers.

You recently made a big change in terms of bringing in rigoN, what does he bring to the team that you didn't have before?

rigoN brings in a lot of positive energy that was previously lacking. Before, I was the guy that was bringing the hype but now I can feel relaxed from this task because we have another guy that's going crazy every round.He also brings a bit of looseness to our game, he takes duels, he peeks, he takes space, and he's a bit crazier and that's something we were missing a lot so he gives us a bit more of a free style to our game.

BIG's always been looked at as a very tactical team, so was that 'free style' something that was really needed then?

I think so, yeah. Being only tactical is not the answer to everything, you need to have a good grasp of both and right now we have the right pieces in the right places.

You have aggressive pieces in me and rigoN who are going a bit crazy, a bit international, and you have the mastermind in tabseN and the coaching staff that is working behind the scenes to build up the tactical side. Right now we're just finding the balance.

You mentioned the coaching staff, there was another big change with gob b departing and kakafu taking his place as the coach, what have been the differences since that change?

The biggest difference is the looseness to our style, a problem before is that we were holding onto our system and believing in things that worked well in the past but it meant we were living in the past.

The change meant that there was another system, a different kind of approach, now we just take it from here however it goes.

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This is your first Cologne since joining BIG, what does it mean to you to be playing this event with a German team?

The last time I was here was 2022 and I reached playoffs with MOUZ, it was an amazing feeling in the arena, but I can't imagine the feeling with a German team and not just being the only German.

It means that for us, it's a Major. We have to get there, we have to make the German fans proud and we have to show a level of BIG that has never been shown before. We just need to step up and play in the arena.