Through the years Ruben ”RUBINO” Villarroel has represented many organizations and seen his friends been picked up by big teams.
He thinks the CS:GO landscape is becoming much like football, where the most talented players get picked up by the best teams, but he doesn’t think that will happened to him.
– If that could happen, it probably would have happen some time ago, RUBINO tells Aftonbladet Esport.

Ruben ”RUBINO” Villarroel first appeared in the CS:GO scene as he, under the H2K banner, started competing in early 2014. They were one of the first promising teams in Norway and soon started to deliver upsets and results.

About a year later he found himself playing for LGB eSports. Through this period he represented different organizations, such as Lions and London Conspiracy, and the one single reoccurring issue seemed to be the ever changing lineups. When Håvard ”rain” Nygaard was later recruited by Kinguin, now Gamers2, everything seemed to break apart.

”We had high ambitions”

For many months the Norwegian team played with different stand-ins, but were never able to complete the lineup. Then came a shuffle as Copenhagen Wolves announced their new lineup with Norwegian talents RUBINO, Joakim ”jkaem” Myrbostad and Morten ”zEVES” Vollan and the Swedes Simon ”twist” Eliasson and Erik ”zende” Sundequist.

The team soon started showing auspicious results, but after falling short at Dreamhack Stockholm, the offline qualifier for the next major, new changes were announced. Jkaem, one of their most promising talents, left the team. Another friend had been lost to Gamers2.
– We had high ambitions with this new team, but we knew that it would take a while before everything was good since we have two Swedes in our roster. But everything was working pretty well in terms of communication.
– We started with Dreamhack London, beating SK Gaming and Gamers2, which I think was pretty good since we were still a new team. Our expectation for qualifying at Dreamhack Stockholm was pretty high, but things didn’t work out as we wanted to. We couldn’t get the 100 percent focus we needed and started to do mistakes that probably would never happend online, RUBINO tells Aftonbladet Esport.

”It’s starting to get like football”

Regardless of all the turns that RUBINO’s CS:GO career has taken, he does not seem to have lost his motivation completely – he still has a taste for blood.
– I highly doubt I will end my journey now. I love this game, the people around it, the travels, the adrenaline and everything with Counter-Strike in general. I’m in love with it. I’m just going to get myself up again, RUBINO says with a smile and continues:
– When you feel you are stepping up individually, stepping up as a team – when everything feels right – and someone steals a player that is important in the team, it’s hard to bounce back. You don’t know what to do, you start doubting yourself as a player and things like that, but I still love this game. And I think retiring now as a relatively young player is dumb, since the game just gets bigger and bigger. It mainly affects me in terms of the doubt I have on myself as a player right now.

You have been through many roster changes, is there any way to tackle this?
– It’s starting to get like football. You have a talented player that can win a game for you versus a better team. They discover him and take him – since he is a threat (give him more money and you are set to go). But again, you need to think about this: Playing Counter-Strike for a living with free travels, competitions and meeting a lot of new people, who doesn’t want to take part in that?

Do you feel like you’re working to prove yourself personally and maybe get picked up by someone – or is it still all about the team effort and making it to the top together?
– Well, I feel that I’ve been proving myself as a player. How other people see me as a player I’m not sure. I don’t think I will be picked up because if that could happen, it probably would have happen some time ago. I’ve got mixed feelings. Of course if you have star players in the team you can probably win games just from that fact, but I also think you can get to a high level through practice, without having a lot of the best players. It’s a lot about how dedicated you are, I think. You gotta have the same ambitions in the team, all five. If someone is doubting a player or the team you are going to face a hard time!

”We’ll see what happens”

Copenhagen Wolves are down to four players. Twist and Zende have lately played with their former team mates from Team Property in official Copenhagen Wolves matches. However, according to RUBINO, the team is not dead.
– I can’t say anything right now since nothing is set. We are still 4 players but we’re checking out what can happen and we’ll see what happens.

How big a loss was it to lose Jkaem?
– It is a big loss for the team, because we’ve been practicing with him and had set roles. He was of course a talented player, and probably the best, so I would say it is a big loss.
– Jkaem is probably one of the best raw aimers I’ve seen and the best aimer I’ve played with. I think with Gamers2 he will be even better. Him and rain are the best player in Norway for sure.

How do you feel about playing Counter-Strike right now?
– After Jkaem left it has been hard for me with motivation and so on. A good friend and a good player is not in my team anymore. It isn’t the first time this has happened to me. I feel I have some aura, that when a team starts to do well something bad happens and I’m back to the drawing board again. When these things happends its hard to bounce back with high motivation.