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"Everything Just Went Wrong" - Karmine Corp Head Coach Engh on Disappointing Start to Kickoff
Karmine Corp’s debut match with their new roster in the VCT EMEA 2026 Kickoff tournament did not deliver quite the brilliant opener they were hoping for. However, despite NAVI’s brilliant start to both maps, Karmine Corp managed to mount late-game comebacks both times, resulting in an end result that was far from satisfactory, but not fully disappointing. With two more chances left, Karmine Corp will need to quickly find their footing or sink in Kickoff.
Following the conclusion of the series, Strafe Esports sat down with Karmine Corp’s Head Coach Andrey “Engh” Sholokhov to speak on the team’s performance during the match, their preparation coming into their first match of 2026, his thoughts on the game’s changes since last season, and so much more in this exclusive interview.
*The following interview has been lightly edited for readability.
“Everything went wrong, especially on Attack sides”
Kicking off the series on their opponent’s map pick of Split, NAVI blazed to a roaring start of 7-2, spearheaded by a spectacular performance from Emirhan “hiro” Kat. Karmine Corp eventually stabilized with 3 rounds to close out the first half but a slow start on the second half once again for them saw NAVI reach map point with five chances left. Despite the French side’s best efforts, they fell just shy of forcing overtime, ending the map 13-11 in favor of NAVI.
The same story repeated itself on Haven. Despite being KC’s map pick, NAVI scored a 10-2 half to start out the game, silencing the Blue Wall. KC’s pivotal win on the second pistol catapulted them back into contention but it was too little too late as NAVI’s strong use of ultimates was enough to close out the map 13-7, securing their first win of the season.
Tough start to this Kickoff run. Certainly not the one you guys were hoping for. What were your main takeaways from today’s game?
Engh: Kind of 5/10. Not super frustrated and not super well. I already made a post on Twitter that it’s our worst start since I joined. Usually, we’re much more competitive in the first match, but today… it is what it is. Everything went wrong, especially on Attack side. But Defense was good. So yeah, let’s just say I found some positives.
We find you with another new roster of players, having had three new additions this past off-season. How has the preparation been like coming into this first event of the season?
Engh: We just tried to use all the experience that we have from the past two years, especially me to be honest. We didn’t do a lot of new stuff; we just tried to combine everything we knew and it was pretty smooth. Our win rate is actually pretty good in scrims. And yeah, that’s why I’m kind of confused right now because of our result. Especially on Attack side because usually we’re much better.
The prep was good. We were ready to play against all of these comps. I was like, thank god we have a lot of teams, and we can practice against a lot of compositions and yeah, we were ready to play against Chamber, against like default comps like Gen.G comp. So yeah, they didn’t surprise us at all, but yeah, we surprised ourselves more.
Did you get a chance to scrim against NAVI before this? Did you expect this level of competition from them in this first match?
Engh: Yeah, we actually played against them. I think we played against everybody. I don’t remember exactly what maps we played on but for sure. And you can look at their roster, and you can see that they have insane shooters.
“I was impressed by his comms and reads”
In the second part of the interview, Engh spoke on the additional challenge of replacing his IGL, with new addition Bogdan “Sheydos” Naumov stepping in following the departure of Matias “Saadhak” Delipetro.
How has the communication developed between you and [Sheydos]? Have you developed a good rapport already?
Engh: So, we are always changing our training approach. We’re working on a few maps mainly because we have, I would say, 2 IGLs. In our team, we have Sheydos, who is generally mostly Attack. I would say 80%. And then, there’s another 20%, it’s like on the boys. Sometimes they are saying “Oh, I want to do this or I want to do this”, especially avez. He has a lot of voice in our team.
On Defense side, I would say it’s more avez calling. I separated and did it like this because I already had this experience before KC, I just feel like when you become IGL, it is pretty hard to call on two sides and right now I want to make him focused on attack and just do everything with Attack. Then maybe throughout the season, we’re going to let him have more responsibilities on Defense.
Mainly right now though, for the last three weeks, I’ve been working with avez on Defense side and today I was really impressed by his comms and reads because I feel like a lot of times, we actually had really good reads, just that we didn’t aim well or didn’t play well in chaotic moments.
Meanwhile, it’s been ZEISH working on Attack. Not every map, I’m still responsible for a few maps on Attack. It’s just that you can be a coach, but it doesn’t mean you know everything on every map somewhere. We even did this last year, and we did a lot of these kinds of changes all the time. Right now, he’s working on many more maps and then maybe after Kickoff, I think we might switch again and see how it’s going to be. So, the players will always feel that they’re getting something kind of new and they always get to develop themselves. But today, it wasn’t good.
Is this approach common, where you split the responsibilities of the IGL so one is focused on Attack and one of Defense? Is this something you’ve done with your previous teams as well?
Engh: Yes, I did it before, but it was almost 5 years before, with Gambit. But again, we didn’t keep this approach forever. It was like, mostly for the beginning when you need to give more freedom and more time to focus on one direction. From my perspective in VALORANT, Attack and Defense, it’s obviously very different sides, but it’s also completely two different games. So that’s why you need to have different mindsets and different understandings of the game, how to play on both sides.
I was very happy with how [avez] did. I know many teams, many duelists especially, often call a lot of starters (“I want to start this, this”). Many teams play off of this, so we’re just doing a bit of a different approach.
“The first team to understand how to use the OP on Attack and Defense will dominate the whole season.”
Engh then went on to speak on his thoughts regarding the changes to the game that came in the off-season including the massive agent patch change (Patch 11.08) as well as the newest addition to the game, the Bandit.
There have been a lot of changes in the off-season. Obviously the introduction of the Bandit but also Patch 11.08 and with it all the agent changes. What are your thoughts on the new meta and what have been your adaptations over the off-season?
Engh: I still believe, and of course I know the season just started, but I believe an Operator player is a must-have on every map. I feel like the team who first understands how to use the OP on Attack and Defense will dominate the whole season. I really expected this scenario when a lot of teams would change compositions and approach.
Champions, for me, is always someone finding something for themselves and they’re winning. Two years ago, it was EDG figuring out how to play with Neon and like how to abuse her. NRG played insanely well on defense and especially with this Odin, broke many teams’ minds like how to do, what to do, how to deal with it. And yeah, I feel this year might be the Operator. I really think an insane Operator can create a big gap between teams. From my perspective, the team who will win Champions will have a good, stable operator, who understands when to take space, when to be passive, when to like change playstyle, change angles, change approaches, especially on Attack.
I think people don’t use the OP a lot on Attack. Even us. I don’t think we’re using it enough. Operator on attack of course, with some comps. It’s hard to use because of the idea of the comp not playing let’s say ultra slow because we thought you have to. But I feel right now about comps. To be honest I think there is going to be two ways for teams. Either teams will play kind of similar to last year with double duelist and something around it, maybe like solo smoker double initiator, maybe double smoker, double duelist, something like this. I think a lot of teams will still want to play kind of simple and rely on individual stuff rather than tactical. And other teams will want to not give a f*** and choose to not run maybe scan initiators. Maybe they want to run like solo Tejo or something like this or abuse Veto.
I feel like we still haven’t seen a lot of good teams who clearly understand how to use Veto. There are some teams showing it on some maps but overall, I still feel like we’re far from it. I still remember two years ago, teams started running Yoru on Split with Raze. People called it crazy, like why are you picking it? We already knew it was good. Just because others don’t play it doesn’t mean it’s not good.
Final question, thoughts on the new Breeze? You spoke about the Operator being a dominant force and this is one of its best maps. What do you think of the changes?
Engh: To be honest, right now, it’s like a completely different map. We practiced it a lot and we have some simple ideas of course, so, we want to show it. All I can say is OP is strong, but I feel like how you should approach the middle compared to previous Breeze, it’s absolutely different. Right now, Breeze is less complicated compared to before from my perspective. I feel like it’s much easier. It’s like not Breeze kind of. My team, Gambit, we created a lot of ways to play on this map and right now when I check our old playbooks, it doesn’t work anymore. Of course, some straight execs, yeah, I can work still, let’s say on Attack and on Defense, some approaches. But still, I would say it’s fresh. It’s kind of in this niche where you have clear weak sides for Attack and for Defense but also the same, some clear strong sides for Attack and Defense.
My vision of this map, most of the time you exec on Attack, you can sometimes do it with a two layer exec. But with Breeze, I think Breeze is the only map in our current pool where you always need to do this two step layer execs. Take front and then go deeper. It’s possible to tap and kind of instant plant but I feel that’s what makes this map interesting from an Attacker’s perspective. You need to have a really good understanding of how to exec and like how to take space step by step. It’s not just that you exec and like you win or you don’t.
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Featured Image Credit: Wojciech Wandzel/Riot Games