Evil Geniuses’ daps Admits: “I Didn’t Enjoy The Competitive Side Of Valorant Nearly As Much As CS”

Damian Steele, known as “daps,” is a 27-year-old Canadian CS:GO coach who recently joined Evil Geniuses. Before that, he was playing Valorant for NRG Esports after retiring from CS:GO.

daps was one of the few in-game leaders in North America that could bring his team the victory with his mindset. He created OpTic Gaming roster in 2016, and also created NRG Esports roster after getting kicked.

NRG Esports acquired by Evil Geniuses in September 2019, and the core of the team is still playing together. On the other hand, Daps represented Cloud9 and Gen.G Esports before transitioning to Valorant.

During a recent interview with hltv.org, daps talked about the reasons for his decision on retiring from Valorant and returning CS:GO as a coach, as well as their goals as a team in the near future.

As daps revealed in his announcement earlier, he mentioned that he didn’t want to play Valorant anymore. According to daps, he didn’t enjoy the competitive side of Valorant nearly as much as CS:GO.

Besides that, Daps also pointed out that he always wanted to be a coach in Counter-Strike, which he tried out in 2017 with NRG Esports, and this is why he wanted to return as a coach to the CS:GO scene.

Interviewer asked:

“Where did your decision to retire from VALORANT so shortly after moving to the new game come from? Did you not enjoy it? Or do you just not enjoy playing as much in general anymore?”

Daps replied:

“In general, it came from a feeling of not wanting to play anymore, mixed with the fact that I didn’t enjoy the competitive side of Valorant nearly as much as CS. I honestly prefer watching Valorant over playing it.”

Further in the conversation, Daps also stated that the squad lost their identity and confidence right now, and they wanted to revert the things as their in-game leader Stanislaw confortable with calling. Moreover, he said that their goal is to get back to the top ten once again.