Players coming from Aotearoa New Zealand are few and far between in the professional scene. We had the chance to talk to nettik of FlyQuest about being the flag-bearer for New Zealand, how his professional career started out, and his experience at IEM Melbourne 2025.
Over the last 12 years, there have been 22 Major tournaments in Counter-Strike—but only three players from New Zealand have ever qualified. In contrast, 19 Australians, 39 Americans, 42 Swedes, and 55 Russians have made their mark on the big stage.
Those three Kiwi players collectively earned eight Major appearances:
- IEM Katowice 2019: Gratisfaction (Renegades) & sterling (Grayhound)
- StarLadder Berlin 2019: Gratisfaction (Renegades) & Sico (Grayhound)
- PGL Stockholm 2021: Sico (Renegades)
- PGL Antwerp 2022: Sico (Renegades)
- IEM Rio 2022: Sico (Grayhound)
- BLAST Paris 2023: Sico (Grayhound)
With nettik qualifying for the Austin 2025 Major, he becomes just the fourth New Zealander to reach the game’s most prestigious stage—bringing the nation’s total Major appearances to nine. It’s a milestone moment in a long-overlooked scene, and for nettik, it all started with a simple love for the game:
“I got in to [Counter-Strike] when I was 10 years old. I started grinding CSGO, matchmaking and then FACEIT, followed the pro scene, and had a lot of passion for it. I just kept playing, kept getting better. Eventually it just happened, you know.”
“My mindset has always been ‘I wanna be the best’. So constant improvement every game eventually got me somewhere.”
Before joining FlyQuest, nettik spent eight months with TALON, playing alongside fellow Kiwi ADDICT and Australian CS veteran AZR. Then, in March 2025, the opportunity of a lifetime came knocking: “We’re benching dexter—do you want to join FlyQuest?”
“It was a lot of relief actually because my project with TALON had just crumbled and I didn’t really know what to do after that. I was talking to a few different teams and then I got the message from FlyQuest – perfect timing and could not say no.”
There wasn’t much time to settle in. Just a month later, FlyQuest headed into the Oceanic & Southeast Asian Regional Qualifier, looking to secure their spot at the BLAST Austin Major 2025. They made a statement by sweeping Rooster (nettik’s former team) 2-0, followed by back-to-back 2-0 victories over SemperFi.
“[Slotting in to FlyQuest] has been real easy. They always make fun of me for my accent and stuff, but nah it’s good. I fit in real well here. It’s nice.”
With their Major slot secured, the next challenge for nettik and FlyQuest was IEM Melbourne 2025. While the results didn’t quite match their expectations, the tournament offered valuable experience ahead of the BLAST Austin Major 2025. It was there that I caught up with nettik to talk about what it was like competing on home soil and what he feels the team needs to improve before stepping onto the biggest stage in Counter-Strike.
“It was awesome. We got a lot of good reps in versus very good teams, took down Virtus.Pro as well. It’s our first LAN together and we’ve had about two or three weeks practice, so we’re pretty happy with the result. We know our ceiling is way higher, so we’re just gonna keep grinding.”
“It’s getting more reps and getting more comfortable with each other. There’s always something you can do better in a way, just through review and constant tweaking of stuff and grinding.”
To wrap up our interview, we touched on the noticeable absence of New Zealanders at the top level of Counter-Strike. I asked nettik how it feels to be the one representing his country on the international stage and whether he’s satisfied with where he is.
“No, I’m never happy, I wanna keep climbing. Yeah, I’m the only one carrying the torch for New Zealand now, so gotta rep it well.”
Check out our other Kiwi player interviews:
- ESL Pro League Season 18 (2023)
- StarLadder Berlin Major 2019
- IEM Sydney 2019
- IEM Katowice Major 2019
- IEM Sydney 2018
