"In terms of influencing us and CS:GO, he
certainly dictated the way the AWP was played."
"He was on a significantly
worse team. He was on a team that
couldn't actually win big titles or if
they could it would have been by the
narrowest margin and he had to do those
godlike plays to even give him a chance
to win." "Every AWPer I see in like online
that tries to replicate that, it can't do
it and there's a reason for that."
(Casting)
"I'm always worried when I see kennyS kind of
frowning while he's playing you know you
want kennyS to be smiling." "Anything
could happen what if Kenny was alive and
he had an AWP that's how good he was."
"Does get planted still kennyS is stuck in
the site finding more, that's brilliant. This guy's
absolutely insane."
Kenny Schrub didn't have your average
ascent to greatness,
but the French prodigy who grew up in
the world of Counter-Strike has become
synonymous with the game's tradition of
highlight plays and even the mighty AWP
itself. This is the story of kennyS.
(Casting)
Born in France in 1995, it's not an
exaggeration to say that Kenny grew up
in Counter-Strike. He would try the game for
the first time at the age of six because
his older brother Cyril was already
playing. When Cyril was away at school
Kenny would get some time on the
computer and though Counter-Strike was
his refuge from family issues, what he
found in it was longer lived.
Kenny would return
from school and play the game late into
the evening,
drawing concern from his mother. But
those late nights allowed Kenny to make
his way into France's competitive
Counter-Strike scene. And not only had
Kenny found a foothold in the game, he
had discovered his niche in it as well.
The AWP or op has been an important part
of competitive Counter-Strike from the
very beginning. The high-powered sniper
rifle offers a one-shot kill with a hit
to the head or chest, but is offset by a
slow rate of fire and a considerable
monetary investment. Despite the weapon's
loud signature report, it is a precision
weapon harnessed by the sniper's reflexes
to bring instant ruin to the opposition.
The young Kenny showed affinity for the
weapon and while he has said that it's
hard to pinpoint the exact moment that
he decided to take on the sniper role he
says he feels that the weapon chose him.
Working his way up through the French
scene, Kenny met a player called BLESS
and began playing on a community mumble
server called The Wall, which is where
his career would begin in earnest. With
most of his early matches being played
online
Kenny's prowess drew attention from some
on the server.
Most players don't get
the opportunity to start off with one of
their region's best teams but, Kenny did.
In 2011 he was trialing with VeryGames, a French Counter-Strike: Source roster that fielded the likes of Ex6tenz, NBK, RpK and apEX.
But Kenny's debut at
offline events was anything but smooth.
While he was able to prove that he
wasn't cheating, the pressure of the
later rounds got to him. A pattern that
would repeat itself later in his career.
"I think a lot of it has to do with his
playstyle. Certain teams don't
necessarily favor him to be aggressive
as he is. He kind of had to prove himself
in that regard but I mean you talk about
success coming through source and
whatnot he was a young player it's hard
to got a chance when you're that young."
While VeryGames would continue without
Kenny, he quickly found a spot on Team eXtensive!,  and although he hadn't made
the cut with VG, he didn't view the
experience negatively considering the
competition he had faced. But five months
later Kenny would finally get his chance
to join the VeryGames starting roster following mK’s removal.
Kenny and the team attended
both Insomnia 45 and 46 for CS Source,
taking home the first-place prize at
both events. But a challenge loomed on
the horizon: the impending release of
Counter Strike: Global Offensive.
Source had been the game that Kenny had
built his young career in and the move
to Global Offensive was anything but
easy. "If you look at the game closely,
first the game looks like Counter-Strike Source. The recoiled graphics
everything reflects awesome, but when you
look at the gameplay and the tactics and
everything like that. You can really see
if the game is more for 1.6." The game's
early reception was mixed and for
competitive players from both source and
CS 1.6 it felt different and there was a
lot to learn and not a lot of time to
learn it.
Almost immediately after Global
Offensive's release, the team headed to
DreamHack Valencia 2012. Once he got to
LAN though Kenny found his groove
making some great plays with the AWP'
newest incarnation.
(Casting)
Still, it wasn’t enough to take first place. VeryGames, considered by many to be the
strongest source team in the world at
that time, was upended by Ninjas in
Pyjamas, who had been previously playing
CS 1.6.
(Casting)
A new rivalry was born from the convergence of both scenes
in CS:GO, and VG's inability to beat NIP
over the following months would become a
source of frustration from the team.
(Casting)
VeryGames did eventually start to catch
up to NIP, but a victory against them
remained elusive.
(Casting)
But for Kenny the rivalry was put
on hold in the wake of the ESEA season
13 LAN finals. A disappointing
third-place finish after a loss to
Quantic Gaming meant that it wasn't VG
playing NIP in the finals.
Days after being kicked, the young AWPer
was recruited by LDLC. The team had been
formed from the ashes of Team eXtensive's previous roster, so Kenny was familiar
with many of his new teammates. While
Kenny's time with LDLC would end up
being short it was here that he would
finally conquer one of his biggest
demons, NIP.
(Casting)
Kenny's inexperience led
to some more troubles. He and the team
were upset by Epsilon at DreamHack
Summer 2013.
(Casting)
It marked another disappointing third place exit for Kenny. Cracks were beginning to form within the
squad and soon after Kenny and apEX were
released from LDLC.
Following a brief stint with  WE GOT GAME,
Kenny would eventually join up with
Recursive. Prior to DreamHack Winter, his
former teammate apEX approached him,
asking if there was an opening on the
roster. Kenny didn't want to change a
player before the tournament, offering
instead to rebuild LDLC after the event.
But Kenny would ultimately be left out
of that roster and posted an angry
statement that criticized both apEX and
the other team members that had turned
their backs on him. It was a moment where
Kenny's emotions got the better of him
and one that he would later regret. "I
still see a camera like his hands are
shaking at times. Like he has that that
really like raw adrenaline sort of
emotion that goes with him and you can
certainly see him being frustrated at
times and then I'd say I'd say more
frequently I'm frustrated and stressed
than you do happy.
Kenny would spend the next month-and-a-
half with Clan Mystik before being asked to join Titan as shox’s replacement.
Given the prior incidents
with Kenny, it was an important step to
getting his career back on track.
(Casting)
Titan had qualified
for ESL One: Cologne 2014, but despite
being considered a strong team they
failed to make it out of groups after
running into Team Dignitas and Cloud9.
After Cologne, the team was swept up into the first French shuffle in late 2014.
Once the dust had settled in September,
Kenny would be joined by by Ex6tenz, KQLY, apEX and Maniac on Titan.
Titan. Following a number of second-place finishes, Titan
would eventually triumph at the DreamHack
Invitational.
(Casting)
But as 2014 drew to a close, the team
would receive bad news.
KQLY was banned for cheating on November
20th which both hurt the team in the
immediate sense and also prevented them
from playing at DreamHack Winter 2014,
which meant that Kenny would have to
wait for another chance at proving
himself on the big stage. For a team that
had been developing and felt ready to
take the event, the setback to both their
play and mental state was immense.
KQLY's  replacement would eventually be
RpK, who came out of retirement to
join the squad in late December. As 2015 began, the team
qualified for the next Major, ESL One
Katowice. But again they failed to get
out of groups and they were eliminated
by Penta. More bad news came weeks later
as Valve released a patch to CS:GO that
substantially changed how the AWP worked.
"It's not as fluid as it was. It's not as
quick. The velocity's not there and this
immediately for the pro scene is a
massive nerf." The change drastically
altered the way that AWPers had to deal
with specific angles in the game. Angles
that had existed in some form within CS
1.6 and Source. "It wasn't that he didn't have
the skill suddenly, it was that it's it's
muscle memory and it's force of habit
and you have to really dial back and
relearn it and I think because he was
the one that took advantage of that
mechanic so much it took him a little
bit longer to do so because it just felt
like he got gutted. Right when he was
coming into his prime when he could have
been God and just taken over everything
the game was changed and then I think
that really impacted his confidence." The
drastic change
coupled with Kenny's affinity for the AWP
even inspired a joke video about what it
was like to play against Titan post nerf.
Complete with a Viking funeral for the
rifle, the actual effect on Kenny though
was no laughing matter as Titan
continued to slump into 2015. "The
immediate result was certainly Kenny. A
little bit GuardiaN, but certainly Kenny
was hurt the most. As I talked about he
was someone who could play very close he
could move very quickly with the AWP. He
could hit no scopes, he was constantly
quick peaking and quick scoping that
movement mechanic was taken out quite
significantly." Titan managed Top 4
placements at ESL Pro League One, ESEA
Season 18, Gfinity Spring Masters 2 and
DreamHack Summer 2015, and despite his
struggles Kenny still produced the
incredible moments he was known for.
(Casting)
"I mean yes okay his teams were
set up around him, but it didn't matter
if Kenny was in a 1v3
you'd almost take positive odds for him
to come out and you know and just get
that 1v3 and clutch it.
He was so scary to the point where the
dominant the most dominant team in CS:GO
history, Fnatic with olofmeister and
everybody right, they were like 'we don't
like playing against Kenny. Kenny makes
me scared. All of a sudden I don't know
what to do when I'm playing against
Kenny because if I peek even a pixel I
could be dead.'"
(Casting)
But the results were not what fans expected from such a
high profile roster. The slump brought
consequences and when the second French
shuffle completed in July 2015
Kenny was once again on the move, heading
to Team EnVyUs with apEX. Yet again he
and Shox had switched teams. Both Titan
and NV had been underperforming before
the swap, but afterwards was a different
story. NV went on to win IEM Gamescom
against Danish upstarts Team SoloMid.
(Casting)
Not only was it a win, but it was a decisive
one. Although it wasn't a Major, the event
was a proving ground for the newly
formed roster. Weeks later, the team was
facing down their first Major appearance
at ESL One Cologne 2015. EnVyUs would
emerge from Group B as the top team but
they weren't satisfied with just that. In
the quarterfinals NV cut through Na'Vi.
(Casting)
Then, they cast aside TSM in the semifinals.
(Casting)
A surging Fnatic awaited them in
the grand finals, and Kenny was won best
of three series away from winning his
first Major. But Fnatic's KRIMZ
had other plans.
(Casting)
That was the turning point. A round that should have
been an easy win. Instead it collapsed in
such spectacular fashion that the
victory seemed impossible.
(Casting)
Taking second should still
have been an encouraging result, but it
wasn't for Kenny.
(Casting)
Despite their disappointment, Kenny and
EnVyUs would return with a vengeance at
DreamHack Open London a few weeks later,
taking first place after beating Team
SoloMid in the grand finals. With renewed
confidence, the team set their sights on
the next Valve Major, DreamHack Cluj-Napoca. The event would see NV top
their group and cast aside Fnatic in the
bracket stage.
(Casting)
But an absolute nail-biter
against G2 esports in the semifinals
nearly dashed their championship hopes. With
NV down one map after dropping Dust2,
G2 managed to force overtime on
Inferno. In the middle of the second
overtime, NV were down three rounds and
as Kenny remembers it the team was not
communicating properly. But against the
odds and in defiance of another failed
major run they won the map in the third
overtime and rode that momentum through
the series.
(Casting)
In the grand finals they faced a
familiar adversary, Na'Vi. There they won
Train, Na'Vi's map, in a close game. But it
was on cobble where they dominated.
(Casting)
Just under four years since his first
LAN appearance, Kenny, a player that many
had already described as the world's
best AWPer, had finally won his first
Major.
Unbeknownst to them at the time,
 Cluj-Napoca was also the highest
competitive point that this incarnation
of the roster would ever reach. After
more inconsistent results, the team
dropped KioShiMa and brought in DEVIL.
The move did little to improve the
team's fortunes and their first couple
of LAN performances were poor. "You have
to have like that complete and utter arrogance
right. You have to know without a
shadow of a doubt that you are the best
person on that server and that whatever
your will is it will happen right."
(Casting)
"And once you lose that sense of
invincibility, that arrogance, knowing it
it's so hard to get it back in a game
like that it's so hard to get it back
and I think Kenny was kind of cast out
into the wild for for a while there."
Then the unthinkable happened. After
years of missing each other
the latest French shuffle saw the
creation of a G2 team that, for the first
time, included both kennyS and Shox.
Dubbed by some to be the French super
team the roster also fielded NBK, apEX
and bodyy. And in his quest for further
glory with G2, Kenny has reminded
everyone why he should be feared.
(Casting)
Kenny has grown up in CS and he's
got plenty of career ahead of him. And
regardless of what comes next
he has emerged through a battle against
his own emotional nature as truly one of
the best to ever pick up the AWP. "Teams
changed completely changed how they
played the game just because of one
player, because of Kenny. That's how
scarily good he was.
