NRG bonkar after loss against LEV: "The guys are pretty damn tired"

For their second match at VALORANT Champions Tour 2026 - Masters London 2026, NRG lost their footing in a regional showdown against Leviatán. The team didn’t look like themselves, lacking individual plays, aggression, and overall teamplay.

After the loss, THESPIKE had the opportunity to interview NRG Head Coach Malkolm "bonkar" Rench, who had a lot to say. According to him, the team is dealing with exhaustion due to the grueling schedule for the Americas teams.

NRG not coming online

Throughout their recent history, NRG had beaten LEV three times in a row in the VCT. However, the tables turned on the London stage as LEV took the series 2-1. The biggest difference between the NRG on stage this time and the version seen in VALORANT Champions Tour 2026 - Americas Stage 1 was the lack of the individual plays bonkar knows they’re capable of.

I felt throughout the entire best of three that we didn't get any individuals online to be honest. We played good macro wise, we played good as a team but there was no individual pop-off in almost any of the rounds. We had one good 1v3 from Georgio "Keiko" Sanassy and that's the only good clutch we had the entire series and when that happens it's extremely hard to win against good teams like Leviatán.

Exhausted players

In bonkar’s eyes, the biggest reason for NRG falling short was the grueling schedule they’ve faced over the last few weeks.

In Stage 1, NRG started in the lower bracket, meaning they had to play the maximum number of playoff matches to qualify for Masters London. After Stage 1, the EWC - Esports World Cup 2026: Americas Qualifier kicked off, where they once again found themselves in the lower bracket. According to bonkar, it definitely impacts the team heading into London.

Yeah, I mean it affects everyone because it's not only multiple games, but you have to practice more because you need to prepare for the game and then also you need to do more prep and they need to learn more prep, they need to digest more, so it just makes them even more fatigued all the time. So it makes a huge difference, to be honest, but it is what it is.

One week behind other regions

Another factor is the scheduling for the Americas region in the VCT. Compared to the other regions, the Americas is one week behind and therefore has one less week to prepare for Masters. It also becomes a problem when new patches are released, forcing teams to rebuild compositions and adapt to meta changes.

It’s the same for Leviatán and G2, they have some more time here though, but it makes a big difference. It depends a little bit on how the patch is before the tournament, but this patch was kind of big with the staple of "Is Neon still playable or isn't she playable?" So it's one of those, you can see Leviatán, maybe they won't play Neon in three or four weeks in EWC, who knows, and maybe we will play Neon on some maps.

NRG’s next match is a crucial one, as the team is now on the brink of elimination at Masters London. Since most of the issues displayed on stage against LEV seemed to stem from exhaustion, bonkar doesn’t believe the team is in serious trouble. Going forward, he hopes some time off will help the roster bounce back stronger for its next match.

Honestly, I think we're just going to take some time off. I think the guys are pretty, pretty goddamn tired, honestly. I don't think we need to necessarily work on things. It's one of those. Again, we played good macro wise today. [...] There's some rounds where they're on different pages and things but it comes from listening issues, but that comes from being exhausted and fatigued as well. So I think we're going to take off, but we'll see.

Focusing on individual talks

As a coach, there’s only so much you can do when players are exhausted. When THESPIKE asked bonkar what he does to help his players in situations like this, he said the focus shifts to one-on-one conversations and understanding what each player needs to get back to their best.

If we take time off, then it's just individual talks with everyone to try to learn as much as possible from this series so we can move forward as a team.Iit's just more individual with everyone just catching them when maybe they come in the prac room and whatnot other than that it's just reading them as people trying to understand what they need, what kind of talks they need, if they want to change something on specific maps, specific positions, and we'll do that.

Winning London for Keiko

In a previous interview with THESPIKE, Logan "skuba" Jenkins shared that it’s important for all of NRG to win Masters London for keiko, as it’s his hometown event. Bonkar echoed that sentiment, saying that while the event obviously is important for multiple reasons, the goal is to win it all for keiko.

We all really like Europe as a team. Great food, great people, just great region in general. And obviously it's keiko's hometown so we want to come here, we want to win the tournament. It's super important to us. Even making London was such a big thing for us because mada missed out on Toronto last year with the team and he didn't feel too good about that. It means a lot to us, obviously it means more to keiko but we're doing everything we can to make his dream come true.

Next up: Elimination match

With the loss against LEV, NRG heads into Round 3 of the Swiss Stage. Losing the upcoming match would mean exiting the event before getting the chance to face the top seeds in playoffs. As former VALORANT Champions Tour 2025 - Valorant Champions winners and a team that secured a strong finish at VALORANT Champions Tour 2026 - Masters Santiago 2026, crashing out in the Swiss Stage would be the worst-case scenario for NRG.

Next match, we’ll see if bonkar’s call for time off pays off.

For more VCT interviews with your favourite players from Masters London, stay tuned to THESPIKE.GG.

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