aiM: “I think we’re in a really good position to win the whole thing”
Mia ‘aiM’ Cooper will once again fly the flag for British Counter-Strike as female Counter-Strike’s top competition returns for ESL Impact Season 8.
While aiM has been part of NIP Impact since mid-2023, her roster is the unfamiliar territory of garnering the label of ‘favourites’ for ESL Impact Season 8 from some pundits.
NIP Impact, bolstered by former BIG AWPer Ana ‘Zana’ Queiroz, have shown strong online form between Impact seasons, earning them promotion to ESEA Main after an 11-3 regular season in Inters.
The form continues the growth that the roster showed in ESL Impact Season 7, in which NIP finished 3rd/4th, having defeated defending six-time champions, Imperial Female, to top their group.
Esports News UK caught up with aiM at BLAST Open London to reflect on her team’s progress with Zana, vilga’s leadership, and NIP’s potential rivals at ESL Impact Season 8.
How are you feeling with NIP Impact at the moment?
I’m feeling good, honestly.
We’ve just picked up a new player, Zana, and she has a lot of experience, having played for BIG for a long time.
It’s quite refreshing having a new player, and she’s just a really good player, so we’re feeling in a pretty good spot at the minute.
What kind of impact is she having communication-wise, in terms of her roles? How are you feeling with her?
Very good.
I mean, like I said, she has loads of experience, so it’s really easy to play with her, and her personality is very much like ours, so it’s extremely easy to play with her.
Good communication, a lot of initiative, so yeah, it’s just easy to play with her, to be honest.
vilga is a legend in the scene. I know on Twitter you’ve been calling her ‘mommy’ a lot. I just kind of wanted to ask, how is your experience playing with her, and how does she kind of enable the rest of you guys to be your best?
I mean, for me, she’s the GOAT IGL in the female scene. She’s so smart.
Like, sometimes she makes the call and I’m thinking, ‘Oh, is this the right call?’
But like, instantly, you realise, ‘Oh s**t, this was 100% the right call.’ She just knows everything.
It’s so easy to play with her, and the way that she calls as well is so direct and confident, and when you have someone who calls confident, you just instantly believe.
You instantly believe in the call, the play, and you just believe that the team’s going to win the round, because of how she is as a person.
Okay, and I wanted to ask as well about how you’re feeling individually. Obviously, there’s going to be the next season of ESL Impact, so how are you kind of feeling individually?
Individually, I’m feeling good.
We’ve changed some positions around to sort of better suit how we want to play in the future. So, for me, I have a few new positions.
But I’m looking forward to the new season. I think it’s going to be great, and I think we’re in a really good position to win the whole thing, to be honest.
As you say, you’re in a good position to win the whole thing. For so long, Imperial had dominated. How do you feel about them this year?
Yeah, I mean, obviously, they haven’t been as strong as they have been in the past, but I don’t think you can underestimate them, honestly.
They’re very well-versed in the game, like, they have a lot of structure, they know how to play. So maybe they haven’t looked as strong, but you definitely shouldn’t underestimate them.
We’ve just got to take it one step at a time if we do end up facing them.
You’re going to have new opposition as well in Team Nemesis as a new org coming in. You know that roster very well. What do you think of them for this season as well, as a European competitor?
I think they’re going to do well.
Obviously, our past teammate, ramziiN, is playing for Nemesis, and Juliano, one of the OG female CS players.
They’ve got a good core of the, you know, the ex-Zerance French team, so I think they’re going to be great, honestly. I think it’s going to be really hard.
Thankfully, they’re not in our group, but if we do meet them in the LAN finals, I think it’s going to be a hard match.
In terms of outside of the region, a lot of people are talking about Furia as potential winners for the season. How would you assess their strengths in the server?
I think the way Furia plays is very good.
It’s very much based on confidence and their own ability.
They have a lot of trust in their individual skill, so I think it’s always going to be hard, and obviously, they’ve won the last Impact.
So, I think whoever we face in Impact, it’s going to be hard, but they have a lot of confidence coming in, having won the last one.
I think it’ll be hard.
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