“We still need to try and find our identity as a team”: Team Heretics’ neilzinho reflects on roster rebuild

Following Team Heretics’ loss against NAVI at VCT EMEA Kickoff 2026, Head Coach Neil ‘neilzinho’ Finlay still sees room for growth for his revamped roster.

“We still need to try and find our identity as a team,” shared neilzinho in an interview with Esports Insider. 

”We had a really strong identity with MiniBoo. We knew it was gonna be difficult replacing him. It was never gonna be easy. So, that’s our goal for Kickoff, to be honest. Obviously, we wanna go to Chile [Masters Santiago]. We’re good enough to go to Chile.“

neilzinho was a Counter-Strike player and coach before transitioning to VALORANT coaching in 2020. His first global event in the VALORANT coaching booth was Masters Berlin 2021 under G2 Esports.

One year later, the British coach helped Fun Plus Phoenix (FPX) reach fourth place at Champions Istanbul in an analyst role before getting signed by Team Heretics in 2022.

neilzinho became Team Heretics’ Head Coach ahead of the 2023 VCT season and has stayed with the Spanish esports organisation ever since. 

Out of six global VCT tournaments Team Heretics attended during his tenure, Masters Shanghai and Champions Seoul ended in runner-up finishes for the team. Moreover, last year, the organisation lifted its first international trophy by winning the Esports World Cup.

When asked what made him stay with Team Heretics for a fourth season, neilzinho explained:

“I think it’s the same as with the guys: Players had offers, we had offers to go elsewhere, but it was mostly just that we like the org. The org gives me full control of the roster in terms of how we schedule practice, how we do everything. […] They give us space to make mistakes. They give us space to learn.”

He continued: “And also we just love each other as a team, so that’s the main reason. There’s no reason to go anywhere else, really. It’s not easy to build a team like we have, with everyone who has such good vibes and genuine like for each other outside of the game. It’s just somewhere that I like to work, and obviously, the boys are a massive part of that.”

Although Team Heretics has seen few roster changes over recent years, the most recent Off//Season brought unexpected news for many fans of the organisation. 

The team parted ways with its duelist Dominykas ‘MiniBoo’ Lukaševičius, who is also the brother of in-game leader (IGL) Ričardas ‘Boo’ Lukaševičius, to sign Turkish prodigy, Berkcan ‘ComeBack’ Şentürk.

“It was a mutual decision to kind of part ways with Domi [MiniBoo],” explained neilzinho. “I think it was just like a change of scenery and we wanted to try and breathe some new life and maybe help us get over that finish line and maybe bring in a different dynamic to the team.”

The British coach further shared why the team specifically chose ComeBack: “It was mostly just that he’s incredibly talented. He’s still so young as well. I don’t think he showed anywhere near his full potential today [match of January 22nd], but you see it in scrims. We saw it when we trialled him. And I think we’ve done a pretty good job of picking young, talented players.”

One of Team Heretics’ main goal is to “get the best out of ComeBack”, who still isn’t fluent in English.

“It, unfortunately, isn’t just a case where everyone slots in, and they’re incredible instantly. There’s a lot of work that goes into it behind the scenes, and he needs a lot of help right now,” neilzinho told Esports Insider.

“We knew exactly what we were getting into when we picked him up. We knew we were gonna have a massive drop in our teamplay, potentially,” added the coach. “Communication is at the heart of everything we do. Again, we knew it was gonna be a massive risk. But for him, it’s just about learning the language, and we’re trying to speedrun it. We’ve got him English lessons.”

“But once he can speak the language, I think our skill ceiling is unlimited with this roster,” he concluded.

During Team Heretics’ opening match of the season against NAVI, the revamped roster leaned heavily into the current double-duelist meta. But rather than picking the popular agent combination of Waylay and Yoru, Team Heretics went for Mert ‘Wo0t’ Alkan on Yoru and ComeBack on Raze or Neon.

According to neilzinho, player comfort and numerous other factors played into this choice:

“It’s a bit of everything, to be honest. We didn’t have much time to experiment this off-season. RieNs was away on military service, so we missed out on a good five/six weeks of practice. It’s not an excuse, it’s just the reality. Like we are a little bit further behind than what we’d like to be, so we haven’t had the chance to really get a good read on the meta.

“And double duelist is something that, when you’ve got players that we do, you can afford to do it. The plays are fairly simple, and it gives the players a lot of freedom, as well. It’s not something that I’m a huge fan of as a coach, but it’s something that we agreed on as a team,” clarified the 35-year-old coach.

While the 2-1 loss to NAVI has pushed Team Heretics into the Middle Bracket at VCT EMEA Kickoff 2026, neilzinho remains focused on the rest of the tournament.

“The margins are so slim at this level. I think it’s the reason why there’s not one team that consistently wins every single international,” he emphasised.

“But short term, it’s mostly about getting our identity as a team and really building up our teamwork cause we are quite far behind, to be honest,” neilzinho continued. “So, hopefully we can go through Kickoff and every loss that we have – hopefully this is the only one that we have in Kickoff – we’re gonna learn a lot from it. Unfortunately, you do need to lose to learn the most sometimes. So, I think that loss, it hurts, but it’s gonna help us a lot.”

Team Heretics will return to the VCT EMEA stage on January 28th to compete against ULF Esports. The best-of-three series will be broadcast via the league’s official Twitch and YouTube channels.