Where are they now: denis

When one thinks of German Counter-Strike in the context of the past decade, the most common associations would be Johannes “⁠tabseN⁠” Wodarz or Fatih “⁠gob b⁠” Dayik, paired with the revitalization efforts of BIG.

The German scene has regressed recently to a state where only the aforementioned names still hold the torch, but there was a time when the future looked a lot more encouraging.

One of the staples of that era was Denis “⁠denis⁠” Howell, a journeyman who arrived with the advent of Global Offensive, hung up the mouse shortly before the transition to Counter-Strike 2, and is now dedicating himself to building the next generation of players.

denis’ roots trace back to Counter-Strike: Source, where he fell in love with the game through the Inter Friday Night Game series broadcast on the German Giga TV. His first notable teams came in CS:GO, where he worked his way through a gauntlet of German orgs (TTC, Planetkey — Planetkey Dynamics, at the time —, and PENTA) before landing his first big contract with MOUZ, when it was still known as mousesports.

denis played at the second Major, DreamHack Winter 2014, with PENTA, along with kRYSTAL, Spiidi, fel1x and r0bs3n

Looking back, the two years at MOUZ contain some of the best memories of his career. “For me, it was perfect. You traveled the world with five or six friends, or even more. Played the biggest tournaments. We were one group, and this is something you can’t even describe; you need to experience that.”

denis went from watching players like Christopher “⁠GeT_RiGhT⁠” Alesund, Jarosław “⁠pashaBiceps⁠” Jarząbkowski, Richard “⁠shox⁠” Papillon and Patrik “⁠f0rest⁠” Lindberg to competing against them at the biggest tournaments in the world. While the only notable trophy they lifted was at the second season of Acer Predator Masters, MOUZ made playoff runs at events such as ESL Pro League Seasons 4 and 5, ELEAGUE Season 1, and CEVO Season 8, and were a steady presence at the Majors.

One of the more curious aspects of his career is the number of stars denis played with. Nikola “⁠NiKo⁠” Kovač and Robin “⁠ropz⁠” Kool, both of whom had their breakthrough at MOUZ, are on that list, as well as Ismailcan “⁠XANTARES⁠” Dörtkardeş during his stint in BIG. Playing alongside players of that caliber shaped the way denis thought about competition, but it also came with the persistent challenge of living in their shadow.

“Obviously, I am very thankful to have played with them as they carried us,” he says, laughing. “To be honest, you can learn a lot from them, especially NiKo. It’s insane to me that players like him and apEX, for example, are still able to play and win tournaments. People can’t imagine how hard it is to stay at the top for this long.

denis recounted his experiences playing alongside NiKo

“I am still good friends with them. I met them recently at the HLTV awards, talked with them, so it was always a nice atmosphere between us, and they also helped me improve and answered questions. We were teammates, that’s how it should be. They are insane players, and you rarely meet these kinds of players as they are the best in their craft.”

The gap between those players and the rest of the team was visible to everyone, and denis bore the brunt of the public criticism. A large part of his struggles, by his own account, came down to his mentality and his inability to translate his practice form onto the big stage.

“In practice games, I was always really good. A lot of players who practiced against me can confirm that, including my teammates,” he recounts. “I had a lot of problems with nervousness and stuff, but back then, esports was not as professional as right now.”

GeT_RiGhT himself mentioned this during an AMA session he held on Reddit in 2022, describing denis as a decent player whose mentality was sometimes the issue, and noting that he could have been far better than he showed, because in Counter-Strike, so much of it comes down to what is happening in your head.

denis eventually gained access to the support he needed, but he feels it came too late. “When you have these habits, like nervousness in big games and not coping with pressure, it is hard to get this out of you when you have been doing it for five years,” he says, even if “suddenly you are able to work with a psychologist.”

His performances also drew public attention on many occasions, even in humorous contexts such as the “The Denis” subreddit. “I would lie if I said (hate comments) didn’t affect me at all, obviously you read them,” he says. “It’s not easy to play with high-profile players, because they are even better than every CS player that has existed. It was hard when they were carrying us, for example NiKo in the mouz times, when he was levels above us, and from the outside it looked like he was playing alone.”

denis often faced public criticism for his performances

denis understood, however, that some criticism was warranted, particularly from analysts. “That was also the Thorin and Richard Lewis era. I appreciated them always, had good talks with them, but obviously, it was their job on camera to talk about these things, and sometimes they used it for entertainment,” denis recalled. “At some point, they were also right; my individual performance was sometimes not really good. I could have done much better.”

He explained that when he was younger, he played on a football team, which was an environment where you got a lot of critique, so he was already conditioned to blunt feedback. “I also worked with people like gob b, so you need a stable personality. You know he can be hard on you sometimes,” he laughed.

Still, the desire to prove himself to others only added to the pressure, trapping him in a cycle he couldn’t break out of. In August 2017, MOUZ made the final step away from their ambitions in German Counter-Strike and removed denis to make way for Martin “⁠STYKO⁠” Styk.

His next stop was Sprout, a smaller German project where he reunited with former teammate Timo “⁠Spiidi⁠” Richter. The team cycled through several international players without reaching notable heights, and denis was eventually stolen away by a BIG side in crisis wanting to replace Johannes “⁠nex⁠” Maget. Out of necessity, he took up the AWP, but was benched a few months later in a broader reshuffle.

denis returned to Sprout, this time alongside a more encouraging German core in Nils “⁠k1to⁠” Gruhne, Josef “⁠faveN⁠” Baumann and Florian “⁠syrsoN⁠” Rische. The team reached the grand final of DreamHack Open Atlanta 2019 and claimed several notable scalps, but as BIG came shopping for their talent, Sprout was pushed in an international direction once again. denis was ultimately benched after an interrupted four-year tenure with the organization.

denis spent most of his final playing years with Sprout over two separate stints

After a brief spell on the bench, he returned to action under the banner of cowana, an ill-fated organization that would prove to be his last. The approach came from Kevin “⁠kRYSTAL⁠” Amend, a former teammate and German Counter-Strike regular, who asked whether denis would be interested in the project. He agreed and joined kRYSTAL in an international roster with Stefan “⁠stfN⁠” Seier, Kevin “⁠HS⁠” Tarn, and Ádám “⁠kolor⁠” Domoszlay.

The next six months were far from what any of them had hoped for. HS departed, citing issues within the lineup and unpaid salaries. It soon emerged that the payment problems extended across the organization to other players, creators, and staff. A month later, cowana announced it was ceasing operations and parted ways with all of its teams.

“There were many known problems with cowana, so we couldn’t ever really focus on our game. We wanted to, but obviously that led to problems and frustrations within the team. I think there’s not much to say; it was like just three months, I guess. Not so nice of an ending to my career,” denis said.

Though cowana was technically the final team of his career, denis does not regard it as a true chapter. He would point to Sprout as the genuine last stop of his professional journey. What the experience did provide was the final push he needed to accept that his playing days were behind him and to turn his attention toward new horizons.

“I have been playing for ten years at a professional level,” denis said, looking back. “I started sometime in 2013. When you are used to playing the biggest tournaments in the world, and traveling the world, and have a really professional organization like Sprout, MOUZ, or BIG, it’s not fun anymore to play in smaller organizations when you are also not able to perform as you used to, or play in such tournaments.”

Acknowledging that the big stages were behind him and feeling the pull of a different role within the game, denis joined the Esports Player Foundation to lead their Counter-Strike department in early 2023.

The opportunity came quickly. denis’ former manager, Christian Lenz, who is a German esports veteran and the Director of Esports at EPF, reached out almost immediately after he departed from cowana. denis saw it as a natural next step. “EPF is one of the biggest organizations in Germany, and I wanted to help the next generation. It was perfect.”

Founded in 2020, the esports player foundation is a non-profit institution that scouts and develops young players across the titles it supports. Originally focused on the German market, it has since begun expanding internationally, as well. The initiative provides sports psychologists, in-game coaching, hardware, and community-building bootcamps to help players pursue a healthy professional career.

denis turned to youth development after drawing a curtain on his own playing career

Each title has its own dedicated department, led by a former professional from that game. denis heads the Counter-Strike department, with Sebastian “⁠xenn⁠” Hoch and Spiidi alongside him as department coaches.

In his role as Head of Counter-Strike, denis oversees the full lifecycle of talent development. He reviews incoming applications, but also actively scouts by monitoring FACEIT, following streams, and runs dedicated EPF scouting events.

Once he identifies a prospect with potential, the real work begins: a constant, around-the-clock commitment to providing everything they might need and tracking their progress. Given how young some of these players are when they enter the programme, this sometimes means sitting down with their parents, explaining what a professional esports path actually involves, and addressing whatever concerns the family might have.

A pattern denis has noticed is that while nearly all young players arrive with strong mechanical skills and sharp aim, it is almost always the mental side where they need the most guidance. “You know how it is when you are young, sometimes you think you know it better,” he remarked. “I was like that as well. I thought I knew better than my parents when they told me something.”

In-game intelligence, utility usage, positioning, teamplay, and communication are the areas where rookies most commonly fall short, and the most gifted players can still hit a wall when they run out of obvious ways to improve. Work ethic, denis remarks, is just as decisive as raw talent.

Having played alongside some of the sharpest tactical and mechanical minds in the game’s history, he is also able to draw on that experience in a practical way, pointing his students toward the right players to study depending on their style and role.

“Sometimes it doesn’t make sense to watch NiKo because even in a bad situation, he can get more kills than you because he has better aim or better intuition,” denis explains. “There are also players who are not that good at aiming, but position themselves very smartly and have good reactions.”

Out of his current players, denis highlights two in particular: Andrew-Jason “⁠AJ⁠” Dürselen, who was announced as a Passion UA academy recruit, and Oskar “⁠clockzi⁠” Led Blæsbjerg, a rising Danish star who has been signed to Falcons Force.

Both have bright futures ahead of them, but denis is especially excited about what AJ represents for the German scene. “I am really looking forward to seeing him compete,” denis remarks, hopeful about the breath of fresh air in a stagnant scene. “He is insanely motivated and always working to improve. I’m genuinely curious to see how far he goes.”

denis is the first to admit that the German scene is in a difficult place right now, and while the causes are complex, a significant part of the problem is a shortage of talent and a healthy grassroots ecosystem. During his playing days, there were reliably at least two German teams inside the world’s top 20 or 30; today, that number has been reduced to three players in BIG and two more in M80, with a sharp drop-off in quality after that.

After playing alongside Spiidi on and off for nearly a decade, denis now works with his former teammate in EPF

When denis’ generation retired, the pool of experienced players within tier two and tier three teams, those who could help younger talent develop on a daily basis, all but disappeared. “Nowadays, there are no players within these teams who can help them improve,” denis says. “We try to do that through the EPF, but it’s a different thing from having a teammate or coach alongside you every day in practice.” The lack of guidance reflects well in his opinion on the huge gap between the current top players and the ones who come after them in the rankings.

Unfortunately, the tough reality is that not everyone has it in them, either mentally or mechanically, to make it as a professional player. “At some point, you also need to be honest with them and say they will probably not be able to pursue a professional career,” denis said of having to break tough news to players pursuing their dreams. “That is also part of my job. Of course, it’s hard, but you have to tell them to focus on something else.”

This doesn’t mean their fate is sealed, as denis admitted that you can never count someone out, but a clear tendency is a clear tendency, and if someone goes all in on esports and doesn’t make it, they can be left with nothing. That’s why the esports player foundation also supports their prospects in developing outside of the game, so they always have a backup plan while preparing for esports.

This is especially important for denis, as he is someone who forwent his studies and his apprenticeship in insurance for a professional contract with MOUZ in 2015. Now, ten years later, he has resumed his studies at a university in Berlin, working towards a degree in Digital Marketing and Communication Management.

Going back to study after such a long gap was not easy, but he says the perspective that comes with age has changed his relationship with it entirely. “I am 31 now, so I guess I also have a different perspective on things since I know what life is about.”

His studies feed directly into his work at the foundation beyond talent development. The EPF maintains relationships with a wide range of partners who, in exchange for their support, need to be meaningfully integrated into esports through marketing activations.

Major non-endemic German brands such as Deutsche Bahn, Deutsche Telekom, Techniker Krankenkasse, and DKB, use the foundation as their entry point into the space. Denis plans activations for them, helps them understand the industry, and shapes campaigns that can land with both endemic and broader audiences.

It is this exact intersection where denis sees his future. “What I do right now is at the intersection between the operational side and the player side. I think that’s something I want to build my expertise even further in. I still need to develop in the marketing and sales side, but I guess that’s something I want to do even ten years from now. It’s a lot of fun for me.”

His chapter as a professional player is written and closed, with valuable lessons absorbed, genuine personal growth achieved, and memories that will not fade. The goal now is to pass that on, so the next generation can experience the same extraordinary journey, while carrying a little less weight along the way.

“I think I never talked about this pressure and nervousness openly. In general, I am just thankful for all the people I met and played with. People can’t imagine how insane it is to live through an experience like that, and obviously, this wouldn’t have been possible without all the players I met and the people in the background of all the organizations I have played in,” he says, before adding the caveat with a laugh. “Except Cowana.” He pauses, then settles on the thought he wants to leave with. “I am just thankful for all the people I have met, and I think they know that also.”