NiP Ex6TenZ: ‘Frustrating’ injury caused VCT Challengers exit

Ninjas in Pyjama’s IGL Kévin ‘Ex6TenZ’ Droolans, who also goes by ‘akukhoS,’ explained how a ‘frustrating’ right-hand injury contributed to his team’s loss in the VCT Challengers semifinals.

Ex6TenZ, who will be 31 at the end of the month, is playing with an injury near his right thumb that he says has been affecting team practice and, most recently, NiP’s performance against Guild Esports.

“I just have a problem, since like three weeks,” he told Dexerto. “I have a problem in my hand and it’s [prevented] me to practice correctly and I just need to fix it. I need a pole to fix that and for the moment we don’t have poles. It’s a nightmare to play.”

Ex6TenZ expects to meet with a specialist for an ultrasound, but there’s no set timetable as of yet. The injury could keep him sidelined for 1-2 weeks for treatment and recovery.

The Belgian previously spoke about the injury in a VCT post-game interview on April 6, with hopes of getting it looked at in the next two weeks. But it’s not looking like the CSGO legend will be able to get it treated in time for the next EU Challengers.

As a right-handed FPS player, the injury affects the hand he uses to aim and any keybinds that he would normally have on his mouse. He previously described the injury as “nothing big” but it seems that has changed.

“[The injury] is absolutely horrible for the moment. I don’t know, it’s not tendinitis but it’s something close to my thumb,” he said.

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While he originally planned to get it checked in a couple of weeks’ time, missing qualification for the Challengers Finals will keep NiP on a tight deadline if they want any hope of getting into the Stage 2 Masters LAN at Reykjavík, Iceland.

“I don’t think I have time to [get it looked at] before the next Challengers because maybe it’ll need an infiltration [surgery],” Ex6TenZ explained to Dexerto.

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NiP lost 1-2 in the Best-of-3 against Guild. Ex6TenZ went -12, the lowest in the server, with a 31/43/20 KDA across three maps. He credited the loss to a bad overall Bind performance from his team, and couldn’t ignore the injury’s impact on his team.

Playing with the injury was ‘frustrating’ for him: “If I didn’t have that I would be better, and the team would have more time to practice; it’s really annoying for us at the moment.”