Vanity: "If we win both pistols against any team... we can 16-6 them"
In the third round of the upper bracket, Gorilla Gang took down oNe 16-6 on Mirage, despite oNe being a heavy favorite for the matchup. With Gorilla Gang set to take on Hooked later tonight, our very own Joe "tolkienfanatic" Cardali caught up with Anthony "Vanity" Malaspina to discuss his team and his own achievements.
Earlier, you guys took down oNe in pretty convincing fashion. What are your thoughts after that match?
It's kinda what we expected. If we win both pistols against any team in MDL or even in the bottom of Pro League, it's pretty common that we can 16-6 them.
I think that a lot of people were hyping up oNe to be one of the favorites to win this. Do you guys think that you have the advantage now?
Yeah, definitely. When you beat a team that convincingly, even if it's only a Bo1 in upper bracket, it's in their head regardless.
Who are some of the other teams that you were kinda looking at coming into this that you were wary about?
Initially Swole Patrol, but they have pretty much two stand-ins since Brax just joined the team, so not really anyone else aside from oNe.
You really started coming to prominence early last year with that ASUS ROG LAN and some other events. How has that journey been for you?
Well, I probably quit this game like... 40 times... I don't know. I started in Season 21 and I quit every season until Season 25. Like, I stopped playing halfway through each season. I think just putting in the work pretty much is why I've gotten as far as I have.
Talk about how you went about assembling this team, with all the roster changes, etc.
So ben1337 and oSee have been playing together for like three years since Open. hydrex and me have been playing together since WorldGaming, which was a little over a year ago. And ryan, I've known him since I started playing when we were in Intermediate.
At that ASUS ROG event, you were there on a team with fl0m, so is there any special significance to you maybe getting to play them here?
Oh, I hope we play Mythic so bad.
So, this season was a training season, right, but next season will be a promotion season, so what are your goals and expectations heading into that?
Make Pro.
That's it? Just make pro?
Yeah. Just make Pro. I mean, I think it falls under the same timespan as WESG and we wanna qualify for that too. I mean, we're one of the only full American rosters left. We also play in all the DreamHack qualifiers so it'd be nice to qualify for some of those too.
You guys have been sponsorless for awhile. What's the deal with that?
We were supposed to have a sponsor for this event and they dropped out like two days before, so that was cool.
@ them, bro. @ them.
Vertacon. They said they'd give us like 2 grand and we're like, alright we'll represent you guys and then two days before Frag, the owners backed out as expected.
You just got invited to FPL. Your FPL-C exploits have been well-documented, so is that exciting? Just like the game, you've quit FPL a couple of times, so what's the plan now?
I plan on streaming actually like every night as soon as practice is over. I mean, as much as I can because I'm a full-time college student so obviously school takes precedence.
You segued into my follow-up question so yeah, what's going on in real life besides all of this?
I'm just attending a community college for now, I'm going to transfer to a state school. I'm an accounting major. I'm only two semesters in, so I'm like barely in so it's not too hard to balance CS and school.
You're in Washington so kind of far up and away from everything, has that been kinda tough location-wise for you?
Online, the lowest ping I get is 50. And travelling is always expensive, but I mean, it's worth it. This is actually the first flight I've gone on myself.
And just in general, what are your thoughts on the event as a whole?
It's pretty cool to see all the people I've been talking to online for years.
Gorilla Gang are currently in Round 4 of the Fragadelphia 12 upper bracket. Vanity and his team will take on Hooked at 8PM, with the winner going on to the upper bracket final where they will take on Swole Patrol.
