VINI: "A good dream became a bad one"

After a devastating loss to Cloud9 in the 0-2 pool of the IEM Rio Major, Imperial's Vinicius "VINI" Figueiredo spoke with Dust2.us' Ryan Friend about the match, the issue regarding crowd noise, and Imperial's plans for the remainder of the year.

You guys had 15-11 and 15-6 scorelines against Cloud9, it was within your grasp. What happened?

I mean I think we were having the rounds, we were just losing the advantageous situations. We had an A split on Vertigo where sh1ro got a triple kill. I think we were doing the right ideas, but sh1ro was just stopping us. I think we didn't manage to close the game because of that.

Cloud9 have looked shaky, obviously losing to Grayhound and going 0-2. Heading into the game, did you believe that this was a very beatable Cloud9?

Oh definitely, if they were in the 0-2 they were doing something wrong as well. After losing Overpass when it was really close we just lost some clutches, we knew our Vertigo was not that strong but we fixed a lot of stuff so I think we just showed it in the match, but it wasn't enough.

chelo has been an incredible addition to the team. How are you as an experienced player helping him out in growing emotionally on this team?

I think we do pretty good with that, even losing some winnable rounds we're just trying to keep calm and do the right stuff because it was a really close match. I think it was just who performed better individually, and sh1ro was a monster.

There has been a lot of controversy over the crowd noise, with ESL turning off the minimap and x-ray for the crowd in the middle of the Imperial match. Did you feel like you were being signaled to by the crowd?

Actually not, what we know that we can do is sometimes you just hold an angle and people start screaming, or when you get a lurker and the guy is gonna be at your site. I think the only thing that we could get in these matches, on Inferno, everyone starts screaming during the B retake and we just told FalleN "Hold our back for like five seconds" and it paid off. I think the only thing we managed to do with the crowd was like that.

Do you think that's right, and if not, is there even a good way to stop that?

I don't think we should stop that. I mean, it only happens on the big stage, and everyone says, it's an experience the guys know, there's a lot of gimmicks that you can do with the crowd. Brazil is really loud, but that happens everywhere, Cologne, Katowice, so I think it doesn't matter, it's part of the game.

What are the next steps for this Imperial team?

I'll be honest, we have no clue. We just need to meet together in a couple of weeks, talk and decide what we're going to do in the future. I don't think we're gonna play in any tournaments to December, so just focusing on next year and what we want to do.

Exiting early from the biggest event of the year in Rio, tell me how you feel.

I mean, it's an awful feeling. We waited the whole year to play here and losing 0-3... if it wasn't from the bad performances we had in the BO1s, and it was just this match then it'd be okay, but we have a really big problem starting T-side in some BO1s. I think we started too slow and that made a good dream become a bad one.

VINI and the rest of Imperial will be taking some time to recover after their crushing defeat in Rio, with the squad not currently scheduled to play an event for the remainder of the year.