dupreeh: "We're not going to win just by joining the server"
Vitality kicked off their run at the BLAST Premier Spring Finals in an unfortunate fashion, falling to the lower bracket immediately at the hands of Brazilian side Imperial. With the team riding the high of recently winning the BLAST.tv Paris Major, the result came as a shock to many.
Despite the early shortcomings, Vitality managed to keep themselves afloat with a hotly-contested 2-0 victory over Cloud9. Following the win over Cloud9, Vitality's Peter "dupreeh" Rasmussen spoke with Dust2.us' Samuel "Draik04" Popkes regarding the loss to Imperial, the decision to skip IEM Dallas, and motivation in a post-Paris Major world.
Congratulations on the win, super close game. How does it feel to secure that stage appearance?
It was good to have a game that we won since we lost yesterday. We played pretty poorly yesterday; we had a lot of talking with the staff and the team, wanting to figure out what went wrong yesterday. I think we played better today. It was still not pretty, it was far away from the best we could do, but the win was really important.
What do you think the conclusion of those talks were that you had?
A lot of it was about motivation because we just came from winning the Major. The most pressure we probably had as a team winning that one, winning in Paris and everything. Going here, and wanting to of course perform but at the same time, we just felt a little flat. We achieved the greatest thing you could achieve, and then going here, still of course wanting to win, but it was not on the same level. We didn't want to win it as much as we wanted to win in Rio, for that matter. We reminded ourselves that, even though we won the Major, going to this tournament nothing is going to come easy, we're not going to win just by joining the server. We still have to stick to the things we know that work, so I think that was the conclusion.
You skipped Dallas, whereas a lot of other teams opted to attend. Do you think attending may have allowed you to keep your momentum going?
No, I actually think it would have been worse, because already now we have small signs of... I wouldn't say exhaustion, but we can feel that a break is just around the corner. I think if we would have went to Dallas, sure we maybe would have kept a little bit of the momentum, but I think we would have flattened out and we would have just been super tired and super dead coming here. I think we planned the schedule really well, having one week off when we got home, and then playing one week coming into this tournament, but having not the greatest practice because a lot of the great teams were in Dallas. We also had some issues with people on the team being ill, so we didn't have the most productive practice. The circumstances and the preparation coming into this tournament have been a bit flat, but overall I think we can all agree that even though we had a flat preparation we should still do better than we did yesterday, and today, in my opinion.
Do you think that fatigue you described may have played a role in yesterday's loss?
No, actually not. Everyone wants to play, and everyone wants to win, I think it was just more that Imperial wanted to win more than we did. Both teams wanted to win, but the team that shows that you want to win the most is usually gonna be the one that goes out with the win. I think that was the main issue yesterday, and also the communication was bad, we got a little bit frustrated with coming here; there was a lot of technical issues, the arena was really cold, we had some issues with that, so overall it was just really poor yesterday. Imperial played really well yesterday, so they deserve every single one and they definitely deserve the 2-0. We just didn't do our job yesterday.
You're set to play the loser of Heroic versus FaZe, both pretty daunting teams. How do you feel about the potential matchup there?
There's no easy game in Counter-Strike anymore, you could see that with the game against Imperial yesterday. Both teams went to Dallas, both teams are hungry for winning something. I don't think Heroic... they probably expected to win at least one title this season, they haven't done it. They've been probably the most consistent team throughout the season, but they haven't clinched the titles that they want to, so they're definitely here and hungry to win that one before the break. It's gonna be a tough match no matter what, and whatever team you face is going to be tough, because... FaZe... (laughs). I think it's going to be tough no matter what.
You mentioned motivational issues going from the Major win to this event. Are you worried about similar issues in the second half of the year, without that second Major? What are the goals for the team now?
I think we still have to go home and define what the next goal is. For me, I really like to have a set goal for the team, something that we're chasing, but obviously, the main goal here is that we want to end the season in style, getting those three wins back-to-back-to-back. Overall, showing that we have created a really consistent team. On the other side, when you go on the other side of the break, you have CS2 probably coming out. That is probably motivation in itself, with a new game you want to master it as fast as possible, or at least try to master it.
It's a new beginning for the game, and you want to be the team that makes the most out of it when you get there. That's the motivation, but whenever we go home, we're surely gonna have a talk about what the next goal is for the team, what we want to achieve because the goal was to win the Major in Paris and we managed to achieve that one. Now we need to refind ourselves and see where we go from here. Sure, we are still a team, but to have an upper goal that we want to chase is really important.
Vitality will now be anticipating the result of the brawl between Heroic and FaZe, with dupreeh and company set to face the loser of that match in the quarterfinals tomorrow at 04:45PM.
