m0NESY on Grand Final against Vitality: "It's going to be a spicy match"

G2 and Jake "Stewie2k" Yip are yet to drop a map in the IEM Dallas 2024 playoffs and they can thank Ilya "m0NESY" Osipov for that. The Russian AWPer is the sixth highest-rated player of the event and he hasn't shied away from the spotlight, going above and beyond during the playoffs.

Dust2.us' Daniel "Scoobster" Khurgin talked with the prodigy about the addition of Stewie2K to the squad, and the two also spoke about the upcoming Grand Final against Vitality, who have only dropped two maps across the whole event.

Please note that the full interview can be found below on YouTube, while the transcript has some key snippets from their conversation.

Stewie2K has joined the team for this event. How is he helping the squad in your eyes?

With the atmosphere, for sure. I think he is really good, he is speaking his language and it's better for him to communicate to say what we are doing wrong. He also has a lot of experience and history as a player and he can bring some ideas and help with what he sees we are doing wrong with communication or with energy. He brings a lot of energy and a lot of atmosphere, good atmosphere.

Speaking about communication and that match against 9z, can you talk about what happened in that round on Dust2 where you got the final kill with four seconds left?

Oh. From a tactical perspective, I just had to stay in pit alone and bait them with the smoke I had to just let them hold site on A. So they cannot peek, they cannot get info on A, so they have to play a bit scared, and at the same time we were walking out on B with four guys and we had a second AWP that we picked up from long. We just wanted to walk out B and I would fake on long and it was good until the moment I was in CT. I was hoping he would be outside B and he didn't commit to B and I just killed him.

You get mega unlucky. They were four A for the first minute of the round and then the moment you throw that smoke they all go B.

Really? Oh my god...

Moving on to the Grand Finals, you are playing Vitality. They are the only team to beat you so far in this event. What do you think about that matchup because it was fairly one-sided?

We played against them and we played the same map we played against 9z, Dust2. We played Dust2 and I can say we fucked up a lot of rounds, we lost anti-ecos, lost rounds that could win us the game. I think coming to the Grand Final against Vitality, we are really confident and we made a lot of conclusions after the game and we had a big step up, I would say, with how we want to play. Coming to the Grand Final we are really confident. It's going to be a really spicy match.