Players talked with William 'mezii' Merriman about not the best start of the year for Team Vitality, his own experience, tough competition and the British CS scene.
Vitality did not have the best start of the year, why did this happen? Is the team undergoing a kind of restructuring process or are you just not yet in the competitive rhythm?
When I first joined the team in November we hit success pretty instantly. That’s anything you can ask for, success and winning tournaments - it was nice. At the start of the year, I think we had a lot of stuff we needed to work on. At Katowice we didn’t perform well at all and we learned a lot from this. I think we need to work more on individual responsibility and what I need to do as a player to help the team and play my new roles.
Of course, some positions on a map I played before but there are a lot of new things for me. Not only positions but also how Vitality and apEX like to play in the team, how to react and all those protocols you have to learn when you are coming to a new team. I’ve been in Fnatic for a couple of years and learned how to play there but it’s completely new here.
That’s what you can’t learn in the first two tournaments. I think when you work as a team, you have to put everything together. For example, how I like to put things and how the other 4 players like to do things. It’s a big plan. Katowice didn’t come together. Coming to Copenhagen major, we saw glimpses of it. There were improvements and of course, it was a disappointing way of ending major, as we can get all the way.
We have clear goals and clear things we need to work on. These couple of weeks before the ESL Pro League - the practising was well. We feel very confident and I am feeling more comfortable. It’s a work in progress. No excuses from our side but it’s getting better, for sure.
How would you rate your performance right now?
I think my overall performance was pretty low. When I joined and he won a couple of tournaments my performance was on the OK level. It’s been pretty inconsistent overall for me. I think it’s just taking a bit of time and I’m fully confident that I will be able to put better numbers and support the team in a much better way. The form is improving and I showed it in practice and a few games in tournaments. For me, it’s about finding consistency. That also helps the team's overall performance as well, helping apEX call. When they know what they are getting from me, of course, it will help our team. With my consistency, I have no doubt we will continue winning tournaments.
You have your first EPL match against Sharks. Have you already analysed this team? Do you think they can surprise you with their performance in the tournament?
Yes, I think in every tournament in CS2 there are a lot of underdogs and these teams can win. A lot of those teams have been grinding and I think the flow of these teams improved compared to CS:GO. Of course, these teams can surprise. We aren’t going to underestimate them at all. It will be a tough time and we respect them but we need to play our own game.
What’s the minimum goal for Vitality in this tournament?
We want to get back to winning tournaments, there are only a few tournaments left before the players break and we want to win some. We need to show that we are making progress. Of course, the progress is shown by winning tournaments but we need to show that we are making progress from Katowice to Major and now to ESL Pro League. We are here to win and that’s definitely what we are feeling comfortable we can do.
Do you agree that the CS2 scene is more competitive right now and putting more pressure on top teams?
Yes, the competition is rising. Now you see smaller teams not only play at Major but also perform well at certain stages. CS2 is still kind of new, people are still figuring out new things to do, new tricks and so on. These teams are showing a lot of potential right now.
I don’t think it’s putting more pressure on top teams. I think we need to focus even more on ourselves. Maybe before some teams were taking these games for granted and thought that lower teams would be easier to beat. As an extra pressure, I think you need to be more aware that these teams can do some damage. In CS2, in MR12, if you make too many mistakes it’s a big factor, as the play goes by so fast. If you lose a pistol or a first buy round, all of a sudden you have a big deficit. It’s a lot harder in CS2.
What is happening to the British CS? As far as I know, only 8 or 9 Brits have played in LANs the majors at this point. It's interesting to hear your opinion because you've played a lot on the British stage.
From my point of view, there are always improvements, year on year basis. We are getting more players, of course not on an international level or S-Tier LANs where we see UK players. I think it’s a pretty small scene, it’s definitely growing. You see some players coming through, we have CYPHER in BLEED, and we have gizmy in Monte.
It’s always tough because if you can get a full five from the UK it will be great, but at the moment we don’t have five players or the team structure to be able to push through, make CS full time and put a lot of time into it. At the moment, we just need to settle for some players that are breaking through.
For example, in Danish scene, there are so many IGL’s at each level you can look up to and learn the game, in the UK there’s not so much. It’s hard to learn. I try to help players when they message me and we try to improve. It just takes a lot of time as we are not the biggest scene.
We would like to thank our friends from FAVBET for their support of the project, as they actively support esports and make it closer to Ukrainian fans.
