Vitality came into BLAST Premier Spring Finals with modest expectations, hoping to make a playoff run after struggling to realise the potential of their roster in the first half of 2022.
They have surpassed those expectations by making the grand final, recovering valiantly from an opening loss to G2 and impressively besting world #2 ENCE along the way.
This iteration of Vitality have now reached their first grand final
Just after confirming that grand final spot, dupreeh gave an interview to HLTV to talk about Vitality‘s run, the rivalry developing with G2, and the upcoming final with Natus Vincere.
Congratulations, you must be feeling great after that win?
Yeah it’s what we’ve been working towards for a long long time, making playoffs was something that we really wanted to do and now seeing ourselves in the grand final is a big relief for the team. It’s a great joy, there’s a lot of good emotions.
What do you think has been the difference this tournament?
I just think that we started believing a bit, we also got a confidence win against ENCE and that’s been one of the main issues for us, that we haven’t really been able to beat teams within the top ten. It seems like we’ve always been capable of beating the teams below us but we’ve never really made it against the best teams, and you kind of have to do that to go into playoffs (laughs).
This time around it worked out for us, and I think it gave us a lot of confidence going into the game against G2 today.
Talking about the game specifically, it felt like early parts of each half were incredibly important on Dust2, winning the T side pistol and streaking off that, then breaking them when they won their T pistol. What did it feel like for the team?
We got off to that really good start and getting a lot of early T rounds on Dust2 is crucial in terms of winning the map because the CT side can be so hard to play against. I think we made a lot of good decisions coming into the CT side, we won a lot of the gambles and also the money game, we broke them, and I think we broke their confidence also.
I think the reason why we’re not putting up this biggest numbers on CT right now is because we are not hitting the shots we’re supposed to.
Going up against NiKo, he was playing really well on the first side and… well I wouldn’t say he went missing, but on the T side it can be so hard to find the solution, and I just think that is what worked out for us. They couldn’t find a solution, and we had a solution.
On Inferno CT it seemed like the B site was a bit of a problem for you. Do you think that cost you on that map?
I think they had a game plan going into Inferno going B a lot, and we made a few mistakes when they wanted to wrap on A in terms of positioning, and we made some stupid calls. We had the chance of winning at least a couple more rounds on CT, and then winning the pistol on T side but losing the force (laughs) if you end up losing the force every time you win the pistol it’s just going to be worse for you.
We didn’t really gain any momentum, we just kept getting broken, so yeah we didn’t come up with a great solution on Inferno and they really deserved to win.
It seems the T sides have been great this tournament, and specifically that T side on Nuke was very effective. Do you feel you have improved in that aspect coming into this event?
I think we have a really good T side in general, and I think the reason why we’re not putting up the biggest numbers on CT right now is because we are not hitting the shots we’re supposed to, we’re not getting all the double-kills we maybe want to.
ZywOo is stepping up but the rest of us are having somewhat average games, we don’t really have that peak performance all the time, and you kind of need that to be really efficient on CT sides. That’s what we’re missing right now, but if you can get a lot of T rounds, that’s always lovely you know (smiles).
NAVI is NAVI. They have all these really good players, and they have been a consistent top contender for years, so it’s going to be really tough.
Especially in this meta.
Yes.
People have been talking about a rivalry developing between G2 and Vitality, does it feel like that way to you?
Only in the sense… I mean maybe there’s two cases for it, the main case is that we have played them a lot lately. They are another international team created somewhat at the same time as we were, so in that sense yes it’s a rivalry, and also because their coach is from the previous team, so there is a small hint of what it’s like when we play against Astralis. I think both parties want to prove the other one is wrong and made the wrong decision, I think there’s a rivalry in that sense, but it’s not anything we talk about or that influences the team in a bad way.
We’ve lost a lot to G2 lately, we’ve lost some important games, but I’m at a point where I would trade all the losses so far for this win (laughs) so it’s pretty good.
One last question – how are you guys feeling about the final tomorrow?
It’s going to be interesting, NAVI coming here having recently removed Boombl4 and I know they haven’t played that much lately, but NAVI is NAVI. They have all these really good players, and they have been a consistent top contender for years, so it’s going to be really tough, I think if we play like today we can put up a really good fight. I hope we can do that, it’s all about showing up individually tomorrow.
