Vitality’s seven-tournament run ran into trouble at the Esports World Cup when The MongolZ beat them in the semi-finals. Shahar “flameZ” Shushan told HLTV the team is still competitive but has lost some of the earlier edge and needs to sort out small communication and execution issues to be back at their best.
Vitality may have dominated the first half of the year with seven straight tournament wins, but form has been more complex to find since the player break. Their run at the Esports World Cup ended in the semis against The MongolZ.
Shahar “flameZ” Shushan said the team stays competitive and reached the semis, but they’re not yet playing the way they want, and there are lots of minor communication issues to discuss as a group.
Listen to the interview here.
What are your thoughts after today?
Quite disappointed. I feel like on Mirage and Dust2 we had really good plans, but we couldn’t hit our shots and there were small details that we failed on. It’s completely our fault because we had a lot of good reads and good ideas in the game, we just couldn’t punish them in this sense. It’s quite disappointing because you have the game in your hands and let it go.
On Nuke, we try to play a round and they kill two people through a smoke. We didn’t get to the situations we wanted because they shoot really hard, and every second round there was an entry there and there and there. It’s tough to play against a team that is really sharp and is feeling it. So yeah, quite disappointing, but I will have to watch the game to see what happened.
We had a lot of good reads and good ideas in the game, we just couldn’t punish them in this sense.
You started in a rough spot on Nuke, 10-2 down at the half. I’ve had a lot of players saying Nuke T side is really hard to play; do you feel the same?
Yeah, right now Nuke T side is a big question mark for many teams. I think we actually have a good T side on Nuke, but they just played so good on CT side that it was quite tough to play our CS. Then we got to CT side and again, we started winning rounds but they just needed three rounds and that’s it.
I wouldn’t say it’s tough, the T side, but obviously it’s tough when the team against you push Ramp, we have two people on Lobby and they both die, or we try to execute on A and Senzu kills two people through a smoke. If that happens in a game you have to give it to them sometimes, give them a handshake because they played really well.
ZywOo was pretty sick so we had to help a lot, and we didn’t manage as much as him as a player would do.
Obviously it’s been tough for Vitality at the start of this season, so what do you think changed compared to last season?
It depends, because I feel we are getting back into good form slowly, but I think many teams are good and our level has fallen. It’s obviously tough to keep it up, seven trophies in a row isn’t something easy. We’re still competitive and getting to the semis, but we’re not yet playing how we want to play and that’s something we have to talk about more as a team. Right now it’s many small details, many small communications.
Today ZywOo was pretty sick so we had to help a lot, and we didn’t manage as much as him as a player would do. I think we had good reads today, but it was just quite tough on the side that we couldn’t hit our shots in many rounds where we had a really good situation.
It hurts. Who can argue with the numbers and the rhythm they established earlier this year?
