Viperio made a statement in their opening match at the BLAST.tv Paris RMR, where they took a #12 HLTV ranked fnatic to double overtime on Vertigo. Despite the gut-wrenching loss to a 1v2 from the opposition to surrender the game, Viperio can walk away from their RMR debut with their heads held high, as there were some dashes of brilliance amongst the defeat.
Their 0-1 matchup had them pitted against BNE, a team synonymous with aggressive manoeuvres and an in-your-face playstyle. Despite Viperio kicking off Overpass on the CT side, they were not able to convert the starting advantage into anything further as they were beaten out 16-9 by the Kosovars.
UKCSGO caught up with Jack “Gizmy” von Spreckelsen after their match, who shed some light into the Overpass game, the team’s recent issues in officials, and how the squad plans on remedying their problems heading forward.
Heading into the match against BNE, they’re notoriously a very puggy team. What was the team’s expectations ahead of the game?
We knew it would be Overpass or Anubis, our map pool isn’t that great right now. They had the choice of things, and what ended up happening was they allowed us to pick sides so they could choose the map. So we had a CT start, which was a bit weird. We knew they played a kind of puggy style… they B rushed us on monster like four times or something, it was a bit wild.
You mentioned the veto – your perm ban is one of their best maps, and their perm ban is one of your best maps. You expected it to be Overpass or Anubis, was there any special prep ahead of this?
In the pre tournament prep, we didn’t actually cover BNE. When you calculated the wins, we’d literally never play them. But there was numerous upsets and different variations of games, which all panned out to where we played BNE. We had no prep on them. I watched a few demos, I know biscu and arTisT did too, but not much prep. We were aware that prepping for a game like that wouldn’t do too much anyway, obviously they’re trying to out-aim you. In our three hour break between the fnatic game, we were warming up and chilling, trying to get the mental focus up.
Now that you’re in the 0-2 bracket, you’re playing best-of-threes now. Does this work against you?
Naturally it works against us. It would’ve been important for us to get at least one win in the best-of-ones, because then we could play a third best-of-one. Basically to buff up our chances like we did in the closed qualifier. Not beating fnatic and not beating BNE just now is quite tough, since the best-of-threes are only going to get harder. I think OG and GamerLegion are playing now, and if we get matched up against either of them in the 0-2 game, it’ll be a very tough game.
Our CT sides have been a bit poor since we’ve been playing with subs so much. It’s really tough having to change positions every game. – Gizmy on recent use of substitutes
Recently you’ve mentioned that your CT sides have some issues, especially in your recent losses. Is there anything different you’ve tried to employ to fix this?
Before we were getting a lot of CT stuff from numerous teams, but it felt like people were trying to do too much. Someone would be doing this from one team, and across the map, someone would be doing something from someone else. It wouldn’t match how that certain team plays. If they do this play on one side of the map, then maybe the other side is passive, but instead we’re both aggressive. The short term solution was to copy a team for each map, which seems to have improved our CT sides a bit. But yeah, our CT sides have been a bit poor since we’ve been playing with subs so much. It’s really tough having to change positions every game… in our thirteen loss streak, we had a sub or two subs, seven out of thirteen times. When you’re changing CT positions especially, everything you’ve worked on in the past goes out the window because you’re playing with different players.
Keita mentioned in an interview earlier that it was difficult to research you guys, you’d play different positions each map and even switching AWPers between games…
Yeah, it was wild. We had Ping AWPing towards the end of Advanced and Regulations games. It actually worked pretty well, but the fnatic game would’ve been tough for them, which is partly why we had a good CT side. We went back to our original positions and there was a fairly decent playstyle shift with them.
Every flaw on each map kept getting bigger and bigger […] we didn’t really have time to fix it due to having so many officials
In the run up to the RMR, you’ve been playing a bunch of HLTV games. In a HLTV interview, arTisT mentioned that in your Poland bootcamp, it might’ve actually been a bit of an information overload. Do you think it’s maybe a combination of this and burnout which is affecting the team’s performance?
Yeah, in a way, we definitely shouldn’t have accepted so many tournament invites. If you look like a team such as B8, they’ve just gone 2-0. They didn’t accept any invites after the RMR qualifiers, they only played Advanced playoffs. It shows, because I assume they’ve been praccing every other day. When it’s stuff like that, you can see the progress in the maps. But when it comes to us, every flaw on each map kept getting bigger and bigger, and we didn’t really have time to fix it due to having so many officials. People would start to lose confidence, stuff that worked in the past isn’t working anymore and you’re wondering why, things like that.
Picking up Extinct ahead of the upcoming season, you now have a stable five assuming scheduling goes smoothly. Along with this being the first time you’ve dipped your toes in consistent tier-2 competition, are we going to see an improvement in your performance as a team?
Well, hopefully we won’t be losing to academy teams. Spirit Academy are sick, so that’s different. We’ll definitely learn stuff from it, I can’t promise anything about our future performances, but you can only assume it’ll get better. We’ve learned a lot already, and we should be improving after this.
I think some of my teammates needed it, I was perfectly happy to play 24/7. – Gizmy on Viperio’s break before the RMR
MMS spoke about your team’s preparation heading into the event, and how you took time apart from each other. Was this helpful to you personally, especially considering the grind you’ve been putting in recently?
I think some of my teammates needed it, I was perfectly happy to play 24/7 [laughs]. It hasn’t affected my performance that much, but the team as a whole definitely needed some chill time. We really did just play one game or two games every day with subs for a month, and it was quite aids. It’s paid off to some degree, but there’s also drawbacks. In that break, obviously we weren’t praccing as much, and if you look at today where we lost to BNE, we lost against two anti-ecos and both second rounds. When it’s stuff like that, which has lost us the game, maybe if we had more prac we’d have solved it. But also, maybe with more prac we’d have been burned out and not shot back… I don’t have much else to say.
We’ve shown what we can do to some degree, so we’re going to hold ourselves to that standard.
Let’s bring it back to the RMR as a whole. Now that you’ve made it here, is this going to change the team’s goals and expectations for the future?
After the RMR, we’re back to ESEA Advanced. It’ll be somewhat similar goals, but we’ll be holding ourselves to a slightly higher standard. We’ve shown what we can do to some degree, so we’re going to hold ourselves to that standard.
Let’s end on a high note. In the fnatic match, you had a rough start. On the second half, you went 23-9 on CT Vertigo – was that just a case of getting rid of the first game nerves and feeling it a bit more?
Oh yeah, bro in the first five rounds, I jumped twice while shooting people. It was quite tragic, I got the whiffs out early [laughs]. We started getting rounds on T side, and it flowed into the CT half. I wasn’t super nervous going into the game, I wasn’t nervous because of who we were playing against necessarily. It’s just that once I sat down and was in a new environment again, I think that made the nerves a bit worse.
