After joining Vitality in November of last year, it has only been an upward trajectory for William “mezii” Merriman. Coming out the gates swinging Vitality won BLAST Premier Fall Final 2023 in Copenhagen and ended the year with a win at BLAST Premier World Final 2023 in Abu Dhabi.
After spending the best part of two years in fnatic, mezii did have some notable performances. The team’s run to the quarter-finals of the IEM Rio Major 2022 was the Brits’ first time in a major playoffs. Alongside this, he also won his first LAN event at Elisa Masters Espoo 2022. However, overall, it was clear that the roster was struggling and mezii found the best out.
mezii playing for fnatic at the Blast.TV Paris Major.
Changing out of the IGL role mezii replaced Emil “Magisk” Reif who moved to Falcons. Joining the best team in the world with the best player in the world, there were a lot of expectations, but mezii put his best foot forward.
Heading into 2024 Vitality was named the best team of the year in 2023, and with the world in the palm of their hands, the year didn’t start as well as they would have wanted. After qualifying for the Blast Premier Spring Finals in London, they moved to Katowice. This outing did not go to plan. The world #1 did not win a single series and was overshadowed by Danil “donk” Kryshkovets’ ungodly performance. Regardless, expectations were still high for Vitality to make the major.
And people’s expectations were met. After day one Vitality surged to 2-0, dropping five rounds across the two games they played versus HEROIC and GamerLegion. After a turbulent series falling to Cloud9 1-2, they kept pushing forward and ended up qualifying today dismantling ENCE 13-6 and 13-4 to qualify for the first CS2 Major.
Mezii hopefully will not the be only UK representative in Cophengahen however. We have already ruled out two UK players, Thomas “Thomas” Utting for Into the Breach as they crashed out 0-3 and Jack “Gizmy” von Spreckelsen who was standing in for Monte failed to qualify, going 1-3. However, Jamie “keita” Hall, the coach of fnatic, still has the chance to qualify as they will be playing in the last chance qualifier starting on the 23rd as they went 2-3 in RMR A. Tomorrow, Sebastian “volt” Maloș and Ashley “ash” Battye for GamerLegion will either join fnatic in the last chance qualifier or if they beat HEROIC they will qualify and try to replicate the magic from Paris as they made the finals.
Finally, if we cross the pond to the NA qualifier, M80 coach Rory “dephh” Jackson has been subbing in for IGL Marcus “maNkz” Kjeldsen as he has taken a personal leave. The last time dephh played a major was in 2018 when Complexity made playoffs at the FACEIT Major 2018.
Once again, to every UK fan planning to travel to Copenhagen, if any UK player or coach makes playoffs, make sure to lend your energy.
