Fears were rising that the UK fans might not have a UK representative on the stage. Vitality had fallen to Virtus.Pro in a game they probably should have won and with talks that Ilya “m0NESY” Osipov would return in time, there was a genuine fear that British fans might lose the only UK player in the competition before the arena stage.
Fortunately for the local crowd, William “mezii” Merriman and Vitality pulled through in a 2-1 win over G2 to set-up a quarter final clash against FaZe. After the stressful three map series UKCSGO caught up with mezii.
The British star discussed how he was able to find form, playing in the UK and his message for the home crowd here at London.
So it’s now confirmed, you’re playing in front of a UK crowd at a UK event at Wembley Arena – tell me your thoughts?
Of course it was the goal before the event, but when we messed up the first game and messed up the second map against G2, the thoughts came in “we’re messing up and I don’t have the chance to play in front of the crowd.” But in the end we did it and that’s all I can ask for. I want to go further, we want to really do well at this event, we wanted to win one of these events, it’s just a great thing playing in front of the crowd in the first place.
Mentally, you said yourself you messed up on Anubis against G2, how do you bounce back from that afterwards, what’s the routine?
We put a lot on ourselves to make sure we always play our game. Sometimes it punishes us. On Anubis it punished us – we tried to play our game, we tried to play aggressive and it didn’t pan out. Sometimes it goes that way, we had a talk after that map and we just said “we need to play our game, we know how they’re going to play, we don’t care what they’re going to do, we just play our game, keep being aggressive, keep being proactive and we know it’s going to work.” It works in the end, and that’s all that matters.
Yesterday you realised you were going to have to play G2, and there was a lot of talk about m0nesy coming back. Did that change your outlook going into this game?
No. Obviously it was a bit of a mess before the game, I don’t really know what happened – it’s above my pay grade to worry about what’s going on [laughs] but I think it was a bit of a mess, we didn’t really know who was going to be playing. Whether it was TaZ or m0NESY, it kept on changing, even five minutes before the game.
For us it was one of those things you just can’t think too much about, even for this five obviously they played with a stand-in at Dallas and they played with a stand-in for the first game here, so it’s not like we have a load of data to go on anyway. It’s one of those things we just need to focus on ourselves and just play our game because that’s the main thing. Whether m0NESY’s playing or TaZ is playing we just need to win the round and that’s all that matters.
You mentioned the last event, IEM Dallas, you beat them with their star AWPer and you couldn’t beat them without, what happened?
Stewie2k. I think at Dallas it was one of those events where it was ours to win as well, it wasn’t like they beat us convincingly, it was one of those where we really should have won this final as well. Coming into this we were still really confident, going up against a lot of these teams they don’t enjoy playing against us, we play in their face, we play aggressive, they don’t enjoy either so I think most teams we’re comfortable playing against.
You’ve been playing rather well recently, what do you attribute this good form to?
It’s kind of finding my way to play these roles. I think before I’ve been playing too traditional in some of these anchor roles, and trying to play it too “properly”. I spent a lot of time with our coach and assistant coach to make it work and make sure I can keep playing confidently, taking my duels, taking my fights because that’s what suits me the most. At the moment it’s working well.
Even on T-side as well, just taking my timings and being confident because before I was playing a bit too scared and maybe overthinking too much, not taking those timings and that just doesn’t always work out. Now I’m kind of in the flow state, really feeling part of the team – I think everyone’s a great job to help me improve as well. That’s a big thing as well, everyone’s working really hard to do this.
Were you given any specific advice that you think helped get you into these roles?
It’s just “fight more and think less”. I spent a lot of time trying to study the game and think a lot more about how these roles work, and what I can do, all these small details of how to use the util and everything, and sometimes it’s just about headshotting. That’s something I’ve kind of focussed on that at the moment, just headshot, play the way I want to play and not focus too much on what else is happening.
Also being a little bit more selfish, because in these roles it’s easy to be a lot supporting and trying to help the other players, and sometimes I need some support as well and to make some plays, just kind of getting that balance.
You were saying there you need to think less, do you think that’s because you were an IGL at Fnatic, do you think you were still in that mentality a bit?
Yeah, I think because I’ve always been in that mindset where I’m either an IGL or a second caller, where I’m trying to think so much and trying to help so much. I think apEX does a great job of not trying to put too much pressure on me to help that side of things so much, he’s just saying “just focus on yourself and just headshot as much as you can”, and that’s what I often do.
I guess my final question is, anything for the UK fans?
Just be loud. It’s going to be the first time for me and it’s going to be exciting, but I know some of the French guys have played in front of a UK crowd and said how good it is, so thanks for all the support – even before people have turned up for the event they’re showing their support and showing their love on socials. So I can’t thank anyone enough. It’s just – it’s been great already. So just be loud in the arena, I’m looking forward to playing in front of everyone.
