Vitality’s captain rated his own calling in Hong Kong as his worst in a long time, and the team now have six or seven days at home before a short Singapore bootcamp.
Three series, one win and the first 13-0 defeat Vitality have ever suffered in CS2: that was the return of Dan “apEX” Madesclaire at BLAST Rivals Season 2. After the 2-0 quarter-final loss to MOUZ on Friday, the Frenchman put a large part of it on himself. He told HLTV that the way he called in Hong Kong was “really poor, probably my worst calling in a long, long time”.
It was apEX’s first event back after paternity leave. mezii had taken the calls in his place at PGL Masters Bucharest, as we reported in October.
We knew that this season would be difficult with the paternity leaves of mezii and me. We knew that. That’s something we accepted, and now we need to move forward.
He added that Vitality arrived with little preparation, so his own expectations were lower than usual.
One win in Hong Kong
Vitality2-0
FalconsAnubis 13-10, Dust2 13-10
FURIA2-1VitalityInferno 5-13, Dust2 13-10, Mirage 13-0
MOUZ2-0VitalityMirage 13-8, Cache 16-14The opening 2-0 over Falcons looked like a normal Vitality start. Then FURIA came back from a map down and finished the series with a 13-0 on Mirage. In the quarter-final, MOUZ won all four pistol rounds and closed Cache 16-14 in overtime. “Zero pistols today. It doesn’t happen in MR12,” apEX said of the MOUZ series, and against FURIA he pointed to how many close rounds Vitality lost.
The numbers behind ZywOo were just as unusual. His 0.91 rating across the event is the lowest he has had at any LAN tournament in his career, by HLTV’s figures.
Six days at home, then Singapore
Vitality are invited straight to Stage 3 of the PGL Major Singapore, which runs from Wednesday 2 to Sunday 6 December. apEX said he will take few days off. The plan is six or seven days of practice at home, then a bootcamp of three or four days in Singapore itself, which he described as the way the team always prepares for Majors. A longer bootcamp is hard on the players mentally after a long season, he explained.
His view of Hong Kong was that it did not show the real Vitality, and that the team have to accept the result and arrive at the Major at their best.
MOUZ, who knocked Vitality out, went no further: Spirit beat them 2-0 in the first semi-final on Saturday. FURIA, the other team to beat Vitality in Hong Kong, beat Falcons 2-0 in the second semi-final and play Spirit in the grand final on . You can follow the full tournament on our BLAST Rivals Season 2 page.
