After BLAST showing, ZywOo is keen to end Vitality\u2019s ugly Katowice record VitalityVitality star Mathieu \u2018ZywOo\u2019 Herbaut spoke with Dexerto about his goals for 2023 as the team prepares to play at IEM Katowice. ZywOo hopes that the fourth time will be the charm. IEM Katowice has always been a thorn in Vitality\u2019s side. In 2019, 2020, and 2022, ZywOo was powerless to prevent his team from crashing out of the tournament before the playoffs. Even in the pandemic-hit 2021 edition, held entirely online, the team couldn\u2019t go beyond the group stage. ZywOo is determined to end that streak and finally set foot on the Spodek Arena stage. \u201cFor Vitality, Katowice has not been the greatest of tournaments,\u201d he told Dexerto last month. \u201cIt\u2019s really important for the team\u2019s confidence that we have a good start to the year. \u201cIf we have a good start, maybe we\u2019re going to be stronger, individually and tactically.\u201d The early signs are positive, with Vitality topping their group in the BLAST Premier Spring Groups after beating Astralis, Evil Geniuses, and world No.1 Heroic. That run gave the team an extra few days to prepare for IEM Katowice as they skipped the BLAST gauntlets, while it also installed them as one of a number of potential candidates for the title in Poland. The first half of 2022 was marked by FaZe\u2019s dominance, but the narrative changed after the summer break. ESL Pro League 16, the IEM Rio Major, the BLAST Premier Fall Final, and the BLAST Premier World Final each crowned a different champion, which ZywOo views as a positive thing for the scene. \u201cI\u2019m happy to see that any team can win,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s not like the Astralis era, the Liquid era, or the NAVI era. Anyone can win a tournament right now, also because the level of CS is really close right now. \u201cIt\u2019s really hard to win trophies right now. When we don\u2019t play as we did in our good moments, it\u2019s going to be really hard to win games.\u201d Fixing what is wrong 2022 was a difficult year for Vitality, despite the high-profile arrivals of Peter \u2018dupreeh\u2019 Rasmussen, Emil \u2018Magisk\u2019 Reif and coach Danny \u2018zonic\u2019 S\u00f8rensen. The glaring communication issues took their toll on the team, which looked out of sync, bereft of ideas, and over-reliant on ZywOo. A victory in ESL Pro League Season 16 after the signing of ENCE star Lotan \u2018Spinx\u2019 Giladi restored faith in the project, but it was soured by a dismal run that saw them place 12-14th at the Rio Major and 5th-6th at the year-end BLAST Premier World Final. \u201cWe expected more trophies, more victories,\u201d he admitted. \u201cBut things didn\u2019t go as we wanted. \u201cInternational teams are always hard at the beginning because of the language and all the changes. For me, the language was kind of a barrier at the beginning. I was really bad. Right now, I\u2019m good. I can speak with everyone. \u201cWhen we look back at 2022, we are a bit sad about our results. We won EPL but we wanted more. It was up and down.\u201d ZywOo noted that, while Vitality have not lagged behind their opponents in the tactical department, the team still needs to \u201cclick more\u201d on the server. Significant efforts seem to have gone into making sure that Spinx is more involved in the action. After averaging a disappointing 1.03 HLTV rating in his first four months with the team, the Israeli star put in a 1.32 rating in the BLAST Premier groups. \u201cHe is one of the best riflers I have ever played with,\u201d ZywOo said of Spinx. \u201cVitality and ENCE do not have the same play style, so he had to change [the way he plays] a bit. \u201cIt was hard for him [at first] because he was not used to it, but he\u2019s working hard with apEX. He is also a smart player and is trying his best in every practice and every official match. I have no doubt he can come back stronger. Maybe he will be even better than he was at ENCE.\u201d An eye on the Major As important as these first months of 2023 are, ZywOo said that the team has one target in mind for the season: making sure they hit peak form at the BLAST.tv Paris Major in May. The event will be a landmark occasion for French Counter-Strike, and Vitality \u2014 who have only reached the playoffs of a Major twice and have never gone further than the quarter-finals \u2014 want to make the most of this opportunity. That includes giving French fans, especially the organization\u2019s ultras, the Golden Hornets, something to cheer about after the country\u2019s scene, once vibrant and flourishing, fell out of the public consciousness. \u201cIt was really sad to see,\u201d ZywOo said of Golden Hornets\u2019 presence in the arena that staged the PGL Major Antwerp playoffs, Antwerps Sportpaleis, where Vitality did not get to play. \u201cI was like, \u2018There are only 200 or 300 of them and it feels like there are 5,000 people screaming and cheering for everyone\u2019. \u201cI think we need to play in front of them to see the power of the Golden Hornets. I was really sad when I was in the FACEIT booth watching the games.\u201d 2022 was another year that left a sour taste in ZywOo\u2019s mouth as his individual brilliance did not translate into major achievements. An impressive 1.42 HLTV rating in the BLAST Premier groups is a strong indicator that the French AWPer remains at the peak of his abilities and will once again contend for the title of the best player in the world, but he insisted that will not mean anything if it does not lead to titles. \u201cI don\u2019t really care about the HLTV ranking because it\u2019s about one year, it\u2019s not one goal or one precise moment,\u201d he explained. \u201cFor me, the goal is going to be to win the Major. \u201cI don\u2019t set any individual goals. The most important thing is to have team goals. And our goal is to win the Major.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
After BLAST showing, ZywOo is keen to end Vitality\u2019s ugly Katowice record VitalityVitality star Mathieu \u2018ZywOo\u2019 Herbaut spoke with Dexerto about his goals for 2023 as the team prepares to play at IEM Katowice. ZywOo hopes that the fourth time will be the charm. IEM Katowice has always been a thorn in Vitality\u2019s side. In […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-37264","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37264","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37264"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37264\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37264"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37264"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37264"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}