Congratulations on winning Pro League, how are you feeling straight afterwards?

Feels good, lifting trophies is always fun, especially when we're beating MOUZ. It never gets old beating them, when you're playing ex-teammates it's always nice to beat them. I don't know if it's the confidence they try to build for themselves, but they seemed pretty confident after they beat the boys in Porto without me. They were like, "Yeah we've beaten Falcons, we've beaten Spirit, and the last one on the list was Vitality. Now we've beat them". But it was a stand-in.

We've come to this final super motivated to show them that they were the better team then, but this is the full power now. We had some close games and some close maps where we were building up through the tournament to show our best form. That's kind of what happens in the final when we play our best.

Do you feel like you guys are back to being prime Vitality?

I think this event has been the closest to it, it's hard to tell. One of the best things we were able to do throughout our era was the consistency. We've shown a really good level at some tournaments even when we weren't winning trophies this year. It's about keeping that consistency and being able to do it throughout the whole tournament like we did here. Hopefully we can continue that, though it will be a bit different next event because we'll be without apEX. Hopefully the ZywOo go kill strategy works for me and we'll see if we can lift a trophy in Bucharest. We're definitely very close to our best, but it wouldn't surprise me if we can get even better with this lineup.

Are you concerned about progress getting interrupted by a tournament without apEX?

Not really, I think we felt it before I even missed Porto. We'd feel like we were just a couple percentages away from to our very best. A lot of the games we lost in the previous tournaments, like Falcons at the Major, and Spirit at EWC, were teams we felt like we could definitely beat. I don't think we're really worried because we picked up instantly when I came back. Of course it's tough to say, but I think with the way this team works and the way apEX works, we'll be able to get straight back on it when he comes back. It helps that we've got Hong Kong before to be able to get back into it and not go straight into the Major with no warmup.

As you said, you'll be the IGL in Bucharest. How are you feeling about calling again?

Feeling good. It went okay last time, but even though I really like him, nicoodoz is not the same as ZywOo. It's a bit different, I also have ropz and flameZ. It's hard to say how it's going to go, I think it's definitely going to be tough. We've got some practice before with jL, which is going to help a lot for me. I'll be able to find what's working, what isn't working, and what space we can give each other.

It's going to be a big team effort I think, we'll rely a lot on individuals being able to make plays and chip in with the mid-round as well. It's going to be a fun event, I think the guys are looking forward to how it's going to be. I think it's going to be tough for apEX, it's never fun to miss a tournament even for me and it's weird watching from the side-lines. It's going to be so different, apEX has been playing for like fourteen years, missing his first tournament is going to be weird for the guys. We'll just try to have fun with it and see what we can do.

You mentioned jL, are you concerned about being able to reign in his character?

[laughs] I didn't play with him in Porto so it's hard for me to know exactly how he is. I know he's been with us this event just in case he had to play. Outside the game he's going to be super easy to get on with. All the guys already know that and get on with him really well. It's going to be interesting and I'm here for all the fun, it's stand-in time and it's going to be a bit crazy. I'll do my best to sort things out within the game, but you don't want to have things be too set and controlled when you have a stand-in. That's when things become too much of a mess because you aren't a full team. We'll try to do our best and see what we can do.

We've previously discussed how you feel about becoming an IGL in the future. Are you going to use this next event as a way to evaluate the possibility of becoming a caller in the distant future?

Of course. I'm at a stage in my career where you never know what's going to happen. It's a role I've done before and it's a great chance to see how it feels. I know it wont be anytime soon that I jump into this role, so I don't want to take too much from it. It doesn't have to be what I do now and what I'm going to do. I just want to enjoy the experience. I've learned so much just in this time with apEX and his abilities as a captain inside and outside the game. I'll try to take something from it and if that's the role I jump into in the future then that's fine. Bucharest won't just be a free-for-all event we do for fun, it's an event we want to do well at. I want to make sure I gain experience from it.