RUSH: "ALEX made a salty comment after a really tough loss, they didn't have a chance in that game"

We talked to several players during the last day of BLAST Premier Spring Series Group B, which saw Natus Vincere and Complexity move to the season finals in Moscow later this year as the top two teams.

The first player we stopped in the mixed zone during the BLAST Premier Spring Series Group B final day was Dan "⁠apEX⁠" Madesclaire, just minutes after his Vitality lost their rematch against Natus Vincere in a 0-2 ordeal. "We haven't been at our top level even if we had preparation, we just didn't show up," the Frenchman said, "we won 2-0 against them the other day but we were still far from the best level we can show. I'm sad about this one, but they were the better team today."

When asked about what differed between their dominating Inferno performance on Friday and today's floundering, apEX said they "just didn't know what to do. Na`Vi countered us on banana and we didn't answer at all, we kept doing the same thing we were doing and got wrecked. We weren't very focused and we let the game slip away."

"We had a lot of issues with executes at this event, who does what and stuff like that," apEX answered when inquired about what the takeaways from their showing in London are, "we struggled a lot with that. I don't know why because it's usually our biggest power, but our two last games were terrible in that sense, that's why they weren't even close games. That's the biggest issue we need to improve on."

The second person to give some insight regarding the day's happenings was Denis "⁠electroNic⁠" Sharipov, who talked to us ahead of Natus Vincere's Group B final match against Complexity. "Every game is experience for us," he said, "we're trying to learn and understand the game more deeply because we have a new player who needs this experience and that's why we're getting better game by game. We're constantly working on our game and that's why we were more prepared this time around."

"s1mple played a great game against Astralis," the 21-year-old rifler said when asked to compare today's team effort with his and Oleksandr "⁠s1mple⁠" Kostyliev's carry performances against the Danes, "that was a game in which we were a bit stressed, very focused on not making mistakes, but against Vitality we felt much better, we were gaining momentum and in the psychological aspect we were feeling more confident. The team started to play the game that we always want to show."

"This has been a good start for us," electroNic said after being asked about making final appearances at ICE Challenge and BLAST Premier Spring Series, "it's good for us to get into the finals, especially with a new player. Our last final was at StarSeries i-League Season 7," he continued, "so it was good to make a final at ICE Challenge, it helped us go into BLAST with more experience and it helped us play better and better. This group stage final is also really important for us to keep gaining that experience, it doesn't matter that it's just a group stage final, it's still a final."

Last but not least was William "⁠RUSH⁠" Wierzba, who took some time to talk to us after their final loss, a result that didn't leave a stain on the team's good showing over the weekend. "We knew we had talent and preparation going into this event," the Complexity player said, "we had a lot of scrims go well, and the only thing that didn't go so well were the qualifiers. On paper it looked bad, but you can't see what's happening behind the scenes. The practices, those have been going extremely well, so yeah, we knew we had the ability to win the matches, but our goal was just to win a couple of maps. The fact that we won two best-of-threes 2-0 was an awesome feeling."

"There's a lot more stability in this team than in Cloud9," RUSH said about the criticism he received when he was failing to perform while he and his former squad were flopping amid player changes, "we went through so many roster changes in Cloud9 that it was hard to mesh. I'm more of a support player these days than an entry, although I'll entry sometimes if I have to, but I think generally speaking when you're a support player and the team isn't functioning you really don't get a chance to do that. Playing on a team with set roles, and we're working really hard with blameF, I'm able to thrive at what I do. I'm actually able to support the system."

After Vitality's Alex "⁠ALEX⁠" McMeekin said Complexity were on a honeymoon period at this LAN after struggling in online qualifiers, "just literally running around headshotting people", RUSH responded by saying that "ALEX made a salty comment after a really tough loss, they didn't have a chance in that game, so I understand why he would feel that way, but we put a lot of work and overall our game has more variability than being confident. Any players can be confident and any team needs that to be good, but at the same time we're putting a lot of hours into making strats, making defaults, and it's not just ripping heads off and pugging, that's a very warped mindset to have."

"The results we got at BLAST Premier won't change how hard the qualifiers are going to be," RUSH said about how this group stage could affect his side in the future, "but maybe it will change our mindset and we'll play confidently. When we don't get in our own heads we're a really amazing team and I think we need to replicate that moving forward. We need to play like it's practice, basically, I think we got too much in our own heads in the qualifiers by thinking that they're must-win games and that people need us to win this, so there's pressure from the outside. Now we know what we can do."