misutaaa: "I had to find myself in the team, and it’s hard when we have a lot of star players"

Kévin "⁠misutaaa⁠" Rabier gave HLTV a quick interview after making the playoffs here in Lisbon.

Vitality have not lived up to the billing that was touted when they put together this Franco-Danish roster, struggling for deep runs.

The BLAST Premier Spring Finals represented a chance to play their way into form, particularly considering the fact several teams are playing with stand-ins, like Natus Vincere and OG. They have made the first step by beating paiN to qualify for the quarter-finals.

With a spot in the playoffs awaiting him, misutaaa took some time with HLTV to talk about the game and finding himself in the current iteration of Vitality.

Congratulations on the win. Were you expecting that series to go to three maps?

To be honest, no.

First map was good, we did everything correctly and we knew what we were doing, they did all the things we expected. On the second map it was more about individuals, we went down a little bit, and a little bit of communication sometimes. It was fine though, we went to the third map and won very comfortably.

What happened in the second round on Dust2, where the time nearly ran out on you with one paiN player saving?

I can’t remember what the communication was exactly, we just saw 20 seconds on the clock and said “… where’s the bomb???” (laughs), and then apeX says “OH, I have the bomb!”. I was too focused on the round, I didn’t see about the bomb, I was watching where the last guy could be. At the end we said to try and kill the last guy fast.

apeX was really sweating as he planted!

Yeah (laughs).

Talking about the rest of the map, you seemed to really struggle, without the pistol in the first half it would have been an even mor convincing score, and they crushed you on your CT side. What happened, especially considering that is supposed to be your best map?

Exactly, it is. I think we lost a lot of first kills, and we did bad setups… not setups maybe, but bets. That’s all I can say.

Is it hard to have Dust2 as your main map in general – many teams are comfortable and happy on it, and it’s a bit easier to play with less structure?

No I don’t think it’s hard, it’s just about trades, the meta is mostly about individuals and trades. I get what you mean about it being hard.

A big cheer came out of the Vitality camp before third map – what was that about?

It was because we lose all our knife rounds (laughs), so even yesterday when we played some Faceit games we lost all the knife rounds, so we cheered because of that.

Speaking more generally, you are having a solid tournament here, but have suffered some criticism in the past for your play. How do you feel about that?

I don’t really mind because I had to find myself in the team, and it’s hard when we have a lot of star players. Obviously I don’t have the easiest role, I am going first most of the time and when it’s not working, I need to find other ways to be able to get kills.

I am playing anchor and most of the time entry, so I can’t have everything all of the time.

Is it harder to find yourself when switching languages as well?

Obviously at the beginning it was harder, that’s for sure. At the beginning we had some troubles, but then it’s just about time, you have to trust time and trust everyone. It’s about finding everyone and yourself.