ash: "It doesn't feel like a fluke, it's not like we're just winning off vibes"

GamerLegion's coach discusses his team's upset over Vitality and their impressive road to the Major and in Rio itself.

Within a little over a month's existence GamerLegion did what few established teams could, qualifying for the IEM Rio Major as FaZe, Spirit, and G2, some of the best teams in the world, struggled to keep the new European roster at bay.

After the first day of play at IEM Rio, Vitality have been added to that impressive list following GamerLegion's upset over the Dan "⁠apEX⁠" Madesclaire-led team in the second round. Ashley "⁠ash⁠" Battye's men now look well within a chance to do some serious damage, now sitting a series away from the Legends Stage and with a record impressive enough to convince some that there's even more in them.

Following their latest victory, we spoke to the British coach about the magic that has kept GamerLegion competitive against numerous high-profile teams, and their loose approach to the IEM Rio Major. ash had high praise for his young group and talked at length on the topic of the trust that the team has in each other.

Beating Vitality, not only one of the favorites for this stage but the whole tournament - how did you guys do it?

I think we just have a lot of belief and trust in each other. We're playing really solid CS, even if you watch us back, it's not perfect and we're not where I want us to be, but it's really solid fundamentals and I think we're in a good place at the moment. The guys are trusting each other and it's all coming together.

You keep surpassing expectations, two months into the new lineup, already made it into the Major with some big scalps like G2, now again looking very competitive and within a solid chance to go through to the next stage. Where's the magic, how do you make this happen in such a short time?

We spent so much time trying to get the right guys, and obviously other teams are doing that, as well, but we've got the perfect personalities. When you've got a guy like siuhy, who's got a great feel for the game, getting everyone starting to trust in that, and I think you see all the time teams have these periods where everything's together and we're playing really good CS.

It doesn't feel like a fluke. We've talked a few times, it's not like we're just winning off vibes and everyone doing their own thing. We're playing in a real system and we're just buying into how we want to play and everyone is playing for the team. I know a lot of people are talking about acoR and siuhy, but the jobs that iM, Keoz, and isak are doing for the team are just phenomenal. They're doing everything we want them to do, they may not have the stats, but the stuff they're doing behind the scenes is just so important for us.

ZywOo and Spinx were fairly quiet, they didn't have the sort of impact you'd expect from them. Is that down to something that you guys did to prepare against them, or do you think they just had an off game?

I think they probably did just have an off game. I think both of us didn't really have time to prepare for each other, the game was finished, we didn't know our opponents for a couple of hours and we also had to drive here, as well. It was a last-minute sort of preparation, and it's a best-of-one, we know there's an element of randomness to it, and if anyone can have a bad game. We did plan a little bit around it, but they're top players, unbelievable players, and everyone's allowed an off game.

So what do you think were the keys to beating them, then?

I think people underestimate us, still. Our Vertigo is a lot better than what teams think. Teams will just see the G2 game, where we just got destroyed, and think Vertigo is an easy map against us, but we put a lot of time into it now and I think we're looking a lot better. Just a basic gameplan, again, trusting each other is so important - the rounds, whenever we do something, people with 1 HP will just turn around and jump with a knife out and get traded straight away. A lot of teams struggle to get people to sacrifice themselves like that, and we've got all our guys who want to do that, and it really matters, especially in these best-of-ones.

We've talked before about pressure and you said there was a lack of it, with it being a new lineup and all of that. Did that change at all when you stepped onto the stage this morning and played against a team that had a lot of support behind them?

We prepared with our sports psychologist before this, because we knew that if we were going to be on the stage, we weren't going to have many fans. We're a newer team, and other teams we're playing against are probably going to be Brazilians. I think we just wanted to enjoy it, and our social media guys have videos where you'll see us laughing and joking and stuff all the time. The crowd is so, it's funny in a way where you're winning the game easily and they're celebrating exit frags that don't matter.

We just understood that it's just a really cool occasion, it's an experience, and we're not going to win by stressing out. We're just reiterating that we wanna play loose CS, and the guys buy into it, and that's really important. I feel like it's not a fluke, we've shown again and again, we've played G2, we played FaZe, Spirit, we should have won all those games, and today on the stage against a crowd... And again against Vitality. The stuff we do is not a fluke and teams are preparing for us a bit more. We just gotta keep it going now.

Does that change the expectations, as well, seeing yourselves have so much success already and so much competitiveness against the best teams in the world? At this point, you have to be feeling like, 'how far can we really take this?'

The weird thing is, we haven't set any expectations at any point. I think it's kind of working for us that we're just playing, having fun, and enjoying it. We'll go back tonight and the main talk will be not to get carried away, we've got three opportunities to get through and we'll stay grounded, come back again and just take it one game at a time.