Vexite: "Having two Australian teams at the RMR is pretty insane"

HLTV caught up with Declan "⁠Vexite⁠" Portelli ahead of Grayhound's campaign in the BLAST.tv Paris Major Asia RMR.

Grayhound head into the BLAST.tv Paris Major Asia RMR with a spring in their step, finishing their recent run through ESL Pro League Season 17 in 21-28th place, but not before taking down 00NATION and, more impressively, Ninjas in Pyjamas along the way to fill the team with much-needed confidence ahead of their outing in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia.

Date	Matches
BLAST.tv Paris Major 2023 Asia RMR
07/04/2023	Grayhound 12:50 TYLOO	Match

The Australians come into the Major-qualifying competition as the highest-ranked team, sitting ahead of The MongolZ by just two spots on the world ranking. Grayhound begin their quest for a spot at the Valve-sponsored event in Paris with an opening-day matchup versus TYLOO, an important win to pick up if the squad wish to avoid an early trip down to elimination territory.

HLTV sat down with Vexite before the team begin their run through the Regional Major Ranking tournament. The Australian rifler touched on Grayhound's run through Pro League in March, the rise of Mongolian CS with regard to Asia as a whole, and whether there is added pressure to qualify for the Paris Major given Grayhound's stature as a smaller organization.

You are coming into the Asia RMR after your EPL run where you scored some wins, how do you evaluate your campaign there?

Not much to say apart from we know what we’re capable of, and we’ve been doing it for a while in practice. We just have got to find that groove and that preparation where we’re just comfortable heading into a game, I feel like we have a lot of slow starts. That wasn’t really happening at EPL, we had some pretty good preparation and pretty good energy overall heading into it, and we’re trying to pinpoint exactly what caused that.

How did the result at EPL affect your confidence coming into the RMR? Or do you see international play in top events and playing in the Asian scene as two different matters?

It is definitely different metas, it’s a whole different game playing against these Asian and Middle Eastern teams versus European teams. At the same time I do think getting a win against a tier one team like NIP, although they’re not in the best form and had some bad losses afterwards, it was still really good for us. Getting wins on stage in general for us is big, it’s good for everyone’s confidence and it’s just good for getting comfortable overall, trusting each other and trusting ourselves. It definitely helps us coming into this tournament, we are definitely confident.

We are now in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, and the location choice goes together well with the rise of the Mongolian scene, particularly TheMongolz. Do you feel that Mongolia has a chance to become the flagship nation of Asian CS, where previously it has been Oceania that was the most consistent and dominant?

I’m not too sure, I think both OCE and Mongolia have their strong suits, but IHC has beaten us quite a few times head to head, so it’s safe to say they’ve shown they were the better team previously. Every tournament is a new tournament, so we are going to come in fresh, and we think we can bring it to them.

This is the first Asia RMR to feature eight teams, with two teams per sub-region. How much does it make the task harder for you, given the number of spots at the Major remained unchanged?

I definitely think the opportunity is very cool, having two Australian teams at the RMR is pretty insane, and personally I want both Australian teams to qualify. It’s harder because you can’t prepare for every team, because there are obviously more, and the format is a bit different as well. It’s not too difficult, it’s still pretty much the same, there’s just more teams and you don’t have time to prepare for them all.

You just said you want your fellow Australian team VERTEX to qualify, but do you think they have a real feasible chance to make it to the Major?

Yeah I genuinely believe that VERTEX can qualify, for sure it’s definitely possible. We have played them in practice and they’re not horrible, they definitely have their strong suits, but I think they haven’t played any LANs with that five, since picking up hazr. We know they are all sharp players, they’re all good, they just have to come in shooting hard and playing their own game.

Do you have a lot of practice against them?

Yeah we practice against them a lot in Australia. It depends what tournament it is and what the bracket is, because we try and avoid certain teams if we are playing them, but it’s kind of difficult to find scrims in Australia so you have to scrim everyone.

Grayhound is not a very big organization, does that put some pressure on you given how important it is to qualify for the Major, given the sticker money and everything?

We definitely understand how important the sticker money is, for the organization and ourselves, but it is what it is. It’s a game, we are performers at the end of the day, and we just have to do what we do every day, it doesn’t matter about the circumstances.