mezii: "Sometimes I struggle with micromanaging and stuff because I am focused on my game"

The 24-year-old touched on his progress as an in-game leader and his transition to the role.

fnatic came into IEM Rio 2023 with momentum on their side following an unbeaten run at the RMR, qualifying for the BLAST Paris Major with a 3-0 record. Unfortunately for the European squad, they faced an in-form FURIA in the first game and were relegated to the lower bracket after an overtime loss to the Brazilians on Ancient.

The second day of play proved more fruitful for William "⁠mezii⁠" Merriman and company as they took down and eliminated 9z in the lower bracket, surviving for another day in Rio. The British in-game leader joined us after their win over the South American squad to talk about their last two fixtures, his evolution as a captain, and how his team operates.

Congrats mezii, you won your game against 9z even though it got close at the end, but let's start from the beginning. The game against FURIA didn't go your way, what went wrong with that?

I am not sure. It's pretty weird because we played FURIA not too long ago in the Pro League playoffs and I think it was pretty much the same thing, 16-13 on both maps. It seems we have a pretty good plan to begin with, we get rolling and make a lot of rounds good, and then yesterday we played to 12 rounds and then messed up our entries and really good positions for three consecutive rounds.

Against a good team like FURIA if you get entries you have to be able to close the round, we just didn't close them out and that's the big thing when you play against the better teams, you just have to win those rounds. In a close game like that, we really should have closed the map because we had some really good advantages. That's the main thing, we had a really good plan and lost it completely on the T side, which made it tough, even though we still won the half. Overall we played pretty well, we just need to close out these advantageous rounds.

It was a game full of clutches, especially at the end. You had one of your own, a 1v3, can you talk me through that round?

Yeah, it was a round that I just bought a hero AK and said "Let's just aim at B." We were confident we could just get [by] with Deagles and AKs and then just slow the round. I am usually pretty confident in those clutch situations, in 1v2s, 1v3s, and even 1v4s I am pretty confident about being able to move around the map myself and get into good positions. I think I'm just happy I can get those clutches and get my team into good positions, just unfortunately we couldn't close it out in the end overall.

After you clutch, FURIA had a few of their own, like a saffee 1v2 before going into overtime. It was kind of flat out from there, what happened in those last rounds?

I think the first round of overtime we had a very good opportunity to win it, we did a B rush and we instantly got the kill, and then we just didn't take control or stop them from pushing forward. They got too much space on a B rush that we got the entries, after that we didn't do well in taking the space. Against a team like FURIA if you let them have the space they are obviously going to take it with their really aggressive plays and they are really experienced so they are always going to take it. I think for us, it was some of their clutches going their way towards the end took us down a peg and our energy maybe wasn't as high. I definitely think it was a game where we just made too many mistakes and gave them too much respect at times.

In the game today against 9z you played Nuke and lost the first map. Was there any sort of panic or were you able to reset quickly?

I think we did okay in resetting quickly, to be honest. We were definitely a bit frustrated with the game because I think CT side we had a decent half, we could have had more rounds, but on our T side, it was kind of unfortunate. Whenever we went into site hits and splits we just couldn't trade very well and get the kills, players stayed alive way too long to allow for their rotations to come in, and we couldn't win those rounds. I think they had a really good plan and they shut us down outside whenever we tried to take control and they did a really good job.

Overall we reset pretty easily, we were just confident going into our map pick of Overpass, we were always very confident on that map and then going into the third map even though our record is not the best on Ancient. We are really confident playing it, we had a bunch of close games on it.

You are going into the next game which is either against OG or Cloud9. How confident are you going into that one?

Pretty confident, especially against Cloud9. We played a lot of practice games against them. I don't think we have played officially that much or even with this lineup, but we practice them a lot and I think everyone knows how they like to play. It's just about turning up on the day because they have the individuals there like top-ten players and top-five players in the world.

Against them we are still comfortable because we know exactly how they are going to play, and with OG it's kind of a similar way, where we played against them online not too long ago and we have really good game plans and really good reads against them. For us individually we just have to turn up at the game, against both these teams it's a bit different compared to today, even if we didn't turn up individually, as long as our team aspect is there, I think we were comfortable winning. Against these guys [Cloud9 and OG] we need to be sure both are there. We cannot turn up slowly starting with our aim and not turning up, so against OG or Cloud9 we just are comfortable in our game plan, we just need to make sure we are there from the start and ready.

A bit off-topic now, with you becoming an in-game leader. It's been a while since you took the role, how has it been, and how have you progressed?

I think it's been pretty well from each tournament and getting the feedback from our team and our coach, and even our manager Samuel. It's obviously going to be tough, each tournament you are always going to learn new things, but I think for me individually, it has been going a lot better on learning a lot more about the game and different aspects of it I never had to learn before. Some maps are a little bit better than others, I am working on some of the others, but overall it's improving a lot.

Since the start, I think I've learned way more and can definitely see the improvements, it's just that with the individuals that we have and the loose, free style that we play, I need to make sure I am reigned in. Sometimes I struggle with micromanaging and stuff because I am focused on my game as well, and that's something I am working on. Some games it's good and some others are bad, It's about finding consistency there.

I wanted to ask about something, a lot of IGLs right now, especially in the top ten or top-fifteen teams have played under big-name leaders. While obviously, you have played in a lot of teams, probably the biggest names you've played under were ALEX, RuStY, and MiGHTYMAX. Who has been your inspiration, and is there anyone you look up to?

For me, even when I was not an in-game leader, I was taking aspects from all different players and now moving into IGL, is about taking aspects from the people I have played with like ALEX and Max, and so on. I think I've learned a lot from them and, I think it's still watching demos and learning from interviews and podcasts that other IGLs are on and talking about the game. You kind of just learn from that and how they view the game and how they operate within their teams.

For me is about taking aspects from everyone and I've learned from each person I have played and also just going into each game and watching demos, and learning from other IGL. Each leader has something special and I really focused on that, and it's for me just about taking parts from everyone.

One of the things that a lot of analysts like to point out is that with fnatic, more or less everyone can turn up at any point. You have a lot of really good individuals, is that sometimes a bit of a curse as an IGL because you don't know who's going turn up and who is going to do what?

Yeah, I guess so, but I think for me the main thing depends on the team you are playing, and you obviously want your individuals to show up. I think the main difference you see in our game, is that obviously not everyone would know from the outside, but when we are playing good or playing bad, it's not always our individuals showing up or not. In an international lineup is more about communication and making sure that we are on the ball with that because a lot of the time when we are playing bad is just down to us saying what they are doing, but not actually saying "Let's do this, let's do that" and make plans. We are just being standard and not building on the plan.

I think for us it's not mainly down to our individuals showing up, it's just we need to make sure we are communicating very well and bouncing ideas off each other. Especially with me as an amateur IGL and kind of new to it, is about me getting as much information and if I give an idea, someone else can jump on to it. I think that's the main thing, not so much the individuals because in most games we have someone showing up, and you don't always need all five players, you just need a couple of us and that's usually enough. It's just the communication side of things that needs to be more consistent.