Magisk: "We cannot underestimate GamerLegion"

"It feels amazing to play the last CS:GO Major in front of the home crowd like this," the Danish rifler said, "I am just happy to be a part of it for as long as possible."

Vitality are through to the BLAST.tv Paris Major's grand final, a dream for the European squad, who beat Apeks 2-0 in front of a packed house cheering for them at the Accor Arena in the French capital. They will now play the title match against GamerLegion, a team they only faced once, and lost, in a best-of-one at the IEM Rio Major Challengers Stage.

Emil "⁠Magisk⁠" Reif stopped by HLTV's microphone in the Major's mixed zone after Vitality's semi-final victory over Apeks to talk about the team's run in the playoffs at the Accor Arena, where they faced teams that they are not very acquainted with, and to give his thoughts on Sunday's grand final against GamerLegion.

First thing first, what is it like to play in front of this packed house, a full French crowd supporting you? You're used to the Royal Arena with a Danish crowd, but how is it here in Paris?

It's crazy. It's a really emotional experience, it's crazy. The Royal Arena is crazy as well, but I can feel the love every single second and it feels amazing to play the last CS:GO Major in front of the home crowd like this, so yeah it's a really amazing experience and I am just happy to be a part of it for as long as possible.

Tell me a little bit about the match itself. It started with a lot of clutches going back and forth, and they won a lot of them, so how did you guys keep your composure early on in the game?

It's always tough when you play games like that. We lost a little too many clutches when we had good situations and without sounding weird, I had the worst headache, so I had a hard time concentrating. It was a tough game for me in that sense and I also made some mistakes when I shouldn't and I got punished a little bit on A.

That was rough, of course, something I need to be ready for tomorrow. for me it's really difficult when you lose these clutches because we made it a little bit more difficult for ourselves and I felt it could have been easily 10-5 for us if we converted the rounds we should have. In the end, I was happy because we were able to get a lot of rounds on CT despite throwing away some crazy rounds, but that's Counter-Strike. It's a semi-final and a Major, so these rounds will happen. For me it's about resetting and moving on because what's lost is lost and we just need to focus on the next one.

You've played some teams that you don't face so often. You've played Monte, Into the Breach, Apeks... What challenges has that brought to you, playing teams that you are not used to normally?

Of course it's different, I mean their playstyle is a little bit more yolo, a little bit faster, and seeing a lot more individual duels so it's something we need to be ready for and I think even though the games have been close, we have been ready for them. I think that's also the reason we are the only usual team that's going to the final of this tournament, we've been preparing a lot mentally before and we've been working on being ready for this because at a Major, it doesn't matter who you are playing, it's a lot about the mental. It's all about who wants it the most and stuff like that. For me, it's definitely difficult to play them, but on the other hand I am also really proud that we managed every single time and even though we have bad starts we can still come back and find solutions. For me that's the most important.

Tell me a little about GamerLegion, you played them at the IEM Rio Major and they got that best-of-one over you. What's it like going up against them, but this time in a Major grand final?

We cannot underestimate them because they have beaten so many good teams, so they are going to be a legit final team. I am looking forward playing against them, I mean, they are obviously going to be the underdog and we need to be ready for that and mentally be able to reset if we get a bad start or they are doing some crazy stuff. It's all about ourselves tomorrow, and of course, we need to hit a lot of headshots if we want to win. Yeah, it's going to be a difficult game no matter what. Whenever you make it into a final of a Major, that means you are a good team, so we need to be ready for anything.