apEX: "Replacing Magisk is not going to happen, so the newcomers have to step up"

The French IGL wants William "⁠mezii⁠" Merriman and Shahar "⁠flameZ⁠" Shushan to take more responsibility.

Vitality have been title contenders throughout 2023, but their year has been marred with roster changes despite their success. Peter "⁠dupreeh⁠" Rasmussen was the first to depart in favor of flameZ, with Danny "⁠zonic⁠" Sørensen leaving for Falcons a few months later. Emil "⁠Magisk⁠" Reif joined the Danish coach in his new project, which left Vitality two members short.

Rémy "⁠XTQZZZ⁠" Quoniam and mezii were chosen as the replacement for the duo. The French coach is no stranger to the organization, having led their French roster for three years, while mezii took a considerable step up when he joined the Dan "⁠apEX⁠" Madesclaire lead team.

The French IGL joined HLTV for a quick chat after the team won their Fall Final opener against HEROIC to talk about replacing Magisk, mezii's role in Vitality, and his reunion with XTQZZZ.

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I wanted to go back to the move in Vitality, having to say goodbye to Magisk and then searching for a replacement. First of all, as how much of a surprise did it come after zonic was the first to go?

To be honest, not a big surprise. We knew that when the two Danes left the third would most likely leave as well. That wasn't the easiest decision, because of course we won a lot together this year and we won a lot together, but that's how it is. We had to go to the next step to move forward to find a new player. That was pretty hard for the whole team at the beginning, not gonna lie.

Sydney is also the result of that. We weren't sure that he was leaving — me, I knew —, so it's not because of that that we lost, but we had a really close game that when you're not ready mentally, you will lose. The first win of FaZe in CS2 for example, we were really close to beating them and it didn't happen. It's just not the easiest in that moment, that's for sure.

Magisk has been touted as one of the best players in his role, a four-time Major winner and all of that, his achievements speak for everything. Where do you even start finding a replacement?

The sure thing is that replacing Magisk for someone like Magisk is not gonna happen, so you need to find other ways, obviously. Magisk was the third-best player in the team, right behind Spinx, he was performing really well, but a guy like that is also taking some space in the team, and obviously a player like Shahar [flameZ] a little bit less.

So no, I think it's overall about Shahar and mezii to find the groove to give what Magisk was giving, and that's the toughest part for both of them. But, once again, replacing Magisk, the experience, the help he did in the big games, all those kinds of things are not going to happen, so some newcomers have to step up. It's obviously not a four-time Major champion, but ZywOo and Spinx have some experience as well where they can come up and help me in those rough moments.

Can you tell me about what made you guys go for mezii to replace him?

Well, we had another name that I'm not gonna mention today, but I think mezii was for me a really big name. I really liked the role player he is, he's one of few players that can do a lot of roles. He didn't do it on purpose, but he had to do it because of fnatic and all the mess they had around.

He was an in-game leader, he was entry-fragging, then he was lurking, and he had all that kind of stuff. I think Magisk has a pretty similar past, he had to lead the team a bit less long than mezii did, but I think this experience is really needed for a team, and I really like the role player. He can entry, he can play late rounds, and he's really good with nades as well, which Magisk was too. I think for me that was really important to have not a similar player but a player like that to be sure that our two biggest stars will stay the same, even maybe better for Spinx and ZywOo, and the team can step up as well.

What about from the perspective of him being a vocal player? Magisk was also a vocal guy on the team, so is mezii also stepping into those shoes of being a secondary voice?

Of course he has to, but everyone on the team is capable of doing it. flameZ is doing it a bit less, but I know that Spinx did it a lot this year and also ZywOo, sometimes Spinx even more than Magisk, so I don't think we need mezii to be that vocal, to be honest.

We just need him to be focused on his role, and with time and with experience in the team, knowing the team better, I think he will do it by himself. I'm not asking him too much right now, I don't want him to be put in a hard condition. I want him to focus on himself, frag, and do his role as well as possible, and in the near future he will be able to help for sure.

I remember the time when you lost XTQZZZ when the Danes were coming in and how much it meant to you to see him leave. What does it mean to you now to see him come back?

To be honest, that's a bit weird. Of course I was really sad when we left each other, but in my brain now he's somewhere else with all the work we did with zonic and the tough year we had last year, we came together to find solutions. It's not the easiest to put my brain with a new coach straight away, a new coach I know, so we just need to learn each other a bit more. We also changed, he had his experience with his teams, I had my experience with Vitality, so we're just learning to know each other again.

But I'm really happy, I really hope we're gonna win big trophies with him because he missed those trophies as a coach, and I think he deserved them. What we've done with the French teams, of course we had ZywOo, but we had way lower players than any other teams, and I think we did pretty well overall. For the second part of 2021, for example, we were the second-best team in the world behind NAVI that were like just untouchable for us. I really hope we're gonna work our best to just give him what he deserves.