Jame: "I was waiting for a year [for the RMR] after the previous fiasco"

VP's captain was briefly happy after qualifying for the Major but says he doesn't "feel anything special" now.

Virtus.pro ended 2023 on a high with a trophy lift at ESL Challenger Atlanta and carried that good form into the new year, qualifying for the RMR with relative ease and beating Cloud9 and BIG (twice) to earn a spot at BLAST Spring Final.

They hit a hitch at IEM Katowice, however, exiting the Play-in stage with losses to GamerLegion and Cloud9 to put a damper on their run of results heading into the PGL Copenhagen Major Europe RMR. However, some time apart from each other did the team well, Petr "⁠fame⁠" Bolyshev told HLTV on Wednesday, and when Virtus.pro returned to play in Romania they wasted no time in earning a berth to the Major with wins over SAW, fnatic, and Natus Vincere.

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Virtus.pro beat NAVI to clinch PGL Major spot

Dzhami "⁠Jame⁠" Ali's side had failed to qualify for the BLAST.tv Paris Major in 2023 —where they would have been the defending Major champions due to their title run at the IEM Rio Major — after a shocking mid-RMR swap of David "⁠n0rb3r7⁠" Danielyan for Aleksandr "⁠KaiR0N-⁠" Anashkin didn't pay off.

Following their success this time around, Jame told HLTV in an interview that he has been waiting for this moment for the past year, although he admitted he only felt the emotions for a few moments after qualifying before not feeling "anything special" due to the team's expectations and already having a Major win in hand.

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Editor's note: Jame's answers in this interview were translated by Russian-speaking HLTV staff.

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First things first, congratulations. How does it feel to qualify for the Major?

It was cool in the first few seconds because you keep all the emotions inside, but then it all went down, and now I don’t feel anything special. I’ve asked FL1T, and it’s the same for him.

We have a Major win, and we had some expectations, so reaching the Major doesn’t give us anything. But every game we lose, the negative emotions are ten times that of the positive emotions we get from winning. I’m not sure why it is, that I can’t enjoy the wins as much as I get sad from the losses.

To talk about that series in particular, you looked like you were struggling a little bit on your T-side on Ancient at the start, but it got much better in the back end of the half. What change did you make so your T half got better?

We had a good game plan, but the execution wasn’t great. We expected everything that happened in the first two rounds and the rounds that we lost. After that, I just decided to change the game plan because it didn’t work as we agreed, and then I was calling on the go.

On Anubis, it was quite even in the first half, and then the start of the second half was really back and forth, you were doing force buys and things like this. How was the start of the second half of Anubis from your point of view?

We had to win the pistol round, but it was bad execution again, we didn’t finish the job. Back and forth, the CT side of Anubis is very hard to play, nothing is consistent, all the teams lose on CT side and have all sorts of issues. I wouldn’t say there’s a single team in the world that can consistently win their rounds. So it was a nervous half, and happily I landed all my shots and the guys made their insane plays.

Talking about the veto, were you surprised they didn’t pick Mirage? It’s not a map you’ve played very much this year in officials. Were you expecting them to pick Mirage?

Yes, we did. In general, when you go to the Major, you make assumptions about what the opponents think of you, and what vulnerable maps they see. So, just like any other team, we tried to cover all our vulnerable spots and confuse the opponent.

Just to go back a little bit, at IEM Katowice you didn’t have the best showing. How did the event feel for you?

We need to look at each map separately, but we were unlucky to get a strong opponent in a decider match, Cloud9. Even though we beat them before, every match against them is a new story, new plot, new game plans, everything changes. Their guys are very experienced, and they play very well in post-plants. If you don’t catch that thread during that game, it gets very hard.



Against GamerLegion, we lost Overpass, even though it was a good map for both teams. We didn’t adjust. We’re not experienced enough of a tier-one team yet to tweak our game and surprise the opponent when they understand how to play against us.

There were some rumors that the mood, or the feeling within the team, was not so great in Katowice. What are your opinions on that?

Not sure what this opinion is based on. If you looked at how we played from the outside, you could see very little. Many people have false opinions of me. I have played for many years, but some still think that I’m super calm, even though it’s not so and I can manifest my emotions in different ways.

Regarding our team, I don’t think there was something special. When you personally play badly and make mistakes, no one enjoys it, no one cheers, and no one gets hyped up. I can’t say anything, for us it was just another tournament, and I wouldn’t say we felt differently than at BLAST.

But our mood for the RMR is different, it’s a different world. I was personally waiting for a year after the previous fiasco. We trained and worked a lot to make it through within 36 hours. It’s crazy for so much to depend on two BO1s in a single day, but after that, in BO3, it’s a different game.

Last question. Looking forward to the Major, you’ve already won one, do you think you could win another one?

Do I think that we could win another one? Of course I think so, because I have to think a lot, and you think about all sorts of things. Especially when training your aim, you can think about literally anything, you can imagine yourself as a Hollywood actor or something.

But realistically, do we have a chance from a bookmaker's point of view and in terms of my faith? Yes, for sure. It’s a new game that is constantly changing, and anyone can win against anyone. Just like our team showed when we lost to NAVI, and then we won against them a month after. And when we won over Cloud9, and then they won over us two days later. There’s no consistency, anything can happen.