hally interview: FaZe defeat, lack of practice due to illness, Vertigo decision

The Russian captain says a less-than-optimal preparation cost them against FaZe.

Spirit came into the Copenhagen Major as favorites, a feat further compounded by the performances of their arch-rivals, FaZe and Vitality. The Russian squad traversed the Elimination Stage with a flawless 3-0 record and were put on the same bracket as their aforementioned rivals, with the Finn "⁠karrigan⁠" Andersen-led squad their first obstacle to the title.

The quarter-final was an instant classic as the last two maps both went into overtime, with clutch rounds and highlights happening left, right, and center. Despite the nature of the game, the biggest talking points remained FaZe's decision to play Vertigo and Spirit's reluctance to ban it during the second phase.

After the decision didn't go the way of Spirit as they were bested 14-16 on the decider, Sergey "⁠hally⁠" Shavaev sat down with HLTV to talk about the map veto, the reasons for their loss, and the pressure of being Major favorites.

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Editor's note: Questions were asked via a translator, and hally's answers were translated by Russian-speaking HLTV staff.

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Rough loss in the quarter-final today, I know it was obviously not the result you would have wanted. I wanted to start with the veto coming into this game. They left Vertigo open and you ended up playing it on the decider. Can you just talk me through banning Ancient and letting Vertigo stay in the pool?

I think when you play against a FaZe that plays very thoughtfully, maps like Ancient and Nuke are more comfortable for them than maps like Vertigo, Anubis, and Overpass. Based on the training process and the fact that FaZe has no playing experience on Vertigo, I understood that Vertigo would be a more comfortable choice for us. At the same time, we failed the T-side, it was terrible, even though we started on the strong side, because I believe that the attack is the strong side of Vertigo. We lost zones, we lost timings, which led to us having to come back from 0-7.

One thing karrigan mentioned on the desk was he thought that you would go to an Ancient decider because he thought you are a very prep-heavy team that likes to prepare for matches and series. And since you had no information on them on Vertigo, they kind of expected you to go there. I'm wondering what you have to say about that.

I can say that we are preparing quite intensely for our opponents, and I can say that karrigan is right. Moreover, in any case, if the opposing team does not play a certain map, in this case, Vertigo, and we feel confident playing on it in practice, then we should play the map in which we are confident.

Talking about Mirage, it seemed like they did their own research quite well. There was also a point where it seemed like you could come back a little bit, but there was an eco round you lost, there was a round where donk swung Underpass, which is a tendency that I think teams are starting to pick up on a lot [hally smiles and nods]. Can you just tell me about that?

I think that on Mirage we won pistols but in the anti-eco, we played carelessly and were unable to gain a foothold in the economy, which affected the first buy rounds. We were unable to execute our game plan because it was important that sh1ro saved up for AWP. As for defense, we lost rounds when we had a miscommunication, and we lost to force when donk peeked into Underpass due to individual negligence. But overall, this is not something that affected the entire match. We didn't play the attack on Mirage the way we planned because we couldn't get a foothold in the economy, and because we were bad that day.

Another thing for FaZe was their double AWP setup, especially with karrigan peeking into apartments and killing zont1x a couple of times.

Konstantin, Team Spirit's Head of Marketing, laughs and says "Astralis karrigan man, what the fuck."

From your perspective, I remember talking to you [Konstantin] and you saying that these three days off gave teams a lot of time to counter and study you, as the best team in current form. In terms of what FaZe were doing to counter you in this series early on, can you just tell me about that, and whether you feel like it set you back?

I don't want to make excuses, but at the same time I can say that due to two of our players getting sick, we could not train before the match with FaZe. The training took place in an individual format. At the same time, I can say that FaZe chose the optimal game plan, and their ideas worked. Meanwhile, we were bad, we didn't play what we trained and knew how to do.

I'd heard that zont1x was one of the players who was potentially sick. And during the cast, especially on Vertigo, they're talking about how he said that the pressure doesn't really get to him before in other interviews, but it felt like the pressure was getting to him in this series, especially in the late round, where it seemed like he was throwing mollies hastily and whatnot. Can you just tell me about that and whether it was just because he felt off from being sick, or if the pressure got to him for once now?

I think that zont1x played his sub-optimal match. However, I don’t think he failed. As a team, we had to do a better job in attack, which cannot depend on one player. The way we failed the T side was a problem of the whole team.

Is there something you can point to as to why you feel like you played sub-optimal?

I can say that in the pistol round on the attack, we made mistakes in micro-actions. We went against the people who were standing at the cooler [Vertigo B site Generators], we literally went three against five, but at the same time, we made mistakes in micro-actions in how to execute these pistols. We did the first buy wrong. And then, it is worth giving credit to the fact that FaZe really used grenades well. We entered sites when they were ready for our attacks.

It wasn't all bad for you. There was the Nuke game, where you also came back. There were the three rounds in OT, where I think you rushed A twice as well. Can you just tell me about that comeback, taking that map over the line with those calls, and being able to still put up a fight despite going down on your pick?

In the dynamics that developed on the T side when we were playing slowly, it seemed to us that a fast round was also something that should be used to dilute the dynamics of the game, which did work.

Was that a call from chopper or you?

It was zont1x's call to which I agreed.

There was also Vertigo where you were down 5-12, and you won seven rounds in a row to come back. It seemed like the pressure was on you. Can you tell me about that pressure for a team that hasn't had to face a ton of it when they've been up against the wall against elimination like this, and what the environment was like? During that streak, it seemed the body language was really down, even though you ended up bringing it back to overtime in the end.

I think when you are losing 5-12, you don't think about the pressure anymore, you just calm down. You think about what you have to do and it will be as it will be, and there are no expectations. On the contrary, you come to a state where you play without expectations, which for us is actually a plus. When the guys exhaled and realized that we could lose, they didn't care, and we returned and showed our optimal CS on the CT side.

Spirit were favorites to win the Major in a lot of people's minds, did that expectation get to you a little bit during this game?

I don't think so. Within our team, when Dima [sh1ro] came to us, we discussed that our main task was to grow from game to game, from practice to practice, and to make sure that we were competitive on the tier-one stage. I still think we set the bar very high, but we try to play in a way that emphasizes [our own] expectations, which are to grow from practice to practice, tournament to tournament, without any expectations. The fact that we won Katowice and performed well at the Major is wonderful. At the same time, we have a young team, and we need to work hard.

What is the path forward for this team after this Major? For a couple of months at the start of the year, it seemed like you were going to be the best team in the world, you were favorites for the Major and won Katowice. So as you leave the Major, where does Spirit stand as a team in terms of taking it practice by practice, tournament by tournament, and trying to improve over time? It may seem, from what you're saying, that the Katowice success almost came super early, unexpectedly.

I'll repeat that our plans do not change. I think that in three months we have shown excellent results. We made conclusions after this tournament about what we need to work on. We will continue to strive to improve our game. Once again, I can say that we have a young team without any expectations, and we will try to make sure that we grow from tournament to tournament.