mezii on ropz: "When you have anchors that are willing to take space and make plays, it definitely helps a team"

mezii thinks ropz's arrival on Vitality has freed the Brit up to play more comfortable positions.

Vitality have enjoyed a winning start to life with Robin "⁠ropz⁠" Kool on the roster, picking up four map wins without reply in their BLAST Bounty Season 1 run thus far. William "⁠mezii⁠" Merriman put up some strong performances in those map wins, racking up a 1.15 rating amidst a "nice change and nice mix-up" in his positions following the arrival of ropz.

It hasn't been entirely plain sailing for Vitality, as they endured some strugglesome T sides across the past week, but it's not something that bothers mezii, with the Brit stating it's "always tough" to integrate new personnel on offensive halves.

With the first LAN appearance of the year on the horizon, mezii sat down with HLTV to discuss the integration of ropz, how Vitality are shaping up as a team, and his own role within the latest iteration of Vitality.

Listen to the interview here.

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It's been a pretty good start in the new season, especially on CT side. Do you feel like favorites coming into this?

I would say so. First, of course, we have a new player and like a lot of teams that have got new players, it's a new system some teams are playing in and trying to find out which freedom we can give to different players and new positions. But the first online games it's been good, the way we've been playing is okay. We're not playing against the best opposition, but I think with our practice and preparation we're always going to feel like favorites, or one of the top teams to be able to take everything.

You mentioned the freedom. How much more accountable do you think you'll be with ropz instead of Spinx?

It's been nice to have some new positions. It was different before, of course, because I was playing a lot with Spinx and my focus was to help unlock him a little bit more and support him as much as I could. Now, it's some new positions where I automatically have more freedom, like on Inferno, where I have more of a rotation role. For me it's been a nice change and nice mix-up with ropz where he takes my positions, I also think he plays that 10 times better and has a way of playing it where it helps us as a team. He's pretty aggressive on the CT side, he has a lot of plays he likes to do.

It's more when you joined, really, but apEX talked about it quite a lot with you being a bit too selfless sometimes. Are you finding it a bit easier to play for yourself in some of these new roles?

Yeah. It's always a mindset thing. Even though I had this freedom in some of the anchor roles I was playing before, it was more me just trying to think, 'I'm in this anchor role, I need to do the right thing all the time, I need to support my teammates.' But in reality the difference when ropz is coming in to play some of these positions, he has that freedom automatically, and that's something that I didn't do. Now I've got this positional change on some of the maps, it's unlocked this mindset of, I'm also in a position to be able to make plays, do these aggressive things, and still support at the same time, but just have my way of playing as well. It feels much more comfortable for me in these positions where I can feel free to do whatever I want.

What do you make of players like ropz, or maybe b1t or Jimi, who play these anchor roles but as a star, and lurkers becoming anchors as well? Do you think that's good for your team to have that star anchor and you can have more freedom instead?

I think it's really good for the team. It's really hard, even for us on some of the maps when I was anchoring, it was tough for me to get out of the mindset of needing to still make plays. Sometimes you're in a bad position in a round and you need that person, the anchor, to be able to make a play, to push and take that risk.

It's happened so many times, whether in practice or in officials we played with ropz, where we're in a bad position and he's on his own, and in a position where I'd thought that I don't wanna take that risk, he's just gonna push, get the info, and we win the round because we're stacked on the other side. When you have these anchors that are willing to take the space and having this star mindset of making these plays, it definitely helps a team. It's great to have him on the team and for a lot of these teams that have these anchor positions where the star player is playing, it helps them a lot I think.

In general, if you could pick positions, would you still pick this fourth star route? In an ideal world, what role would you put yourself in?

I quite like the transition I'm in at the moment. I do like the mix because even in past teams, like in fnatic, I'd had some anchor roles, some rotation roles, and I liked this mix. I never really wanted or liked to be a full star in all these positions because it's never really fully suited me anyway, and the way I've played in CS2 I like some of these anchor roles and some of these smaller rotation sites.

I like the way it is at the moment because I like to have some freedom on some maps, but then some maps like Mirage, I'm B apps and I kinda like it that way. At the start of the team, flameZ was like, 'do you wanna play A?' and I was like, 'no, I don't wanna play A, I'm good with B apps.' It's very map-dependent, but I like to have this mix.

On maps, you guys look like one of the early adopters of Train, showing the most early on, even though it's just one map. What do you make of the map overall?

We've practiced it a little bit, I wouldn't say a ton. We only practiced a few practice games on it, but overall we've done a lot of theory, a lot of time on it. ropz, one of the first thing I noticed, this guy spent so many hours on this map, he's finding new nades, new positions, it's just insane. For us, practice was definitely tough, especially some of the teams that had practiced it a little bit before us, they owned us, but you learn so much so quickly on a newer map.

It definitely needs some changes, it doesn't feel like Train, like what it used to. There's a new dynamic, a new meta with how the pop area works towards B, but it's been fun to play so far. I wanna play it more just to find out a bit more about the map, about the different ways we can play it. We haven't shown everything that we have so far, so it'd be fun to play.

Do you put any stock in the big narrative on broadcast because of the two bad T sides? What's the balance with ropz, is it harder with a new player to slot in on T side than CT side, or is that just two online games, doesn't matter?

Having a new player is always tough to bring them in and instantly be good on T side, when you get a new player and he's got different reactions to what he had in FaZe. It was the same when I first joined, even though I knew positions on the CT side, T side was kind of rough because you're so much thinking about how you used to play. It's always tough to switch that mindset to how we like to react.

That's very much why T side can be tough at the start because you need that chemistry, you need that communication. It's online and it's always gonna be tough, Train on T side can be tough, and Mirage against Metizport we weren't playing the best, but they played a lot of stacks, so it was tough to play against. But yeah, I have no worries about our T side, I think apEX was one of the best IGLs in terms of our T side stats and rounds.

On a more personal note, you became a father late last year. How are you finding balancing that, especially with 2025 being so hectic?

It's a different responsibility and different mindset going into this year, in some ways it's the added extra motivation. Some CS players already had children whilst they're playing. It's obviously something different, but there's always that extra motivation to be even better. Even last year we as a team didn't perform very well, me individually for the first part was not great, and I felt like I was getting better throughout the year. For me, it's kinda just trying to continue that.

I'm spending so much time away from home, a lot of traveling, so I don't get to see the baby that much, but trying to make the most of when we are away to go as far as we can and hopefully win these tournaments, that's what we're here for and I wanna make sure there are no regrets when we come away. We're obviously sacrificing a lot, and for me now having a family, it's something different, but it's added the motivation to give the extra push and try to go even further.

I think in a BLAST interview you did, you mentioned you wanted to be hyping the team up a bit more. We all saw in the cams last year that sometimes you look like a frustrated team, and with ropz coming in, do you feel like that responsibility is more on you? How do you see the team's energy this year?

Our energy is usually pretty good anyway, but when things are going bad or when someone wants to say something, of course we have apEX who's always going to try to say something and bring the team up, and tell us when we're playing bad that we need to step up. It's good to have a captain like that, but sometimes he needs help as well, he needs someone else to battle a little bit, try and say, 'come on guys,' and just help the team. When only one guy feels all that pressure and all the responsibility to always do it himself, it's always gonna take a hit for him. When things are going bad it's tough for him to be the guy to bring the team up and also be the IGL in terms of calling, so we can't just be apEX and four guys, we also all need to do our bit.

For me, it's trying to bring that energy, between maps or in the map, to keep our energy high, keep our atmosphere good and stuff. So for me it's trying to focus more on this and trying to make sure that apEX has the help, to aid in that way and be a good IGL in-game, tactically, and also have the help in terms of the team atmosphere and team dynamic. I've done it at times, but just trying to keep it more consistent and be someone who also speaks up in the team as well.