chopper: "It was a tough season for us"

The Russian in-game leader gave props to MOUZ for their work between group stage and playoffs.

Spirit were eliminated in the BLAST.tv Austin Major quarter-finals despite taking MOUZ's map pick in a quadruple-overtime affair on Mirage to kick off the series. Leonid "⁠chopper⁠" Vishnyakov and his teammates failed to close it out on their Dust2 pick, and were eventually taken out on Nuke.

"MOUZ did a really good job during these five days," chopper told HLTV in the Moody Center's media scrum after the series, speaking particularly about their improved Dust2.

Now, Spirit will have to regather and see what's next. "First of all we'll have a team talk about what we want to do," the 28-year-old says, "what we need to change in the game, what our CEO wants to do."

You can listen to the interview here.

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You started on Mirage, you got off to an early lead, but couldn't keep the momentum going...

After Mirage, our energy was lost. When we started to play on the T side of Dust2, we didn't have a lot of good communication, good decisions, and I want to say that MOUZ did a really good job during these five days. They made their Dust2 better than it was.

You won a lot of clutches on Mirage, and kept it going in those overtimes. It was such an intense first map.

It was such a lucky game. We were winning 5-1, but after that we made really bad decisions. We had bad communications, bad micro, a lot of chaos on TeamSpeak, and after we kind of started on the T side, and they played better there. I think I called bad in this situation, on the start of T side, but when we understood how to beat them, we tried to do a comeback, but we had a lot of mistakes. A lot of mistakes.

On Mirage, we found a way how to win, and also it was two really lucky situations, zont1x made an insane clutch with 10 HP, and torzsi didn't kill him. It looks like it's lucky for us, yes, that map was like that.

You say that MOUZ looked improved on Dust2. Did something catch you by surprise?

Yeah, they did really good stuff on T side. If we talk about our T side, we had a lot of 4vs3 situations, 4vs2, and we couldn't turn them around. We couldn't speak with each other about what we need to do. We had calls by me, but someone wasn't listening or not reacting, and it's time, time, and then we made really bad decisions.

About their T side, they surprised us. I think it was 9-8, they made a fast explode from Short to A, and one bad decision by me from ramp — Brollan killed me with 20HP —, and the round was lost. Okay, next time, we won a situation and next time we tried to counter them on Short, but we didn't fight. We wanted to fight, but we didn't fight. Sometimes it happens, and that's it.

Why do you think it happened?

I think because it's the Major, it's the playoffs, we're still young players, and sometimes it happens.

How was the atmosphere, sitting on the stage and having this crowd?

It's amazing. A lot of people cheering... I really like playing in front of the crowd, and it's amazing to play on this stage.

It's Thursday, and the first game, but there's still a great turnout. Do you think that left an impression on some of your players?

I'm not sure, but it's not about the crowd, it's about the game because you play against MOUZ, you don't beat them... You have confidence, yes, but someone may make a bad decision, or sometimes MOUZ did really good work. If all of this gets together, then it's like that.

You did win a Major before, so what was different this time?

This time, it was a tough season for us. We maybe had good results, but after you win three or four tier-one tournaments in one year, as a young team, you want to do more the next year, like being Major champions... I don't know how to say it in English, but sometimes you have close games and don't win, and I don't know what happens in that stage.

You have it all, you have the plays, the strat book, you work a lot in these six days break between the Stage 3 and playoffs, but when you come to the game something happened with us and I'm not sure about the work or the form of some players... It just happened.

It's always tough to lose in Major playoffs, but what do you think you'll get out of this experience in Austin?

First of all we'll have a team talk about what we want to do, what we need to change in the game, what our CEO wants to do. We need to talk with all of the team, all of the members, and try to get experience from the game, maybe from TeamSpeak...