Graviti: "I'm just happy to be the IGL also for my individual performance"

The French captain credits being able to call around his plays as a boon to his performance.

3DMAX have laid claim to the first spot in the grand finals of the CS Asia Championships 2025, pushing past Liquid in the semi-finals to secure their second grand final in China for the year.

However, the French side's run hasn't necessarily been a walk in the park. After dominating in their opening match against The Huns, an upset loss to Legacy forced 3DMAX to take down Lynn Vision and Virtus.pro to claim their place in playoffs. fnatic and Liquid also put up fights on stage, requiring all three maps in both series before 3DMAX moved on to the final.

Date	Matches
CS Asia Championships 2025
14/10/2025	3DMAX Finished 13:1 The Huns	Match
14/10/2025	3DMAX Finished 1:2 Legacy	Match
15/10/2025	Lynn Vision Finished 0:2 3DMAX	Match
16/10/2025	Virtus.pro Finished 1:2 3DMAX	Match
17/10/2025	fnatic Finished 1:2 3DMAX	Match
18/10/2025	Liquid Finished 1:2 3DMAX	Match

Just after 3DMAX's victory over Liquid, captain Filip "⁠Graviti⁠" Brankovic spoke with HLTV regarding the semi-final series, his inconsistent individual performance and uptick in form at CAC, and the toll that the team's packed LAN schedule has taken on them.

Or you can listen to the interview here.

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Graviti, you're headed to the grand final of CAC 2025, how are you feeling?

I'm feeling good. The team played good overall, and we managed to beat Liquid. I think they can be really strong, but we made them uncomfortable on the maps we played against them. More on the CT-side of Nuke and both sides of Inferno, we made them uncomfortable, that's why they were kinda blocked in the way they wanted to play.

You were in a fairly comfortable spot on their pick of Dust2, up 8-2, and then the map slipped out of your hands. Can you explain what went wrong there?

I don't know... on Dust2 we finished the side 8-4, it was okay still, a good CT-side. But, on T-side we just gave them too many entries, and we didn't win some clutches that we had. They were playing good on CT-side on Dust2; it was very annoying to play against them, they were killing us at the [beginning] of rounds, so it was complicated to win the rounds overall.

After losing a big advantage like that, how were you able to reset going into Nuke?

It's quite easy, because if you don't reset, you will fuck [up] the tournament. If you don't want to fuck up as a player, you just have to reset your own self. We didn't say anything special in the team, everyone just knows that we have to focus, and that's it. Just everyone focus for the next game. We knew that we would play Nuke and Inferno, that we're very good on [these maps], and we were confident to beat them, and that's it.

How did it feel playing in front of the Chinese crowd again? It seemed like they were supporting Liquid; did that affect you guys?

We noticed it, of course, that they were for Liquid. But, no, it's not affecting us. Last time we were in PWC we played Chinese teams, and everyone was screaming for TYLOO and Lynn Vision, so we're kinda used to this, let's say. But it was cool to play in front of the crowd, and I hope it will be even better tomorrow.

About you specifically, you've had a very inconsistent season, sometimes playing really well and other times poorly. Things have been going very well for you here individually; what do you think is the difference here?

First of all, I think I have more confidence in myself. The thing is that I have the IGL role, in my mind, not that I can do kinda whatever I want, because it's me who decides what we will do.

Of course, I'm not the star player, I don't want to be the star player on the team, but if I want to make something, I just make it, with a good balance for other players to also have the space. But before, I was maybe sometimes not doing the things I wanted, not calling the things I wanted in the mid-rounds. I'm just happy to be the IGL also for my individual performance.

How are you feeling about the game tomorrow? First, it's a BO5, which you guys don't get to play a lot of those. Are you looking forward to that aspect of it?

It's going to be a BO5, [we'll be] really tired I think if we go four or five maps, so I hope we're going to 3-0 the opponent we face, I don't know who it's going to be between HEROIC and Legacy. I don't know, I'm just excited to play in front of the crowd, and that's it.

Do you have a preference between HEROIC and Legacy? Revenge against Legacy or HEROIC with a stand-in?

No, I don't have a preference. Both teams are really good in this event, so both of them will be tough opponents.

After this event you go straight into Bucharest and then Chengdu right after that. You're going back and forth across EU and China. Do you feel like that might affect your performance at these events?

For sure, we feel it. Even now, we feel it after EPL. It was very long, even for us. It's already the third week that we're together almost all the time with the team. It's making us quite tired, and even more with the jetlag, going between China and Europe, it's a six-hour difference, it's very difficult.

But, after Chengdu, we will have some days off before the Major to prepare well for the Major. So, for sure I guess we will be tired after Chengdu. We're already tired now, so we're just going to give our best, and that's it, and for the Major, we will be ready.

What exactly is the plan after Chengdu? How much time is for resting? I assume you have a bootcamp slated...

No bootcamp. We have too many LANs, we cannot bootcamp. We will not bootcamp, we will stay at home. We will have some days off, like three days off after Chengdu to rest a bit, and then we will practice again with just one or two days off during the weekends. [Then,] into the Major and that's it!

You have had some solid results recently, especially at EPL, but you're not really at a point where you're competing for titles. What do you think is separating you from the big names like Falcons, MOUZ, Vitality, and what do you need to do to start closing that gap?

I think the people who are watching the games don't understand how much the difference in experience is with these types of players, like karrigan, NiKo, apEX. These types of players have so much [more] experience than us for everything on LAN, in an event. They have more advice to know how to win. Sometimes we can win [against] good teams and even lose to, say, bad teams, because individually we fucked up, or the mentality was not good.

We had this one against Legacy in this event, but we have to take also that we are really really tired, we travelled instantly from Pro League to here, and we were a bit sick with the travel, me and bodyy. We're not doing the best version of ourselves in this [Legacy] match. I think our worst thing in the team is where we do this type of thing where we're not supporting each other, and stuff like this.