TaZ: Fighting with getting complacent

After Virtus.pro split maps with .Russia and subtLe took the Poles to overtime on Cobblestone, we talked to Wiktor "TaZ" Wojtas to find out what their issues were at the beginning of WESG.

In the tough Group A at WESG, Virtus.pro began by splitting maps with Dmitry "⁠hooch⁠" Bogdanov's .Russia.

In the following match, subtLe were at match point on Cobblestone before the Polish squad turned the map around in overtime and added a victory on Mirage.

TaZ believes VP have a tendency to get complacent

Wiktor "⁠TaZ⁠" Wojtas talked to us about the slow start Virtus.pro has had at WESG and what the event means to them prior to the Major:

You played a different lineup of Russia twice at the Regional Finals and lost both times, this time you exchanged the maps, what was the problem here in the series with hooch & co?

I think this is just the stage we are playing at, we lost to them at the qualifier where we clearly underestimated them, but we still managed to qualify, as the top eight qualified. We have problems with our attitude you know, with our approach in the moments where you can easily get complacent. That's it, we also picked Cache which we put a lot of practice into, and we just need some games on Cache. They played well, they did nice gambles, three guys on A, three guys on B. It worked for them, but it's good, we're losing but we're learning from it. We weren't really thinking about losing to Russia so many times before, for us it's just a group stage and that's it.

Now, subtLe, again - quite a lot of problems on one of the maps, Cobble this time, what do you think it is, simply slow starts like you said?

I think so, I mean we put a lot of hours before this event, we didn't have too much free time. We took like three days off for holidays, three days for New Year's, and that's it, we practiced all the time. So it's not about our preparation, we prepared very well, it's more about the group stage. We will see further if it's about the group stage or that we just suck, but I think it is the attitude, you can see that we were close to losing Cobblestone, but then we switch up and go into Mirage with a good mood. Tomorrow we will see in the rest of the games, the opponents will be even harder than today.

You've garnered a bit of a reputation for being on poor form after longer breaks from events, especially due the first couple of months in 2016. Do you agree that is the case, that you take a while to come back to form after longer breaks?

This time we didn't make a longer break, because we saw that after we made like a one and a half month long break, we had trouble getting the chemistry back. So now we decided to have small breaks, but a bit more often maybe, like two breaks for three days. That's why we're also happy that WESG is now, because there's a lot of games. When you have a little break from playing the big events, you need to get into the game mode. We're happy that we still have like six more games left in groups, and then we're getting more and more. After this event there's the Major, which we obviously want to win, finally.

So you believe WESG is going to help you warm up for the Major?

I think so, these results here are more about the attitude, after the break and reading all the comments, "oh, they're clearly favored, congratz VP on winning", it's a lot of overhype and we also need to deal with it. It's not like we don't have eyes and don't read these comments, we see it and sometimes it gets into your head. So we're fighting with getting complacent, and if we're able to get rid of that, I think we'll perform really well, not only here but also at the Major.

Wiktor 'TaZ' Wojtas Age: 30 Team: Virtus.pro Rating 1.0: 1.02 Maps played: 1131 KPR: 0.70 DPR: 0.67 Dmitry 'hooch' Bogdanov Age: 29 Team: No team Rating 1.0: 0.90 Maps played: 433 KPR: 0.62 DPR: 0.69 .Russia Vadim 'DavCost' VasilyevDmitry 'S0tF1k' ForostyankoSavelii 'jmqa' BraginAlexey 'ub1que' Polivanov Virtus.pro #6 Wiktor 'TaZ' WojtasFilip 'NEO' KubskiJarosław 'pashaBiceps' JarząbkowskiJanusz 'Snax' PogorzelskiPaweł 'byali' Bieliński subtLe Ellis 'els' ClayJonathan 'Jonji' CareyKyle 'OCEAN' O'BrienDavid 'DAVEY' StaffordMatthew 'knc1' Arnold