Spinx : "I know some people wanted us to win because of the situation, I'm happy for them"

Vitality 's captain, Dan "⁠apEX⁠" Madesclaire, was one of the seven IGLs to sign an open letter in protest of BLAST allowing  Astralis ' addition of Casper "⁠cadiaN⁠" Møller ahead of the tournament.

Vitality  were the only team to directly face the Danish squad so far, however, as the teams met in the opening round of the Fall Final. Lotan "⁠ Spinx ⁠" Giladi and company came to play against the Danes and won the first map 13-0 before getting the job done with another dominant 13-4 performance.

After the game,  Spinx  spoke to HLTV about the victory, the increased stakes ahead of the match, and  Vitality 's expectations for the rest of the tournament.

Congrats, quite a dominant victory. How did it feel on the server from your side?

It feels good. We were pretty dominant as a team and as individuals. I'm just happy we are performing because we also show that we are not only winning, but the way we are winning, as we are not giving the enemy team a single round. If we can, we will be focused 100% on the game. So yeah, it feels good.

You say you don't want to give teams a single round. Were you perhaps even more focused considering who you played against?

Myself, no, I don't care about the entire situation. But I know some people wanted us to win because of the situation. So for these people, I'm happy for them and I'm happy for me just because I won the game.

I wanted to ask about the mentality of the team. You obviously won Cologne, which is a huge achievement, but then EPL didn't exactly go to plan. Did you guys intentionally take it a bit easier after the Cologne win?

We didn't take it easier. I think we did pretty decently at EPL, but unfortunately, we lost to Eternal Fire in the quarters. I think they played pretty well, but we lost the game because of silly mistakes, and we could have won that game.

It was really close, we could have won this one, but it's part of Counter-Strike. You lose, you win, no one is perfect 24/7, and we didn't play our best. They also played really well, it happens sometimes.

Looking forward to this tournament, this win is a big statement from you guys. Are you ready to lift the trophy?

Kind of, yes. First of all, we are not instantly thinking about the title. We have another game, and we focus on one game at a time. But we are Vitality after all, and when we go to the tournament, the title is the goal.

Your next game is against Liquid or Spirit . Who would you rather face?

I don't care, I think both teams are pretty good right now and kind of on the same level. I think Spirit can pop off more compared to Liquid, but overall, both of them are really good. If you want to win the title, you need to be ready to face anyone, so it doesn't really matter.