hally on donk: "It's good that he understands that sometimes he lacks discipline on the server"
Spirit came into 2024 as a frightening prospect following the acquisition of sh1ro and they have not disappointed.
Crowned as the champions of both IEM Katowice 2024 and BLAST Premier Spring Final presented by Revolut, the team has done much to prove that they could be the next dominant force in Counter-Strike.
At BLAST Premier Fall Groups, we spoke to their coach hally about their chance at dominance, growing as they gain experience, and donk's self-awareness of the issues in his own game.
"It's a competitive scene and it's not a popularity contest"
You had a very successful first half of the year, was that what you were looking for or was it better than you were hoping for given the inexperience on the team?
We didn't think about our achievements in terms of ranking, it's number one, number ten. We knew that a sniper was coming into our team and with players like sh1ro, donk, magixx, and zont1x, and a caller like chopper, we would have the necessary qualities to achieve good results.
From there, it's all about the training process and having a good routine, we needed to set up the team and we think we did a good job.
It's hard to be dominant in CS nowadays, but with the inexperience on the team and the idea that people will improve with experience, do you think this team can become dominant?
It's hard to say, we're a young team that gets better with experience, and we know that this season showed us that we are ready to win and lift trophies against the very best.
However, with the current state of CS, it's hard to be as dominant as the teams of old because of tick rate and MR12. We can see that there are very few teams that are truly dominant, it's pretty much us, MOUZ, and NAVI if we are judging by the first half of the year and there are eight teams that can be playoff teams and compete for grand finals.
sh1ro elevated Spirit to new levels. Photo: Michal KonkolYou mentioned MOUZ there, your team have had some struggles against MOUZ, why do you think that is?
We don't think it's necessarily about the opponent, we need to look at the games against them one by one.
First and foremost, at the RMR, we had some internal problems with our game on certain maps and we weren't prepared enough. At BetBoom Dacha, when we lost in the final, it was the first tournament after the break for us and the first truly elite game because the competition we faced before MOUZ wasn't as strong. It was much like EWC this time, the first tournament of the season after the break, so we just weren't ready.
I think the second half of the year will show our improvement against them.
In terms of the second half of the year, you declined the invite to IEM Rio, could you explain that decision?
The ecosystem right now is that we have six tournaments in a row coming out of the break, obviously, it also includes EPL which requires you to play a lengthy group stage before going home and then returning for playoffs, which is exhausting.
In the current state of things, we think it's very important for the players to take a break to recharge both physically and mentally, but also for us to get back onto practice servers and fix mistakes.
This is why we had to decline the invite, especially since going to Brazil involves a very long flight.
Back at Spring Final, donk said to us that he wasn't sure if other teams rate him as highly as fans and analysts do, which seems a little crazy to us, why do you think he might think that?
[laughs] When I hear things like that, I can say nothing and only smile.
donk has already broken records despite his young age. Photo: Michal KonkolAnother thing donk said is that he thinks sometimes he is too aggressive and at other times he is too passive, as the coach, how do you hope to work on things like that with him?
It's very good that he understands that sometimes he lacks discipline on the server, but knowing that, we clearly can see that he has grown a lot in the past six months on this team.
Some of the movements can't be judged even by watching demos because you need to hear the flow of communication, so this is why some moments can be treated one way or another.
We know that he is on the right track and it's going well.
In another interview in London, zont1x spoke about hostile crowds and how that might affect players on the team, how does the team react to those things and how do you help them through it?
There are more tournaments where people cheer against us than for us, but there are some pleasant exceptions like Dallas. Even in the harshest audience, there are people that cheer for us despite the rest which we are very grateful for.
Having said that, it's a competitive scene and it's not a popularity contest, we need to be ready for harsh audiences. In that sense, it's even better how in Katowice we got that because it has moulded us and with every tournament, it's easier to play against audiences like that.