With two tournaments played and two tournaments won for mezii in Vitality, his start to life with the international roster couldn't have gone any better.
One of the greatest players in his nation's history, we spoke to mezii about what it means to be the UK's representative at the top, winning the tournaments, and the gap between FaZe and Vitality.
It's your second tournament with Vitality and also your second tournament win with the team, how are you feeling?
Yeah, I mean, we aren't stopping. It's a crazy ride, but we're playing with so much confidence, everyone's playing really well individually. Like I said yesterday, when one person is on, everyone is on, so I think it's a great team performance and we're not going to stop.
We spoke at the start of the event about how you maybe didn't have the best time individually at Fall Final, but here you played lights out the entire time, are you feeling more comfortable in the team now?
Yeah, for sure. Obviously it's only two events, one being bad and one good, but I think I'm looking for consistency and I can only do that by keeping on practicing and playing with the team, but it's feeling a lot better.
Take us through the final itself and the two maps, how was it?
I think with all the games you play against FaZe it's going to be chaotic and some situations don't go your way. I think Infenro was a bit back and forth at the start, but we did a really good job of staying resilient and fighting for all the rounds, we had a really good T side towards the end, and overall on both T sides across the two maps we had really good plans and apEX had really good calls on how he wanted to exploit them. Overall we just had really good communications and foundations and that's what helped us.
At the end of the game the caster spoke about how the gap between the two teams feels large, does it feel like that when you're playing?
Yeah, I mean, individual wise I think everyone has been grinding so hard. Other teams have as well, of course, but at the moment everyone is playing so well and we're hitting our stride together, so when we come up against most teams we feel really confident. Everything is coming together as individuals, and outside of the game we're clicking really well and all the preparation we're doing really well. It does feel like there's a bit of a gap at the moment, but we just feel confident.
In terms of individuals, you were the highest-rated player coming into the final, but you lost out on the MVP award to ZywOo, are you disappointed?
Nah, it doesn't really bother me. I think when I first joined everyone knew that ZywOo is the guy that is always going to have the MVPs and even coming to this event playing well in the first few days, I don't mind. I said to my family that I don't really care, as long as we win that's all that matters and if he's going to carry us to victories and put up these performances I don't really care.
These first two events with Vitality, have they gone better than you imagined they would?
Yeah, I definitely didn't think we'd come in and win the first two tournaments and have a really nice streak with the team. It's everything that I could've hoped for, and we're going to have to ride the confidence and momentum into next year, but it's a great end to the year and the team had an amazing year even before I joined so it's a great way to top it off.
What does it mean to you to be so successful and be the first successful player from the UK since the Source days?
I think it's great to have that. It's not something I think about too much, I just want to be a really good role model to the UK players and always there to help if they need it. My DMs are always open and I try to get to as many people as I can. It's great to be at the top and to also be the guy that's bringing the scene across. Hopefully we'll see some more players in the future, but for now, it feels great to be the UK guy at the top.
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