ZywOo: "I don't feel like I'm a superstar, I'm just me"

ZywOo is largely antithetical to the idea of what a superstar so often is, especially outside of the server.

His happy-go-lucky demeanour and ability to compartmentalise and ignore his own ego make him a really interesting character to study - especially when tied to his in-game dominance.

The guy is ruthless inside of the server, but outside of it is completely not what you expect - perhaps summed up best by the titular quote of this interview.

"I don't feel like a superstar inside of the team or outside, I'm just me. It's not because I'm ZywOo I'm going to ask for more drops, or I'm going to do 'bait mode' or whatever. If anyone needs to go first, I'll go first, if anyone did something wrong... because you know it's a team game, so you need to sacrifice at some moments.

"If you sacrifice, your teammate can do something else - because I have good rating, you know, my teammate can also have good rating if I do that for them. It can be beneficial for my side and from their side if I do that so I don't feel like I'm a superstar, I'm just me."

Even if he believes it, few others do - but it's that lowkey nature that sets him apart in many ways.

He did bring up his "personal ego" when explaining how he felt about putting up a superb performance at Fall Final, citing that "people had told him" about some online chatter that he wasn't quite as good on CS2.

"I didn't check Twitter or anything, I never went there, so actually I wasn't mad, was just my personal ego was just like "I want to perform". That's myself, I like to play competitively. It wasn't because of the fans or anything, it was just for me, I have some ego, I don't have to prove for anyone that I can perform or do whatever I want.

Credit: Michal Konkol

"At Fall Final at the end of the tournament I was happy with what I did and also to happy with what the team did, because I think we played decent CS overall in this tournament, but obviously after this I'm thinking I'm happy, I want to keep going at this level on this LAN."

Team Vitality weren't quite at their peak level in Sydney, and ZywOo believes that the team had quite a lot of problems at that point.

"In Sydney actually we had a lot of problems on our team so you might not see our progress but you can see at Fall Final, we were really focused on what we need to do, we were done with our problems. We were just focused individually but also inside of the team technically. apEX told us what we need to do, what we need to give you to perform. After Sydney we had two or three weeks of practice where we talked about what we need to do, what we need to perform. We did that after Sydney because we felt we needed that."

That is firmly behind them, and after a raft of changes over the last six months, it seems like Vitality are back to their best - and might just be in pole position in Abu Dhabi.

One of those changes has been the addition of mezii, but ZywOo actually suggested it's harder for mezii than it is for the team to adjust to the changes.

"Every time we had a change we won - we had to just prepare. We know what we're capable of. It's not hard for the team to have only one change, because the team will not change. For myself, I will not change my playstyle, Spinx or Dan (apEX) we will not change. Most likely it will be the guy who comes into the team who will have the big problem, kind of. He needs to learn every strategy, our call-outs, how we need to play in a clutch or whatever. We need to practice, play more together, maybe FACEIT and it's going to come, but I think the hardest part is for the guy coming into the team to learn everything."

Credit: Stephanie Lindgren

Even with that said, the Frenchman was instantly impressed with Vitality's new recruit - but not necessarily by the mechanics and gamesense that made Vitality sign him in the first place.

"When I played with him, the first thing I see is mentality. When we were playing vs FaZe and he was 0-8, you couldn't feel it. He was giving his info, he was trying his best, he was trying to give some calls to Dan (apEX). Outside of his performance, it's kind of perfect. Obviously he's just joined Vitality, to replace Magisk, so he had a lot of kind of pressure in this role to perform as well. For now, he's doing a perfect job of what he needs to do."

In fact, mezii has largely been a 1:1 replacement for Magisk inside of the server, which isn't an easy role for anyone to take.

Credit: Michal Konkol

"He's taken roles from Magisk everywhere. We didn't have a lot of tournaments, but it's kind of the same - nobody has changed position, we kind of play the same game style, we have the same strategy so it wasn't a big adjustment on CT. Even on T side, he was fine for us. I think the more complicated part is more for mezii - he joined a new team so it's new mechanics, new brain, new things."

The other big change of recent has been in the coaching staff, with XTQZZZ returning in the stead of the outgoing zonic. ZywOo joked that "maybe he doesn't look like it, maybe because he has no eyebrows or no hair", but XTQZZZ is a serious guy.

He was, that said, very happy to see the return of his fellow countryman.

"I know how he works, how hard he can be but also how kind he can be. For me it's both ways, if we're good he's going to be kind. If we're bad, he's going to be hard [on us]. For me it's not a surprise, I like him, we know what he's capable of, we know what type of coach he is. He's really good. I'm happy about this change."

Credit: Stephanie Lindgren

All of these changes, while positive, ZywOo admitted were "kind of hard" to process, and suggests that "no-one could expect" this many changes in the year, referring to the post-Major time as "chaotic mode".

For now, though, the Etihad Arena beckons, and though ZywOo doesn't say that he thinks Vitality are favourites, there's an assuredness in his voice.

Obviously we will try to win it, we didn't travel for nothing. I don't think that any team has traveled for nothing. Obviously we will try our best, we are Vitality so if we just play our game, do our thing for what we need for the next six months or one year, we can win this tournament. Not easily, but we can do everything we want.

You certainly wouldn't bet against him.

Vitality's assault on the BLAST World Final trophy begins tomorrow at 13:00 local time, or 10:00 CEST, tomorrow against NAVI.