apEX on where he ranks himself amongst IGLs: "I would say that I'm top three"
The dominant team so far in 2025, Vitality's final step to establishing an era awaits them in Texas at the BLAST.tv Austin Major.
Now playing at their final event before the big one kicks off, Vitality have already registered a win against Legacy, and will now look to push ahead and keep extending their win streak ahead of the Major.
With the most important event of the year rapidly approaching, we sat down to chat with their IGL, apEX, to discuss the year so far, his journey as an IGL, and whether or not winning IEM Dallas is important in order to maintain Vitality's confidence levels.
"The win streak is phenomenal but it can't stay forever"
It's been a pretty good year for Vitality, how are you feeling? Did you expect it when ropz came in?
It's been an awesome year, we've won five trophies so far, which is the most I've won in a year and it's only May. I'm pretty proud.
I have to be honest, I never expected to win that much. I expected to win, because I know how talented my team is, but I never expected it to be this much. It's a big surprise, but the sure thing is that whenever you win that much, you have the hunger to win even more and to win the most important one, so I'm looking forward to that now.
In terms of the length of time you've been on top, what's been the key to that? Is it maintaining the hunger or have you benefited slightly from the teams closest to you making changes?
Whenever a team is dominating, people always want to remove credit from them and say other teams are playing worse, but it's not my problem if they're playing worse. My goal is to win as much as I can.
With the team we have, we always stay hungry, we have a great work ethic, a mix of talents, and some pretty good players. All combined, it makes it all happen.
Photo: Stephanie LindgrenAre you hitting a peak in terms of your IGLing or do you think you're at a similar level to what you found in 2023?
It's funny because with IGLs, they're rated purely on wins. I don't think I was a bad IGL last year, but what happened within the team made it rough. I'm not better than last year, I've been working my ass off in both years and that's it.
Maybe I'm in my peak because I win trophies, but I'm not sure I'm there because of the way I call, I'm working the same way as I have done for the past couple of years. I think we just win more of the rounds we're supposed to win, so it's just easier for me to call better sometimes.
You've won everything there is to win in CS, where do you think you stand in terms of IGLs throughout history?
It's always tough to rate yourself, but I would say that I'm top three. I think that with the longevity and what I've won in the last five years, I've done pretty well in that regard.
I think that gla1ve and karrigan are above me, but I still have some more time to get better and reach them. Also, right behind me, there's FalleN, pronax, they've been really good as well.
Going back five years then, did you ever imagine the success you've had or that the success would come from international teams?
Of course not, when I started IGLing it was with the French team during COVID. My goal was to be the best IGL I could be, not being one of the greatest, I just didn't think that far. I wanted to be back on LAN, I wanted to win trophies, wanted to win another Major, but I never believed that I could've done so much in such a short time.
Looking back to the BLAST.tv Paris Major, you spoke about the plan that you had to ensure that you peaked at the right moment to win the Major. It's very different this year because you're already on top, how has that changed the approach going into the Major this time around?
The way we think about it is more that, whenever we arrive in Austin, we'll be the big favourites, but that's something we're lucky to be. I think a lot of people would love to be in our shoes.
As you say, it's a different story to 2023. Back then, we weren't the best, so for us, it's not about focusing on that it's the Major, we want to focus on it like it's a normal tournament that we just have to give our best at in order to win.
Of course, there'll be extra pressure, but it's just about relying on CS and thinking about CS, how we can be good in the technical parts and the way that we work together in order to be our best version while we play the Major.
Photo: Michal KonkolEveryone has been performing well this year but we wanted to highlight mezii for a moment; it feels like he's gone up to a whole new level this year, is that something you were going to look to bring into the games with or without the addition of ropz?
First of all, mezii played all anchor roles last year, which is something that he never got used to in a way. He never played those kind of spots before. He'd done a bit of anchoring, just not on every map. Now he has some rotation roles as well, which helps a lot.
What's good with mezii is that he can have really high peaks, but sometimes get a bit more low. I would love him to be a bit more consistent. Of course, you can struggle sometimes, but sometimes when he struggles, he struggles a bit too much.
Other than that, he's been much better than last year. He's been phenomenal. I really like the spaces he takes within the team, he knows that last year wasn't the level he wanted to show, and now he has the opportunity to show what he's capable of. He's doing that well, so I'm glad to have him here.
In all of their interviews the teams below you like to say that they're close to beating you, but which team do you think is the closest?
For now I think it's Falcons. They've been playing pretty well against us, they've been the closest to play us and beat us. In a way, we all know that we're going to lose at some point. The win streak is phenomenal but it can't stay forever.
You mentioned the win streak there, is it even something you think about much? The NIP streak is obviously miles away, but do you think about it in terms of modern records?
Well, when we won three or four events in a row, we saw where our win streak was and knew we were getting closer to the top three, so we wanted to get there.
But, it was more on the side of our mind, in Melbourne we wanted the Grand Slam, but that and the win streak just came together, it wasn't something that we really wanted.
We did get some extra motivation for it during BLAST Rivals, we knew we were close to Liquid's record and being top two in this era of CS would be legendary, so our job was to do that there. Other than that, though, we didn't think about it that much.
As you said, the NIP one is far away, so I don't think we'll match it. If we do match it, it means we won't lose ever this year, which is pretty crazy to think about. We have to be honest, we know we'll lose at some point, that's just how life is. Life has already been too good to us to not lose for another four or five months.
You'll enter the Major in Stage 3, which gives every team in that Stage more time to prepare, but is that an extra benefit when you're the best team in the world and everyone wants to match your level and look at your games?
That's okay, everyone would love to be in our shoes. Of course, that means they might watch us more than the others and will have extra motivation, that's possible.
But, we earned to be there and we worked a lot to be there, so for us, it's just fighting the pressure again and giving our best to win the Major because that's the main goal of the team. When you perform that well for five months, what you really want to do is win the Major.
Photo: Stephanie LindgrenYou're already in the US for IEM Dallas, given that it's the last event before the Major and the run that you're on, is there a heightened importance to the event to ensure that you maintain the way you've been playing and not have a blip in confidence ahead of the Major?
I don't think that if we lose here, even if it's in the Group Stage, that it will fuck our confidence. We've built a lot up in the last five events.
This tournament, we want to use it to see where we are right now and what we need to improve for the Major. We come here with little preparation, we've had only five days of practice because we took a week off before, so we know we're not in the best shape we could ever be, but we did it so we could be fresh for the Major.
Even though here might not be the prettiest, we don't know, we might just surf on that confidence, but this event has to be used as preparation.
