donk on being named the best player: "Winning it would only mean that we were the better team overall"
Spirit kicked off 2024 in incredible fashion as they blitzed the competition at IEM Katowice 2024.
Although domination didn't follow that event as many had expected, they did pick up a second trophy at BLAST Premier Spring Final.
Trophyless since then, they have a fantastic opportunity to add a third in Singapore at BLAST Premier World Final and donk is more than up for the challenge.
Before the event, we spoke to him about their break, the importance of building up momentum, and how much it would mean to him to be crowned as the best player in the world at the end of the year.
"We need to play some official games to test if what we trained in boot camps is really working"
You're heading to Singapore for World Final, how are you feeling about it?
It's definitely an interesting location, it's new for the entire team. Nobody has been there before.
So it's gonna be very interesting to see how the crowd is going to be and the reaction to being here for Counter-Strike because this is the first one of them at that location.
With it being the last tournament before the Major cycle begins, how important is it to build up momentum at the event?
Yeah, obviously the tournament is right before the Major and we have been on a bit of a break.
We need officials, we need to play some official games to test if what we trained in boot camps is really working.
Photo: Michal KonkolWhat's the main thing you have worked on over that break?
We worked on our game as a whole, how we train, how we play off each other, our communication and stuff like that.
Our main goal was to get in optimal shape and judging by how the bootcamp has been going in terms of practice, it's been working out really well.
You skip more events than other top teams, how beneficial do you find it?
It's really important to point out that some events we decide to skip, but other events we got the invite but it was not possible for us to go there because of visas and things like that, so some of those events will skip on our behalf and some of them so it was impossible for us to attend.
On the other hand, it's definitely important to innovate and try to stay relevant and stay on top of your game. If you play event after event, it gets very hard to do that. So, with such breaks between the events, we get some time to get back and innovate our game to stay on top of the competition.
In an interview we did with him for Fall Final, zontix said how important momentum is for this team, do you think there is also a negative aspect of missing events?
These breaks are very important because it's better to skip one event and play three events on top of your game than is it to play all four events and not stay at your best, but maybe only once get close to it.
The only downside is that we get to see other people play the stage games and in front of the crowds and obviously every player wants that. So sometimes this is the only downside.
In your first game at World Final you will play against Vitality who have JACKZ as a stand-in, how much of an advantage is that for you?
Obviously, it gives us a little bit of an advantage because they just don't have practice with that five and it's not an optimal roster for them. So obviously it benefits us more than them.
Photo: Michal KonkolThe other two teams in your group are G2 and Liquid, how confident are you of winning the group?
We think that if we play our game, it's possible for us to win against every team at the tournament, but that's the thing, we need to play our game and we need to show what we did in practice and see if the ideas that we brought are good.
This is the most important thing, just to approach this tournament game by game and see what works from our preparation.
You're in the running for the best player of the year award, how much would it mean to you to win it?
It's a close race and it would be great to win it, especially since this is such a prestigious award.
But, winning it would only mean that we were the better team overall during the course of the year and it's important to be just that.
The team achievements are much more important than individual achievements. Obviously, it would be an honour to win this individual award but it's not such a priority compared to what the team can win.