ZywOo on reaching Legends Stage: "This is a new step, we start 0

2025-04-20 18:24:28 [skinhub] 来源：cs2 case

Vitality secured a spot at the Major's top sixteen, but needed all five Challengers Stage matches to do so. "We don't want to go through 3-0," Mathieu "⁠ZywOo⁠" Herbaut joked, "we like it when it's tough."

Vitality secured a spot in the Major's Legends Stage, but did so with a thin margin, becoming the first of three teams to make it through the final day of play in the Challengers Stage alive. ZywOo and company defeated OG in the 2-2 decider match and needed all three maps to do so.

The final series started on Vertigo, Vitality's pick, a nail-biting overtime affair that went the way of the Dan "⁠apEX⁠" Madesclaire-led squad before OG smashed their way to the decider with a 16-6 victory on their Inferno. ZywOo became unhinged on the decider, Dust2, and posted a 1.86 rating in his team's 16-8 victory to move on to the next stage of the Major.

The Challengers Stage run was a complicated one for Danny "⁠zonic⁠" Sørensen's men, who felt some pressure coming in as a top team in the world. They opened with a victory against Imperial, but were sent to the brink of elimination by GamerLegion and Outsiders before overcoming Grayhound and OG.

ZywOo put on an incredible carry performance in the process, averaging a 1.39 rating across all five matches, over 0.30 above any of his teammates. "I feel really good individually, and also the team," the Frenchman told HLTV, "and for the Legends Stage I'm just going to keep it up."

ZywOo celebrates on stage in front of the crowd in Rio after securing a spot in the Legends Stage

You made it through to the Legends Stage, although it took you a minute with a 3-2 record in the decider match. Are you relieved that you made it?

Yeah, this run, we're really happy to feel that we're in the Legends Stage and it's a good feeling, a really good feeling.

Before the Major you guys were looking pretty good and even came to the Major as a favorite team not just for the Challengers Stage, but for the tournament itself. You started struggling here early on, why haven't we seen the best Vitality?

We've been struggling a bit since the beginning of the Major, but I think the Major did that. We cannot take an easy match, everyone wants to beat us because we have a good team, and this is that. Everyone wants to beat us and sometimes we take it too easy, but this is us. We don't want to go through 3-0, we like it when it's tough. That's it, we're in Legends now!

Do you think that coming in as a team that was expected to perform very well, that it got to you at all? Maybe mentally, or the pressure?

Yeah, maybe in the back of our minds it was like 'ah, fuck, we're number one, so we need to show,' but it's not like that. This is the Major, everyone needs to show everything and right now this is a new step, new Legends Stage, we start 0-0, so we have no pressure because people know we're struggling a bit. Other teams have pressure now, not us.

You've played really well at the Challengers Stage, personally, just the GamerLegion match was a bit complicated. Tell me a bit about how you're feeling individually going into the Legends Stage, and maybe run me down a bit about what happened in the GamerLegion match.

The GamerLegion match, I struggled. Sometimes I have a bad game and think it was this one, I didn't feel it individually. After that game happened I was like 'ah, fuck, this happened, I'm just going to destroy next game.' I'm not going to be like 'oh, okay, it's going to be hard' or anything like this. I feel really good individually, and also the team, and for the Legends Stage I'm just going to keep it up. That's it. I just need to show up every time.

Tell me a bit about the match against OG. We saw a really close Vertigo that went into overtime. How were the nerves in those last few rounds and clutch situations?

It was tough! The nerves were really like whoa, but we managed to get it. Inferno was also really tough because they played really good CS and we didn't so they managed to beat us 16-6. I think they play really good CS and they were really good matches. That's the game I like to play because everyone was tough. I like this kind of game we played against OG. This is perfect.

Going into Dust2, it's a great map for AWPers and it was an amazing back-and-forth between you and degster. Before going into it, the Inferno was a bit shaky, so how confident were you that you'd take the series on Dust2?

After Inferno, we had just fucked up, so we just had to come back into the game and Dust2 was the perfect game for me because with the AWP, as you say this is like a 1vs1 against the AWP. I was just playing my game, I didn't think like 'oh, shit, if I fail this, or fail this.' I was just playing my game and that's it. The team followed really well, even apEX who started 0-9, 0-10, he was leading really well and it brought us confidence. So it was really good to play.

There was a play we noticed on the CT side. You had three players on short throwing nades every couple of seconds instead of stacking them. What were you trying there, was that kind of a fake?

Actually at the moment we didn't say 'let's nade with delay' or anything. It was just a feeling, I naded first, then Peter [dupreeh] naded, then Spinx, but nobody spoke about where we need to nade or the delay. It was just the feeling, because we knew they were kind of close lower or mid because we heard them. We didn't speak about it, but after we did it I was like 'maybe it can be good' because we did that a lot with apEX on short and it was kind of a fake. I think it was a good fake and they didn't expect for us to be three on short after that, so it was good.

You got the victory in the end, you're moving on to the Legends Stages where you'll face teams that haven't played five matches the way you have. Do you think that momentum will give you a bit of an advantage to start that stage on good footing?

Yeah, I think we have the momentum for that, but we've played five matches so teams that come in now to the Legends Stage can see that. They can see our games, how we play, how we're feeling, so I think both have momentum. Teams can watch us, or watch GamerLegion, it's like 50/50 because of course we played in front of the crowd, but they can anti-strat us really easily because we played five games. I think it's going to be 50/50.