ropz: "[on flameZ's form] It's less kills for me, but if that makes my life easier and wins come easier I really don't care."

Vitality came into Blast Open Rotterdam with every expectation that they’d win the whole thing. Their semi-final performance reminded us of why.

Vitality took care of Aurora in under two hours, looking like they were in Aurora’s head for every second of runtime.

So, after the game when we got to speak to ropz we asked about their preparation, how they dominated on T-side Nuke, and if flameZ has even peaked yet.

I wanted to talk to you about the maps for a second. Coming into Inferno, it seemed like you were really prepared for their gameplan. Was that the case, or did it just look like that?

I think we had really good preparation indeed. The veto we totally expected.

In terms of what they ban, because Ancient is a thing that we float on both teams with Aurora and Vitality, we didn't really know what they would ban. But we were quite sure they would pick Inferno.

So we prepared Inferno very well and the result shows it. Not much else to say.

I think Nuke was a bit harder for us, we didn't have as much prep for that map. I think we actually prepared another map, because we expected another ban from them.

But yeah, Inferno was like that yeah.

Yesterday against The MongolZ we saw Aurora abuse their A-site in the early game. They seemed to try that again today, was it a surprise to you that they seemed to just run it back?

You know, I think we did expect that. Because you can actually go back and analyse a lot of the previous matches and yesterday's match as well. We knew that they end up on A a lot, with their executes as well.

That's actually why apEX was A, like three or four rounds. We wanted to bait the names, put mezii on B and Apex on A. If they kill mezii on B they get fully confused and think it's three B, but they come into a stack with apEX.

We had apEX kind of in a joker position today.

So, about Nuke. I've said before that I think Aurora has one of the better CT-sides in the scene, but you made them look pedestrian. What went into that?

I think individual form was just going our way today on both maps including Nuke.

I think the T-side we found some openings, and we found really good gaps in their defence.

We had good calls by apEX, I think one of the first rounds I was going aggressive out on A on the buy rounds... I can't even remember at this point. But I'm sure we had some really good reads on T-side just moving them around, rotating around, and finding the gaps in there.

Final question, is this flameZ's final form or is there even more to come?

[Laughs] I don't at this point. I feel like he is so high in terms of his peak right now in form, and he's still going. I don't even know where it's gonna end up. I think today was another showcase of that.

It's less kills for me, but if that makes my life easier and wins come easier I really don't care. The end goal is to win trophies, and not individual things so I'm just happy.

Scary prospect for other teams, thank you for your time.

Vitality will face one of NAVI or PARIVISION tomorrow, March the 29th at 12:30 CEST, to decide who will be crowned champion. Though, we think we already have an idea.