Jame: “We Needed To Make One Step Back To Make Two Steps Forward”

Dzhami ‘œJame’ Ali, VP’™s IGL shared a video on his youtube channel with his outlook on what happened to his team during the last Major RMR and tried to give a community several explanations. The point is that Virtus.pro sensationally failed at the Paris Major RMR, not making it out to the Major’™s main stage after taking the first place at the previous Rio Major 2022. Fans are confused and discontent with the team’™s latest constant roster changes and what about the players themselves? Let’™s find out.

Read more: Twistzz: “We want to have a dominant showing going into CS2”

Jame started the video by answering the most frequent questions on the latest situation.

Who is responsible for making all the decisions

“We are not a mix of players, we are a solid organization with a lot of staff, players, coaches, managers, and it’™s not about one-person decisions, or even one person’s vote is stronger than the other’™s.

It doesn’™t matter what role you play in our system, you have to be the part of the team and, sadly, there are no irreplaceable people there. Every achievement we’™ve reached is the result of mutual efforts of everyone in the whole organization: no matter whether it is the first place at a major or any other small local tournament”.

Jame at Antwerp Major 2022.

Image credit: PGL.

However, Jame confesses that he, along with the coach Dastan “dastan” Aqbaev, is responsible for being a connecting thread between the rest of the team and the management.

Talking about n0rb3r7’s bench

“It turned out that Qikert (Aleksei Golubev) and n0rb3r7 were playing the same roles and big thanks to Qikert, he transitioned to the other, not characteristic of him roles, was studying how to play them, when the team needed it. But, playing this way, we kept hitting against the ceiling of our performance again and again. So we decided to go in favor of a completely new player, who would fit the required role for the team, for our pattern, which is unlike most teams with a leading IGL like nafany (Vladislav Gorshkov) or karrigan (Finn Andersen). We had a successful example of such a decision with fame (Petr Bolyshev), when we invited a young player and taught him from scratch. This time, we tried to do the same with KaiR0N- (Aleksandr Anashkin)”.

Jame describes KaiR0N- as a young, talented player with a personality type and role both suitable for the team, but notes the lack of his professional experience. Jame also explains that the same role in CS:GO roster can be different at different tiers. In addition to that, VP’™s IGL blames their own time and schedule miscalculations for KaiR0N- ‘s failure, saying they simply needed more time, whereas their poor RMR results and intense activity led the team to the burnout.

Replacing KaiR0N- mid event

“I don’™t want to say much about our internals, the general idea is that the team lost faith in our roster winning the tournament. With all the pracs, strategies and a full-focus attitude, we kept losing and that made us psychologically feel bad. So we decided to replace KaiR0N- with n0rb3r7 back and try to make a winning run as we did during the previous major. Sadly, already in the next series we encountered a strong opponent, MOUZ, who later won FaZe as well, we got knocked out and failed to qualify for the Major. This is sports, in the end, and such things can happen”.

Jame claims that the players (KaiR0N- and n0rb3r7) were aware of possible roster change in advance, their substitution or benching and it wasn’™t something shocking for both of them.

Team’s fail with KaiR0N-

“Without any flattery, I’™d say KaiR0N- is one of the best young CIS players, he’™s definitely an enforcement for any top team, the problem is the one I’™ve mentioned before, that our particular game pattern and IGL-sniper system is specific and not the every player can fit it and perform his best. In our team we need non IGL players to go first, to lead forward while I’™m covering them with an AWP. It’™s much different from most pro teams. I literally need players to do exactly what I think of. I can’™t do it myself as I’™m a sniper. Although KaiR0N- was growing as a player, for that moment when we returned David back to the roster, it was not enough for us. In order to keep our team reaching great results we either needed to change the IGL or to replace KaiR0N- with a more experienced player”.

Then, Jame discusses possible roster change options. The previous major winner believes the roster with both n0rb3r7 and KaiR0N- at the same time would have lack of experience, while the roster with Qikert and KaiR0N- would have less team spirit, as David played the most of a team building role in the roster.

Jame states that even with any other player instead of n0rb3r7, they would’™ve been just a stack of players whose only common interest is CS:GO. When it’™s a common story for any professional sports, Jame confesses that it’™s different in esports, where teammates have to be ‘œcompatible’ to each other and not get tired of each other within several months spent together.