risze about Major: “ I want us to feel it as a reward.”

Update /14th of May/ – the interview was taken when the team was orgless. LFO just signed with Wolves Esports.

Looking for Org captain, Valentin “risze” Liradelfo talked with BLIX.GG about the decision from Vitality to drop the roster, replacing Medhi “Kaktus” Marty with Yanis “mowwwgli” Dahmani, the performance in performance in the EUL, and the preparation for the Major.

Goodbye Vitality

“We knew the decision of Vitality dropping us a bit before the Six Invitational qualifier so obviously, we weren’t really happy about it especially since we were making the greatest results in Siege if you put aside winning the Pro League six years ago. We were doing the best results the org ever had and we were grinding a lot.”

“It was also a relief I have to say after it was done, for multiple reasons, I won’t extend too much but I just wanted to say it was a very stressful experience in Vitality. There were great people over there but we really could feel the pressure.”

What went wrong in the bees?

“Nothing really went wrong. I believe we had a great roster with great people in it, we are still in a good relationship with Kaktus even though we thank him. The team was lacking a bit of firepower, that’s why we picked up mowwwgli. We wanted everyone in the same rhythm. Although sometimes it’s a bit difficult to follow up on mowwwgli because he’s doing very deep alone, that’s part of the job. He’s a newcomer to the league, he still needs experience, we’re working on it.”

“About the previous roster, besides firepower, everything was going great. Sometimes it was difficult because we felt some games we weren’t actually playing at all. Now the feeling disappeared we solved the problem.”

News soon?

About the LFO roster being signed with an organization, risze doesn’t want to open the book: “I can’t talk about that, the only thing I can say is that we have multiple discussions. Obviously that now we are qualified for the Major it’s a bit more simple to discuss with organizations.“

Does Vitality mean pressure?

“I don’t think the pressure came from representing the organization Team Vitality.”

“It came from the fact that Vitality wants to be the number one in every single game there are. It’s an unable objective but I believe there are some ways to achieve it. We met great people as I said before but overall, we were reminded that we were there to win, nothing else.”

“Especially when we had the roster for free, we didn’t spend a euro building the roster and actually we performed better than multiple rosters that Vitality had, besides not qualifying for the Six Invitational for the first time since the Paris Major, it was a long time ago.”

LFO expectations

“With this roster, we didn’t expect more than qualifying for the Major for the simple reason of org research. It was very important for us to make sure that we were a top tier contender. I believe organizations are interested only in big events and that’s completely normal. Making into the Major was our priority and it was a very stressful process. We managed it, I’m pretty proud of the team, even though they are young, they responded properly to that pressure.”

Rafael: Bootcamp before the Major?

“No, without an organization is impossible to effort that but I think we are doing a good preparation from home and we’re super hyped because this Major is going to be a bónus for us, every single game is going to be a bónus. We basically made the job, obviously, our ambitions are greater than that but our objective is to enjoy it.”

All the changes explained.

“Shiinka always played the hard breacher role. So when we picked him from Tempra to Vitality, we switched him because we wanted Kaktus in hard breacher role. He was a very good hard breacher and was very good at holding angles. It was his strength. We felt Shiinka could be a great Flank holder. But it was not his main role prior to Vitality.”

“So having Shiinka, not on a hard breacher role is definitely not a downgrade. But every role is super important. But especially on our team, we want a support that is able to communicate what they need and how they want it. And Shiinka is doing it so far because it was his main role. We just wanted to put him back in his comfort zone, having people on a Flank role and having me on a flex position, not really on the Entry anymore.”

Major group and ambitions

“I think we have a good group. We are really happy with that besides the fact there are two European teams in the group it’s not cool because we play quite a lot in the regular season. We are still happy with the group at least we have a team that we know how to play against them.”

“The others I really hope are going to be great games, Astralis really showed up in NA in the first stage and I’m looking forward to playing against them. About Chief, I didn’t watch many games from them so I don’t really have an idea of how they play and that will be our preparation this week.”

“As individual competitors, we have our ambitions but our objective is enjoying it because the most stressful part was the qualification. Obviously, we want to go as far as we can but to me is important that everyone spends a great Major and I want us to feel it as a reward. If we don’t enjoy we would be failing our objective, it doesn’t matter how far we go.”

risze’s predict

“Honestly, I believe Heroic is doing great at the moment. Their split was almost perfect and I think we didn’t see that a long time ago. I would say Heroic probably if they play like they played in the last stage they could be a top contender team to win the Major. Let’s see, it’s a competition, there’s going to be great fights.”