Xizt: "Every loss is going to take a toll on your confidence, we had to slowly build it up again"

Following fnatic's win over Winstrike, we quizzed Richard "⁠Xizt⁠" Landström about the 'Xizt veto' and the lack of confidence his team has at the moment.

After a rought run at ELEAGUE Premier and especially DreamHack Masters Stockholm, fnatic are back to winning ways, defeating Winstrike 16-7 on Inferno.

In a post-match interview, Xizt revealed that the vetos in Ninjas in Pyjamas weren't down to him, but the coaches, and added that losses to Heroic and OpTic in Stockholm harmed fnatic a lot leading up to the Maor.

In this game, against Winstrike, you started well on the CT side but you couldn't really finish the half well, what were the issues on the CT side?

It started with losing the force-buy when it was 4-0, I was too aggressive, they caught me off guard with a popflash and rushed me down. I think JW managed to trade me but they had a 4v3 after plant which they should win. I think we just kind of screwed up with their force buys, we lost two of them as CT and that is why it got so close. Also, we lost a 5on3 on B retake which also made the difference.

On the T side it was much more comfortable, are you generally more comfortable on the T side on Inferno?

Usually, we play a good Inferno, especially the T-half, we usually play that really well. I think what happened against compLexity was that they managed to get Banana control a lot and they were flanking us, pushing us everywhere. I think we didn't hit our shots and when that happens everyone plays more passive, we were afraid to take duels...

I think we tried to do to many plays with smokes and stuff instead of having a bit of confidence, flash them and kill them. We played too slow when we had to play fast, and we played too fast when we had to take a step back. That is what I think what happened. Today, obviously, playing vs Winstrike, we started with the mentality that we are ten times better than them and we are just going to go in with a lot of confidence, everyone taking initiative and it worked out pretty well.

Touching on the compLexity game in which you said that you didn't have confidence - how come a team like fnatic doesn't have confidence against a team like compLexity? How does that happen, considering the stature of the team, the players you have on your side, multiple Major winners...?

It is weird, I think it starts with losing in Stockholm and also losing to mousesports in Atlanta. Every loss is going to take a toll on your confidence I think, we had to slowly build it up again. I think we are getting there, we just need to hype each other up and stuff like that before the games. It is something you have to build.

Going into that game and especially after that game, after you lost, the talking point was the veto and playing Inferno against compLexity, the only map they practically played here. Can you give me your thoughts on picking that map?

We just went into play one of our comfort maps as well, it was either going to be Inferno or Mirage, which also happen to be their strongest maps. But from watching their demos from here, where they played four Infernos as you said, I don't think they were that strong. We should've beaten them, I think, but we just played too passive, and everything we touched on before. But we just wanted to play one of our comfort maps.

In general, what do you think about the reputation you have, the "Xizt veto" which is becoming a meme, people calling you out for not doing good vetos?

I don't really care what people think. In NiP it was mostly the coach that was doing the veto, it wasn't me doing it for the last three years or something, since coaches became a thing. Obviously it is not something I think about. I think that if you have a good team, you are going to have a better map pool and it is going to be easier to do the vetos. In NiP we struggled a lot, we had a bad map pool so it was tough getting a good map for us.

Moving on from here, what are you thinking about, how is the team feeling?

We've had some issues lately, losing in Stockholm pretty bad, I think it hurt us as a team, but we can only grow from there. A win here, even though it is against Winstrike, is something we are going to build on. We just have to work hard and see what we can do here at the Major.

More interviews from the New Legends stage:

Day 2
LEGIJA: "Before the Major, we said 'We will not practice to make Legends, we're here to f****** win'"

Day 1
Xyp9x: "Against Na`Vi and especially on Inferno, it's all mind games"
REZ: "Not playing the Minor means a lot to me, I have played so many"

Media Day
JW: "We considered twist after the early StarLadder exit; he wasn’t really interested"
jmqa: "After the last Major, our practice wasn't great, we didn't have good conditions"
flamie: "We still want to play Dust2 because no one is playing it well"
SmithZz: "We aren't completely ready at the moment, but we are getting there"
RUSH: "Hopefully, after the Major, our ranking will reflect how we actually are as a team"