apEX: "This was the hardest Major qualifier I ever played"

Dan "⁠apEX⁠" Madesclaire and company secured their qualification for the Major on the last day of the RMR despite some of the issues faced coming into this tournament.

A tough set of matchups saw Vitality face FaZe and Natus Vincere at the European RMR, two matches that really tested the strength of the French-Danish roster. The 2-2 elimination match against MOUZ saw the apEX-led squad come back from a 0-1 series score to seal their victory on Mirage, qualifying for the PGL Major in Antwerp.

After a long week and a tough last match, the French in-game leader joined us to discuss the challenges presented by the new Vitality squad on their way to qualifying for the Major.

You finally made it through to the Major, 3-2. It got pretty close at times. Tell me, what's going through your head right now?

What's going through my head is pretty simple, this was the hardest Major qualifier I ever played. Playing the two best teams in the world, it's something that should never happen with the seed we have. I think the Major should have the best teams. While obviously we are not the best team in the world, not top five, but definitely in the top ten and we deserve to be there. With this Buchholz I think it's pretty bad that matchups like this happen, like even yesterday, I am sorry to SAW and forZe, but for a 2-1 match? How the fuck can that happen? I am speechless about that. We knew that we would have a tough bracket, and there have been tough games like we played FaZe, NAVI, and also MOUZ, so that was a tough qualifier, the hardest one of my life for sure.

It has been taking a bit of time for the new Vitality to ramp up, but you are finally getting there. Do you think this qualification finally validates the fact that you are getting better and on the road to contest titles?

I don't think today was a pretty day for us, we just didn't play well, but I think the last three days have been pretty good for us. Even though NAVI did not practice I thought they were good enough, Boombl4 had one of his best games in a long time on Inferno, s1mple was s1mple on Mirage, so I thought we were pretty close to beat them. Also, against FaZe we were 14-10 up and we had some trouble closing out games right now, but I think we are improving and that's what matters right now for me. We had two weeks of preparation before this tournament, we have two more weeks coming up and if we keep improving I am pretty sure we can have a good Major. I am not talking about winning or losing the Major, but just doing a good one. I just want us to play at our best, and I think we played decently In the last few days even if today was pretty bad.

You mentioned your struggles in closing out games. The FaZe one, in particular, comes to mind. You were 14-10 up, what happened there?

We did not have time to prepare the game at all, because we finished the previous game at like 3pm or 4pm, and we played at 5pm so I had to take a nap and they just knocked at my door, saying we had to play in 30 minutes.

We decided to play pretty fast in that game, I think we were 7-8 on the CT side and then we started winning 13-7 or something while playing really fast. We just ran on them, that was my purpose in this game, and yeah we lost some momentum and could not clutch, like today. How many times were we 5v3 or 4v3 on the A site and we could not close it out? Because it has been a bit too stressful in those situations, and we just needed to slow down in the end, that was our mistake today.

You have been with the team for a while now, just trying to get to know each other, figuring stuff out. How have the roles and voices in the team evolved? And how is zonic helping in this process?

It's really different to what I've had in the past two years as an in-game leader because now I have way more experienced players that want to do things by themselves. Last year, the only one that wanted to do it was shox, so it was easy to control one. Now controlling two it's a bit harder for me because I have never experienced this, but with time and trying to figure out how I can call better, still getting my identity as an in-game leader. When you have a player like dupreeh that plays a lot on his instincts, you have to deal with the fact that sometimes it's going to work and sometimes not.

I think today we tried to get the first kill, and then we all tried to get other kills, and then we were 2v5, and at that moment I can't call anything and that's a bit frustrating for me because I am not used to that. For me, CS in the last two years was more strict with the teams we had, because people did not take the initiative so I had way more control. Now I have less control over everything so, I just need to find my balance and I think I am finding it sometimes but not too often so I just need to work.

You mentioned trying to find your identity as an IGL, and after becoming one you worked with XTQZZZ for a long time. Now that you've worked with zonic, how do they differ and how is your relationship with him going?

The difference is that I knew XTQZZZ for a really long time, we have known each other for like 13 years, so it was a really good relationship, we were friends, even though he was my coach. It was easy to talk together, and Rémy is a bit different from zonic as he sometimes was more harsh, he's more strict and pushy on the players while zonic is slower and tries to trust the players. It's two different styles in that sense but overall they both work really well, they always just try to get me as an IGL to talk a lot more.

Building a relationship with a coach is just having a lot of talks about everything, and that's what I try to do because obviously, he worked four or more years with g1ave, and I worked for three years with XTQZZZ so there are different ideas and identities in Astralis compared to Vitality. We need to group everything together and find a new Vitality identity. It's not just a bit of Astralis and a bit of Vitality, it's just the new Vitality because we have different players. It's not easy, but it's fun.

Talking about this new Vitality identity, how does Magisk fit in that new identity? He was a caller for a bit in Astralis, is he helping you in any way or being maybe more vocal than some of the other players you've had in the past?

He is not as vocal as shox for example, but he's vocal. I really want Magisk to focus on himself because I think he can have impactful rounds that for example, he had on Mirage, he rekt the CTs. It was really good seeing him play like that and I want him to focus on playing like that, and also helping with the calling but not too much.

Until today you had not grabbed a win on Mirage with this team, what is the problem with it?

I think we arrived at this tournament ready on Mirage. We lost against the best teams in the world on Mirage, FaZe, and NAVI, and NAVI are just picking the map, not Nuke, nothing else. We were pretty close to beating them and that was our big focus on this tournament because we knew that at least three teams would pick it against us. Actually I think FaZe felt pretty good about getting Mirage for our best-of-one but we worked a lot on it and we wanted to show it. Let's be honest, if we play a very stressful game for the first time on Mirage, it's going to be really hard for us to perform so we just wanteded to play it earlier. It was very important for us to play against FaZe because today, in a stressful game without playing it in officials after some time, it would have been pretty hard.

I think at the beginning the main problem was just the two Danes had not played the map in quite some time, and they needed to more time to understand the map in some ways. But now I think we are all getting more confident on the Mirage and It's getting much better. If we had won against FaZe there would be different conversations about us and Mirage, so it's not about the map but the way we play and not being able to close rounds, in any other map we would have lost the same way, not just Mirage.

ZywOo is getting slowly back to his top form, he's getting there, but when are we going to see Zinedine ZywOo again?

I don't know, it is sometimes a bit tough for him. He did not get immediately used to some people getting some space and doing that kind of stuff, with old teams it was not that they were set up around him, but he just knew what people were doing. Now it's a big difference because people are playing more by instinct, so sometimes he's a bit more lost on T sides, and I think his weakness is more the T side not the CT side.

Obviously I am not saying we need more time to perform because that's now how it is, but I think he needs to feel more comfortable with more time because ZywOo's English at the beginning of the team was pretty shit, and he's getting much, much better. He understands what people are doing and what people want so he just needs some more time. He and dupreeh are the big stars of the team right now and I hope they keep wrecking people.