TaZ: "FaZe always a hard opponent"

After Virtus.pro clinched their semi-final spot with an extremely tight win against North, we talked to Wiktor "TaZ" Wojtas about the quarter-final as well as the upcoming semi-final.

Yesterday, Virtus.pro overcame North in a thrilling three-map series, where each team won their opponent's pick before it was decided on Cobblestone. There, North had a 12-3 lead going over to the Terrorist side, although the Poles started mounting a massive comeback and only let go of one round, clinching the semi-final spot at 16-13.

TaZ commended pasha and byali for stepping up after Cache

We talked to Wiktor "⁠TaZ⁠" Wojtas about the tight quarter-final and asked him about today's semi-final, where they'll meet FaZe or SK:

First of all, when you played North before when they were still playing under dignitas, you decided not to pick Cache in either of the two series you played, what made you change your mind for this series?

We practiced Cache a lot, we felt comfortable on Cache, but we also watched how they play, and I think we changed our CT a bit too much due to that. Other than that, I think we just felt comfortable, and that's why we picked Cache, we knew they were expecting like Nuke, or Cobblestone, but we wanted to catch them off-guard and we almost caught ourselves off-guard.

On Overpass it looked like you had a clear plan on what to do against them, was there anything specific that you did?

That's basically what it is, we knew how they play, it was the first map of the series, everyone felt really comfortable, we felt free to whatever we felt was needed. I think this was the decided in the way we played, we played comfortably and brave.

Being down so much on Cobblestone going over to the second side, how was the team's morale at that point?

I think we believed that if we won pistol round, everything starts with it, obviously we felt that okay, this is not really looking good. But we could feel the whole T side that there was a lot of pressure, we had a hard time to grab rounds, get ideas how we want to do stuff, and even when there was a good idea, we lacked the finish to it. It felt that the T side was lackluster, but we knew that if we won the pistol and the following round, then our CT side is extremely good, it was a long time since we won the pistol round and the next two rounds, so it feelt good and the guys really stepped up, especially pasha and byali, byali was really angry after Cache, hitting the table, but then he stepped up.

FaZe or SK will be your opponent in the semi-final, how do you view each match-up? Do you have a personal preference on who you want to play?

I don't know if there's any preference, I just know FaZe was always a hard opponent for us, if we win against them, we are a true contender. On the other hand, SK are two-time Major champions, I don't really look at them like they are playing with a stand-in even though I mentioned it in the press conference before. I just think they can play to the highest level and the match tomorrow will be extremely hard for both of the teams. I don't think about who we'd rather face, there is no preference, I don't fear any of the players, we will just go to the server and play and have fun.

FaZe #7 Finn 'karrigan' AndersenAleksi 'allu' JalliFabien 'kioShiMa' FieyPhilip 'aizy' AistrupHåvard 'rain' Nygaard Wiktor 'TaZ' Wojtas Age: 30 Team: Virtus.pro Rating 1.0: 1.02 Maps played: 1153 KPR: 0.70 DPR: 0.67 North #6 Ruben 'RUBINO' VillarroelRené 'cajunb' BorgMathias 'MSL' LauridsenEmil 'Magisk' ReifKristian 'k0nfig' Wienecke SK #3 Ricardo 'fox' PachecoGabriel 'FalleN' ToledoFernando 'fer' AlvarengaMarcelo 'coldzera' DavidEpitacio 'TACO' de Melo Virtus.pro #4 Wiktor 'TaZ' WojtasFilip 'NEO' KubskiJarosław 'pashaBiceps' JarząbkowskiJanusz 'Snax' PogorzelskiPaweł 'byali' Bieliński