The Russian youngster believes the confidence boost from winning Flow FiReLEAGUE will translate to good results at other events.
Spirit raised the Flow FiReLEAGUE 2022 Global Finals trophy at half past midnight on Monday, October 17, after three days of play at the Spotify Camp Nou, F.C. Barcelona's home ground.
The Russians did so by beating WINDINGO in their opening match before taking out the Major-bound 9z in the single-elimination bracket's semi-finals and finally Vinicios "PKL" Coelho's paiN in the grand final.
We sat down with Robert "Patsi" Isyanov following the trophy ceremony, the grand final's highest-rated player with an average rating of 1.51 across three maps. He was also the only player to cross the 70-kill threshold (75) and the only one to surpass 100 ADR in the series (104.3).
The 19-year-old chatted about the confidence boost that this tournament will give Spirit, a team that has struggled to find its best form since losing AWPer Abdul "degster" Gasanov, and the importance of Ihor "w0nderful" Zhdanov putting in big performances for his confidence on LAN. To round things out Patsi also talked about expectations for the upcoming Major and the feeling of playing in such a renowned venue.
You won Flow FiReLEAGUE, but you're coming from Big Events where you're mostly underdogs. Here you were favorites and you won as such, how was that?
It's really amazing because I think this victory will help us in tier one tournaments, it's a confidence booster.
Talking about confidence, how do you think this tournament was for w0nderful? He's the newest guy on the team, still getting used to playing at a high level on LAN, but he played some great maps here in Barcelona.
It was a good tournament for him and it will help him because after tournaments like IEM Cologne, which was his first tournament, and then Pro League... Now he's winning on LAN. He's playing amazing so for sure he'll play with more confidence at tier one tournaments.
You had a great performance in the final yourself, what was it that got you to give that extra bit in the last match?
I don't know, I was just playing and getting vibes from this tournament, like screaming and so on. The first game wasn't good for me because I didn't find interesting things in the game. It's really bad, but I don't know, I was playing and it wasn't a game like always.
WINDINGO are good guys, but when you're playing against them you always know what they'll do. We lost some clutches, of course, but in general it was really readable to play against them. The next games, against 9z and paiN, were better, because these guys are already playing tier one LANs. 9z has been at the Major, paiN is one step away from the Major, so those games were better.
Talking about the Major, what are the plans now? You still have a few weeks to prepare.
We'll play some online tournaments to get more confidence, maybe, or something more. I don't know, it's a secret. [laughs]
The previous Spirit roster had an amazing Major run in Antwerp, now you had a great confidence booster here. What do you expect from this upcoming Major?
We will try to get to the stage again, in front of the crowd, because it's an amazing feeling. That's our goal. Our maximum goal, maybe, or maybe when we start to play there we will have be a bigger goal. No one knows, maybe like in the previous Major, we can start winning again.
magixx said he was a bit concerned with going straight to Legends Stage and not having those Challengers Stage matches. How do you feel about that?
Yeah, maybe he's right because you're not playing as many days and when you play the Challengers Stage, the Legends Stage then comes immediately after. You're getting some more maps in the tournament, but anyway it's good because we'll play against Challenger teams and not Legend teams, so maybe it will be easier and we'll have more time to prepare.
We're sitting in the Camp Nou bleachers now, overlooking the pitch. It has been quite a particular backdrop for the tournament, did you enjoy the setting?
Of course, it looks amazing. I would have preferred to play in the stadium instead of the rooms, but it has been really great anyway.