Giants’ pipsoN: “We are making silly mistakes, like stupid mistakes, which you’re never supposed to make, and if you make those mistakes, you don’t deserve to win.”

In what is seen as the biggest upset in the 2023 VCT EMEA League so far, Giants fell 2-0 to Team Heretics after the latter made a substitution by benching Aleksander “zeek” Zygmunt and bringing assistant coach Brandon “weber” Weber to the lineup.

It was a result that no one saw coming considering the trajectory both teams were on prior to the series. Giants, despite being 3-3, were coming off a close series loss against Team Liquid and a three-match winning streak, whereas for TH, they lost four straight and looked almost out of the playoff picture amidst the many changes they made throughout the year like switching IGLs between zeek and Ričardas “Boo” Lukaševičius.

Even so, TH undoubtedly handed Giants their best showing in the league by defeating their fellow Spanish counterparts 13-9 in Pearl and 16-14 in Lotus, which the latter result happening because a comeback from a 10-5 losing deficit. Although TH aspire to build momentum for the remainder of the season, for Giants, who fell victim to their own fundamental issues, as highlighted by head coach Daniil “pipsoN” Meshcheryakov, they must closely observe amongst themselves what went wrong and what they must to do avoid suffering another result like that.

Following the series against TH, Giants’ pipsoN spoke to Fragster.com for an interview about what went wrong for the team in both Pearl and Lotus, what the preparation was like with TH’s new lineup,  taking on Team Vitality for next week, and more.

Taking on Team Heretics

 

Pedro Romero, Fragster.com: Commiserations on the series against Heretics. To start off, I want to cover your thoughts as to how Giants played against them in the series.

Daniil “pipsoN” Meshcheryakov: I mean, we didn’t deserve to win. We played awful. We didn’t have the fundamentals at all during this game. You could see it when we were losing four or five times after planting on A and even in advantage scenarios and things in which we were usually super good. That’s what helped us win before but it was completely off today. We played just disgusting.

Fragster: It certainly wasn’t the kind of performance you wanted your team to have. You highlighted the fundamental mistakes the team experience in both Pearl and Lotus. What do you think contributed to the team not playing well in that fundamental sense?

pipsoN: I don’t really know the answer to that yet because, if I knew it, then it probably wouldn’t have happened. It could be a lot of different factors. It can be like a personal factor or it could’ve been us thinking that if we won this match, we would have secured playoffs for ourselves. Maybe it could’ve also been some players were thinking that we were good so we could play more loose or stuff like that. I can’t really give you one answer as to why.

Fragster: Taking a deeper look at the series, TH made that lineup change earlier in the week by bringing in Weber, their assistant coach, for zeek. What was the preparation like when it came to facing that new lineup? Was there any sort of changes that you guys made?

pipsoN: No, not really. There was no difference in preparation. It would have been the same [had they played] with zeek but I think they played well. They did really really good and played better than usual so props to them. They deserved this win and they were better today.

Pearl and Lotus

Fragster: When it came to playing in Pearl, you guys used that double-controller comp which opposed TH’s double-duelist comp so I have two parts on this next question: 1) Were you guys thrown off by TH’s double-duelist comp? 2) What was the idea behind finally using that double-controller cmop for that particular map?

pipsoN: We were not surprised [about the double duelist] comp because it was a comp that EG played in LOCK//IN. We practiced against them at [that event] and then EG played against Heretics on Pearl with that comp and won. They basically played the same as EG played so it was nothing surprising that we never saw before. About our comp, it was just the most meta comp and I feel like it’s a really strong comp although we didn’t manage to prove it today. There is nothing specific about our comp to Heretics’ comp or something.

Fragster: In playing on Pearl against TH, it marked the first time that Giants played on that map since Week 1. What was the idea behind finally bringing that map this week after not playing it for a while?

pipsoN: We played [in that map] versus NAVI but we did so with a different comp. We just felt super strong on Pearl in practice and we still think it’s a really good map overall for us. We felt quite confident on it but the defense, or whatever we showed, was not something you’d expect to see. There’s not a really specific idea on why we picked Pearl or some other big business behind it. Heretics, during the season, didn’t felt good on Pearl. They lost it to FUT Esports and NAVI and for both of those times, they were stomps, and in our scrims, we felt it was a strong map for us so we went for it.

Fragster: Moving ahead to Lotus, you guys were ahead 10-5 and in position to extend the series to Bind, but TH came back to take it in triple overtime. What do you think went wrong for the team in the latter stages of the map?

pipsoN: In macro-wise, nothing because we won the pistol and we won the bonus round and everything was super good. They saved two guns, we were 5v4, we were on attacking side, and we were losing the after-plant. The next time we’re coming [to] A after the pressure, he’s playing alone A on Viper and we kill him and then lose the 5v4 after-plant—so stuff like that. It’s mostly about [how] we are making silly mistakes, like stupid mistakes, which you’re never supposed to make, and if you make those mistakes, you don’t deserve to win.

They were just better today in fundamentals. They were retaking us in these advantage scenarios. They were winning after-plants in defense. We couldn’t retake A because we were making silly decisions. Like, we see a one-way in front of us and a Viper mollo so we say, ‘Okay, they will fight for heaven here. They are playing heavy side.’ They will fight for heaven and we don’t recognize that we just don’t need to go there and instead go to A main. ‘Nukkye’s in lamps, we have the smokes [so] we will go out.’ It’s simple stuff like that which costs you rounds and you are not allowed to make such mistakes on this level if you want to win.

Fragster: So it was mostly micro-level things that just built up over and over that then led to you guys losing, right?

pipsoN: Yeah but it’s not exactly like the micro-game case such as not using utility or something. It’s just the simple decisions that you need to do based on the reactions or the simple stuff on how you can win the after-plant by playing in pairs, having crossfires, or playing combos. Some people are having crossfire on site winning by timings and trading each other for the other two. For example, Killjoy and Viper playing post-plant with their utility—simple stuff like that but it was completely completely off today. That’s why we managed to see after-plants like having one guy on lamps, one guy on pillar, one guy on tree, and one guy on back side which is unwinnable because everyone will take 1v1 fights—I don’t know. It’s kind of like that.

Next up: Team Vitality

Fragster: Looking at next week, your next opponent is Team Vitality. What do you thnk about that team and what are you going to focus on with them in mind and the like?

pipsoN: Overall, they look good. They always play close games to every top team and we need to focus on ourselves to make sure that we will fix the stuff that we saw today. Otherwise, as I said, I think it’s unwinnable without having that. All we need to find is not the solution, because the solution is easy, but the reason as to why it is happening, why it didn’t happen before when we played the previous games, and why it’s starting to happen now because it was one of the [same] problems [we had] with Liquid where we lost so many rounds thanks to fundamentals.

We were talking about it and it seems like it didn’t work so I guess it’s my bad job in the sense that I didn’t find the reason why because, for every person, it can be a different reason. Sometimes, it’s not only about understanding what to do but it can also be a psychological reason as to why it’s happening in the team. We will need to talk and take a look at what is the reason behind it and what we need to do to solve it. Otherwise, I don’t think it’s possible to win against teams with such fundamentals.

Feature Image Credit: Hara Amorós / Riot Games / LVP / lag.