VIT Chronicle: "I never understand why people are calling us a super team"

Still in contention for a spot at the Masters Santiago, Team Vitality can no longer afford any missteps. Defeated by Fnatic in the middle bracket, the team must now secure two victories this weekend to claim the final qualifying berth.

Following his loss to his former team, Timofey “Chronicle” Khromov reflected with Sheep Esports on what was a particularly significant match for him. He discussed his team’s performances throughout the VCT EMEA Kickoff event as well as his reunion with his former Fnatic teammates.

Timofey “Chronicle” Khromov: “I think we didn't really show anything that would be worth saying good about in this series. They played well both individually and tactically against us today. And obviously that's our fault because I think the preparation for this match was not that great. But obviously we still have one more chance to update or refresh our stuff and to be prepared for tomorrow again because we're going to play against Liquid. And we need to actually show that we are capable of going to Santiago, because otherwise why are we even playing here at the moment.

Chronicle: I was excited, maybe a little bit nervous, but I tried to not focus on that during the match. And yeah, it was actually funny, obviously. We couldn't show a great game against them, but honestly, it's okay. Maybe this time didn't work out for us, but next time it will.

Chronicle: I honestly didn't really see that much. I could only see crashies (Austin Roberts), standing up because he's literally right on the right from me; I can see him by peripheral vision. And that's it, honestly. It's okay. When I'm playing the game, I'm not really looking at other players. Like, only when I win, for example, and I can just look at the screen and change something, but it's not that much. I'm kind of a boring person here (laughs). I could see them a bit with them before the game, just for fun talk, and that’s it.

Chronicle: I think it was obviously kind of average or maybe below average for me. But it was related to our preparation and our ideas because I started with a 0-5 on Abyss. It wasn’t a great start for any player in the game. I kind of did a comeback and maybe did some kills and won some crucial runs or maybe made some great entries, but it was obviously not enough. It's not easy to come back in such a series after such a bad start, but again, I did it, and I'm kind of happy with that. But still, it didn't make us win, so I believe that's an average or below-average performance.

Chronicle: I think it's more related to the first map, because we started pretty awful, and that was kind of related to our game plan, as I believe for now. The idea on how we should play around their strategies, for example, or how we should play around them was just kind of wrong. They were punishing us for that. And it's obviously on all of our team to actually maybe notice that and make some crucial calls on that and to just say, “it's not working, let's just switch to something else.” And we did it kind of late, and that's where we actually started winning some very important rounds. But again, late is late. Also another problem was just that we didn't win a single pistol this time. They were kind of ready for everything we were doing. And yeah, that's just unlucky, I would say.

Chronicle: I think it was expected that we were going to struggle a bit right now. Obviously right now we're playing with a substitute, Unfake (Bartosz Bernacki). Even though he's doing a very great job in the team, it's obviously still not the same as when we would practice and actually play with Sayonara (Ștefan Mîtcu). Right now we just have to push the limits. I think that's the proper wording for that because I don't really expect us to do well if we qualify for Santiago because obviously there are some limiting factors to that. But if we do well, we will be more than happy to actually just say that it was a kind of successful split.

Chronicle: I don't want to say it's an obligation. No one is obligated to qualify for any tournaments; even in Fnatic we had the same mindset. Even though obviously the goals might be to achieve qualifications, maybe win tournaments, etc. It's still not an obligation. I believe when you're having a need of something, it makes you play much worse than you should be. And even right now maybe you can say that I needed to win against Fnatic, for example, but that could also be a reason why I also did not play the best against them. Because maybe I was thinking about different stuff, not about an actual game against them, and obviously I didn't perform up to my standards. That’s obviously not fully true, but I'm just giving a different example. It's kind of the same area. I think it's very important to avoid those types of mindsets and actually focus on the work itself rather than actually trying to achieve something that is obligated, as you say.

Chronicle: No, I think first of all just because I don't really understand why people are thinking in this way. Obviously, maybe it's because of me, or overall, we have a pretty stacked roster, of course. But first of all, I obviously never understand why people are calling us a super team when it is indeed not a super team in any way. And also, as you said, everyone is expecting us to do super well. But again, not everything always goes according to your plans or something. So again, we just have to look forward and right now face Liquid again, and after that, we will see if they are worth the qualification of Santiago or not.

Chronicle: He still has the same strong qualities that he had before in Fnatic. He is still mega proactive in communication, he is still an insane shooter, and I know how good he is at adapting to different situations.

Chronicle: I think right now we're going to need to focus more on individual aspects of the game and also kind of on team play fundamentals because fundamentals today were kind of okay. We didn't have a lot of moments where we could properly use them, but I think it wasn't a big issue there. But individually we weren't on the same level against Fnatic. So we need to level up our performance against Liquid in that way. And I believe we can easily do that because right now we don't really have to focus tactically against them because we just wouldn't be able to prepare that fast against them. We obviously played against them before already, but there was basically no info on them. And even right now, like, we could one day just watch every single VOD, trying to think about solutions or create something new, but it's not possible. And I will also probably be a little bit against of it because, from my perspective, even against Fnatic, we tried something new, but we didn't really test it properly or work on it. We were fully confident in running it against them, and we got punished by it today. So for us it's very important to focus just on being great individually and still keep up our fundamentals, and then I think we can actually talk about winning against them.”