Team Vitality have clinched a playoffs spot at
VALORANT Champions Shanghai 2026. The EMEA 4th seed took down
LOUD in a 2-0 win with a crazy 19-17 overtime win on Summit. Despite modest expectations due to their regional form, Vitality have arrived in full force at Shanghai and are looking to live up to the “superteam” moniker.
After the series, Sheep Esports had the opportunity to chat with Ștefan "Sayonara" Mîtcu to ask about the outcome of the match, his thoughts on the event so far, and more.
You had a very clean 9-3 start on Summit, and then LOUD made a comeback before devolving into total chaos in overtime. What happened?
Ștefan "Sayonara" Mîtcu: "I think it all started when we lost that 1v3 on the bonus round and the 5v2 on Defense. If we had won those rounds, it would have been 11-1 for us, which would have been way harder to come back from. When we gave them 9-3, they won the pistol and bonus round, which was their way back into the game. It was starting to get very messy and brawly, which is what they like.
As you said, we started very well, but maybe we thought we got too close to the win but I think they just started waking up and forcing us to play their game. Towards overtime, it was just a back-and-forth of us playing our game and them playing their game, so it was a full mess. It must have been very entertaining for everyone to watch, but for us it was very surprising and shocking at the same time due to how long it kept going on and how we kept bouncing back. Thankfully, we got the win in the end, and that’s all that matters.
Despite that messy overtime on Summit, it felt like you kept your cool by getting some big kills in the final few rounds. Would you credit your team for helping you stay calm, or would you consider yourself to naturally be that type of player in such tense moments?
Sayonara: My team is very experienced, so that definitely helps. As for me, I just like to always play my game and never forget how good I am. That’s why I like to stay calm in these moments. I always think that I am the best in the server, so I just play my game and don’t think about anything else. Sometimes, it does get a bit stressful, but that’s just part of the game. Most of the time, I’m just confident in myself and my abilities, and I always just trust myself.
Do you see the team making a deep run at Champions and performing even better compared to Masters London?
Sayonara: From just watching social media, every single person on the planet ranked us in the 13th-16th or 9th-12th places with no chance of getting out of this group and said that LOUD, EDward Gaming, and Global Esports are too good for us. It looks like we just topped the group. It doesn’t matter what everyone else has to say. We believe that we can make a deep run at this tournament and challenge more teams. We’ve already challenged two very talented teams, so I don’t see the problem with us challenging more.
Dawid "PROFEK" Święć seems to be a very underrated player and is really coming into the spotlight at this event. Could you give more insight as to what you think of him as a player and as a teammate?
Sayonara: From me, it will always come from a biased point of view because PROFEK and I are best friends on the team. I always said that, in my eyes, PROFEK is the best Controller player out there right now. The only people that I see contesting him is erde (Roberto Lobos). erde is really good, and I like watching him play. PROFEK is a top 3 Controller player in the world. It doesn’t show every single game because he is a big team player. He sacrifices himself a lot, and he doesn’t mind giving up his own star player motives for the team. He always does this when we are playing bad so he doesn’t get put in his usual spots and has to face uncomfortable situations.
As you can see today, when he is in his usual spots, and we are communicating and playing the same way, he will do everything from the shadows. No one gives him anything, but everybody knows he will do his job. Today, he single-handedly won us the game on Ascent. He and I played really well on the map, and everyone else played well as well, but he was unbelievable and just getting us entries, closing out the rounds, and just doing everything that the team needs. PROFEK is a very, very good player, and I am very glad to play with him.
It feels like Jamppi is coming back with a vengeance and is on demon time. Could you talk about how fired up he is? It feels like he is playing on a different level at the moment.
Sayonara: Yeah, you are right. It’s his first Champions since 2023. I didn’t expect it personally, but his third map against Global Esports was kind of shocking, to be honest. I was so impressed with Jamppi and it’s exactly like you said. He wanted to destroy everyone and come back for vengeance. It was a team that did nothing to him, but he just wanted to show the world that there is a reason why he is Jamppi. He was so good the whole time, and right now he just wants to show everybody what he is capable of again, as it feels like some people forgot.
During your time with KPI Gaming, you were denied qualification into Ascension 2024 by CGN Esports, with David "DaviH" Cruz. You got to beat him today, so do you consider that a bit of sweet revenge? He was one of those players who never got a shot in EMEA tier one. How does it feel to see him on the big stage as well?
Sayonara: DaviH, as a player, has always been a Top 5 initiator in tier two EMEA. I am not really sure what kept him from going to a tier one team. He’s always been consistently good and never really had an off day. He wasn’t the biggest star player ever and wasn’t so flashy. He was just doing his job from the sidelines, so maybe that’s why people didn’t give him a shot.
I didn’t really know about this until you told me right now, but it does feel good. That loss against CGN, at that time, was devastating because I was coming off of a very good game against Valiant. I remember that +40 game, and I thought that I was untouchable. That loss was very sad for me and I was devastated. I thought like we deserved to win but at the same time we got destroyed so it was a very weird feeling. I am glad now that there is some sort of revenge even though I did not really think about it. I am glad that the world works this way.
How has your time been in Shanghai so far? Does it feel different to compete in an international event that’s in a different region?
Sayonara: I was with Fnatic in Japan for two weeks but that was a showmatch. As a first-time event, it is very different. The city is amazing, and everything is very new, and It’s always nice having something new. Of course, I’ve never been to Shanghai, and it gives me extra motivation to want to stay here and play more. Overall, everything has been incredibly smooth here. The fans are incredible here, and I don’t think there is anywhere else in the world where the fans are this interested in VALORANT and show their love for the players and this is also something new. Overall, I would say it’s different from an EMEA event, but not in the way of playing it. However, it’s very different outside the game, which is nice.”
