Gentle Mates can no longer afford to make mistakes in this
VCT EMEA Stage 2. After losing to
Enterprise Esports in the Play-Ins, the French team are now just one series away from seeing their season come to an end and missing out on
VALORANT Champions. They will now have to win their next three matches, starting with their clash against
Eintracht Frankfurt Esports this Wednesday, to secure a place in the playoffs.
In the meantime, the team will need to show a much-improved version of themselves with their newly reshaped roster featuring Joona "H1ber" Parviainen. Following what was inevitably a disappointing defeat for the team, Patrik "Minny" Hušek spoke with Sheep Esports about the changes made over the past few days.
What is your first feeling after the game?
Patrik "Minny" Hušek: “I'm very upset, disappointed. I just don't know what's going wrong or why we're losing like this. So, it just feels shit.
From your perspective, what actually went wrong today?
Minny: I don't know. I think everything went wrong. Somehow, Iluri (Ilari Puranen), the worst player in this lobby, can just drop 25 kills against us. So, I guess individually we're not shooting well. Strategically, we're also not on point. I think everything just went wrong.
What did you expect from Enterprise Esports, since we know they've been really successful in VCL and won against Fnatic two days ago, so what did you expect when going against them?
Minny: They're just a really good tier two team. We just kind of expected them to play how they played, they're still not the best team in the world, we also try to have it in our back of the head but they just played better today, that's it. But yeah, basically, they have a lot of tier one players or players with tier one experience. They're basically close to being very like tier one teams, so I think the difference between them and all the teams outside of the top three is not that big. Yeah, we just got what we expected today.
It was your first game with H1ber in the roster since you made a change. Did you feel like with one week of practice with him you were all ready to go into the competition?
Minny: Yeah, for sure the change helped us a lot. In practice we were looking much better and today H1ber also showed a very good performance. At the end of the day, it's not about H1per, but it's about the rest of the team. We just keep failing and failing. It’s not about making changes in players, but we just have to step up somehow and fight our face again.
Do you feel like it was still a necessary change to make your team better for the rest of the year?
Minny: Yeah, I'm 100 % sure. I don’t think the result would be different today if we hadn’t made the change. Or maybe we would have won, but there's no way that with the whole team we would make it all the way to the Champions. And it’s the only goal now. I don't think anyone cares about being top six or just going to the playoffs and then losing there. We had to make that change and we made it. It’s just unfortunate that today didn't work out.
Why would you say H1ber was the right choice for your team?
Minny: He's a very high energetic person. First of all, we were looking for someone for me to be able to play Sentinel again, but after we ran trials and tried a few people on Duelist, we realized that there are no really good options. No one was talking enough, no one was shooting that well, so we still needed me to play the Duelist role. So then we went to try a few Sentinels and H1ber was the best by far. He had a good game understanding, very good vibes, very vocal and he just had very positive energy, so every day with him felt very good because he's talking all the time, after the practice and yeah, he just has a good energy.
And also today I think it showed it. He was not stressed at all. He was just playing the same as in practice, helping us when we were losing, trying to hype us up, all the time. And yeah, I think he's a very solid player with a very solid experience. I think he’ll become even better with time. He's not a Sentinel main, so he's not showing his real potential, but his game understanding and communication is on very high level. I was super surprised about that.
You mentioned it but your role as a Duelist has been questioned recently and Gentle Mates CEOs explained that you are sacrificing a bit yourself to help the team. Do you feel any frustration at not being able to express your skills fully in your main role?
Minny: No, I always play for the team, I don't care if I have bad stats or good stats or whatever, it's always about winning or losing. Now I'm just deeply disappointed we are losing, but that's how the game is played right now. There always needs to be one Duelist that is sacrificing himself. Our star player is marteen (Martin Pátek), he needs to get the support and I need to enable him more. Maybe today I was not that good at it. Maybe I need to do a better job to enable Martin more. So yeah, that's just the meta.
I'm fully fine with sacrificing myself as long as we're winning. Even if we’re losing, I would still do it. It's all about winning for me and going to the Champions. I don't care if I have to play Reyna, Cypher, Sova. I just want to make it as deep as I can and I want to have the highest chance to win. As I said, we tried a few Duelists players but today would have been a 0-2 even faster if we played with them. Maybe I would have get an ace on Cypher and have some clips on Twitter but that's not what it's about.
Do you feel like your team actually managed to translate well what you've been doing in scrims and practice?
Minny: I don't think it's far. We have been doing well on scrims for a full year and lately. You kind of play like the four same teams all the time. So I think it's very odd to look at scrims and then the actual officials because it's a very different game. You also play scrims to practice, actually not to win. So yeah, I don't think we have a big problem with scrims, like for example, I remember KC always used to say that on scrims, they were the best, but in officials, they were not that good. I don't think we have such a thing as that, I think we play the same as in scrims but just the level is not good enough.
Your next game will be against Eintracht Frankfurt Esports on Wednesday, and you’ll have three wins to qualify for playoffs. How do you feel about the rest of the competition now?
Minny: It's always nice to compete against teams that we have never played before. We have been scriming against Frankfurt a lot lately, so it's going to be a fun match for sure. But yeah, it's not about the Frankfurt match. It's always going to be about us doing better, and as long as we're going to scrim and feel better in the game, then we can somehow get some momentum and make it to the playoffs and then deeper and deeper. I truly believe with every match we can become better, but we just need to speed up the process.”
