The second match of Group C saw a shocking 2-1 victory for Trace Esports Trace Esports China Rank #4 LuoK1ng Zhang Zhanpeng (张展鹏) Kai Lu Zhinan (卢智楠) FengF Song Xuefeng (宋学锋) heybay Ho Shun Hei Biank Zhong Jianfei (钟剑飞) over EMEA's Team Vitality Team Vitality Europe Rank #7 trexx Nikita Cherednichenko Derke Nikita Sirmitev Kicks Kimmie Laasner Sayf Saif Jibraeel Less Felipe de Loyola Basso . After their defeat, the team spoke at their post-match press conference regarding a few moments of reflection over the game.


After today's loss, how is the team going forward for the tournament? What makes you guys reset after these scenarios and what do you think was one of the things that triggered the loss?

Sayf: "First of all, I don't think it's an upset. Obviously, like for a region you don't know much about, it's obvious they have good players and good teams, and people always play the assume game and they assume that someone is worse than someone else, which is not true. I think Trace Esports is a really good team from their region and obviously, we still have a long way in terms of what experience we have on the international stage, which we don't have. We as a team are still very new to all of this. I just want to start off by saying that first of all it's not an upset, I just think that they're a pretty good team. And second of all, how to reset between maps, I mean, it's the thing we've been working on for a long time and it's an approach we've had for a long time which is we don't really mind losing the first map, we've lost the first map a lot of times before and between sides, we try to keep the energy up and just go round by round. We don't really think much in-depth of what's happening, we try to think of what's happening then and now. Obviously today for us it didn't work out, but that doesn't mean it won't work out in the future."

What are your takeaways from observing Trace Esports and what are some of their biggest strengths that you've seen from your points of view? How much of an obstacle were they to you guys throughout the entirety of this series?

Gorilla: "I think they played some of the best Ascent attack macro that we've played against. I think the only team that did it similar or played on a similar level was FUT when we played them back in Stage 1. So I think their Ascent attack macro is exceptional, it's definitely better than almost every team in Europe. On Bind, obviously, they just ran us, so I don't think there's much that we can say about that. As Sayf said, I think they're a really good team. Like at the end of the day, I don't really see a world where upsets happen at Champions, everyone deserves to be here. In prep they looked pretty solid so we knew that it wasn't just going to be a walk in the park."

A lot of teams have been swaying away from Viper and we saw Viper come out again on Bind today. After the loss, how viable do you think she is in the current meta and if not, do you think there are better alternatives?

runneR: "From what I experienced, she's still viable. She can still be played easily on a lot of maps. I think she's really good, it's like you can't really play without her. The nerfs, sure, they hurt a lot, but you know back then I wasn't a Viper player so it didn't hurt me as much because I wouldn't really know. But now, looking at the new Viper after the nerfs, it's hard, but I think it's still viable and is still being played on a lot of maps."