FNATIC FNATIC Europe Rank #3 crashies Austin Roberts Boaster Jake Howlett kaajak Kajetan Haremski Chronicle Timofey Khromov Alfajer Emir Ali Beder debuted strong in Champions Seoul's second Group A matchup, taking a 2-0 over Bilibili Gaming Bilibili Gaming China Rank #6 B3ar Yang Zhanxiong (杨瞻雄) whzy Wang Haozhe (王昊哲) Levius Lu Yinzhong (卢胤中) rushia Wang Xiaojie (王晓杰) nephh Marcus Tan Knight Liu Yuxiang (刘宇翔) . Following their victory, multiple moments stuck out to the press and FNATIC players alike, highlighted through several questions raised by the media in the team's post-match press conference.


What are your thoughts on the Chinese Valorant teams and the region as a whole?

Boaster: "I think China definitely has some firepower in them and they have some strong teams. I think they're also late to the game, with it being released only at the start of this year officially. Like anything, we haven't seen much success from APAC until obviously Gen.G finally won. I think China will be the same; when we scrim against them, there's some players that can definitely shoot, and it's just about time and experience. I didn't start winning a trophy until three, four years into the game. I was a bit scared playing Bilibili today, but we ended up winning.

What do you consider to be your team's strengths and weaknesses, and how do you plan to maintain and improve these aspects for the rest of the VCT season?

Alfajer: "I think communication is both a strength and a weakness for our team. Sometimes we can communicate as if we're a tier 3 team and other times like a really good team. Communication is a good strength and also a weakness."

How would you describe your team's play style?

Elmapuddy: "We're pretty structured. We spend a lot of time doing so; I say we're a pretty protocols-structured team. As Alfajer was saying, we're also focusing a lot on communication because this game can get pretty hectic and there's just basically infinite outcomes and situations you can find yourself in, so we need to be able to thrive in the chaos. But we're definitely a protocols team with solid strategy."

Knowing that Bind is Bilibili's most winnable map, how did the team play against them?

Chronicle: "We didn't have an actual strategy against them. We had some protocols and key moments they were doing and repeating from their previous matches that were an easy read. We tried to execute on them and did pretty well. Sometimes it worked perfectly, sometimes it didn't work at all because we had some mistakes on Bind. Overall, I think we did pretty well, especially considering we didn't practice this map that much. It was a strong performance from us."

There were very solid retakes on Bind from FNATIC, especially the team's B retake. You were playing not through B Long but mostly through the B Elbow. Is there any specific reasoning for playing retake in this way?

Boaster: "I think it was actually because we didn't really know what we were doing. What would happen is they'd hit the site, and we were like, 'Let's get off; we don't know where to play.' Luckily, the retakes did work out for us on that site. We put our utility in the right positions and the kills came our way. The Bind defense was a bit of squeaky bum time, and it's going to be a good VOD review for sure. That's how we're going to get better throughout this tournament, and by the time it'll be clinch time, we're going to be ready and making the plays and running the strats."