"I came thinking we'd just win 3-0" — Carzzy on Vitality's playoff early exit

On paper this looked like a winnable series. What's the main reason it went wrong tonight?

I think we just got really boosted lately. Even against MKOI, after the EWC qualifiers online, we already started playing like shit. Even our last two series in EWC were really shaky.

How do you explain the gap between the level you showed earlier in the season and the level tonight?

I think we lost our momentum. Earlier on we were playing every week, we were doing well in scrims. Then we stopped playing — we started doing way better in scrims, but when we went back to stage we played way worse. Not sure exactly what causes it.

Usually it's just confidence levels on stage, nerves, all that — because we were playing way better earlier, finding way more creative angles.

Nowadays it feels like we can't really find many angles, or it just fails, and we're not on the same page at all.

Did the series against MKOI come as a real reality check? Did something break the team there?

I don't think we're so much worse than them that we should get destroyed that way. They're a good team in LEC for sure, but I don't think they're so much better than us — especially since we played them at the EWC two-three weeks before, and it looked very different. So I think it was just an unfortunate day — us playing like sh*t, mixed with not the best drafts.

And then I think it probably broke something in us, because we were really confident going into the series. And then we got completely annihilated. That always bruises the ego at least a little bit. Then it's from person to person how they can come back from that — and that's on everyone, on their own.

A lot of people are pointing to draft problems across the Bo5s you've played this split. Big reason tonight, or a smaller part of it?

Today, for sure, it wasn't a draft issue that we lost. We just played badly. Our drafts were quite good. Of course there's always something to improve, but we were capable of winning with these drafts. It was just our play.

Individually — you had a really good regular season. How do you rate your own level right now, even after tonight?

In regular I was playing quite well. But I really don't like how I played this last month. I need to figure out exactly what caused it, because I wasn't doing anything different. I just kind of lost confidence in myself. Not every game, but in some games I'd lose confidence and not be capable of playing with a free head.

Even after a result like this, what would you take from this split as a positive going into Summer?

The positive is that we started scrimming better. Our practice is more efficient, we're playing better in practice. For me that's the most important part of this job — you spend 90% of the time practising and 10% playing. It's really important for practice to be useful and efficient, for it to be something you look forward to. Most of the time I was looking forward to it.

But there were some cases where I was feeling down and not looking forward to it because we had some internal issues.

We just need to fix this sh*t and bounce back.

Last question, lighter — rumours say you might play bot lane with Jackies at the ENC. What are you two cooking?

I'm really looking forward to this. I've always wanted to play with a Czech support — speaking the same language, having the same background, it's really nice. He also plays a lot of champs on mid, it's very volatile, and I think he's smart as a player. So I'm excited to see how he transforms into support. And maybe we end up playing bot together forever, who knows.

Think you can make it through the EMEA qualifier easily?

Yeah, I think so. I think of me and him as one of the best bot lanes, for sure.