electronic and fame led the way for a Virtus.Pro 2-0
BLAST Premier's Showdown format is often the best chance for tier 2 teams to showcase themselves up against the best teams in the world. Zero Tenacity is no exception. The Balkan squad made its way to BLAST through the RES EU Masters #1. But Virtus.Pro's superior firepower shone in the series, allowing them to take the win 2-0 and continue their campaign in the Fall Showdown.
High hopes for Zero Tenacity despite RMR CQ struggles
Before the series started, James Banks interviewed Zero Tenacity's Filip 'aVN' Belojica on the broadcast. The Serbian acknowledged his team's struggles in their ongoing RMR Closed Qualifier performance. But at the same time, he was confident in their ability to fix their issues.
As you said, we're not doing very well for the major. We're trying to fix our mistakes by analyzing our demos and talking to each other. Hopefully we are gonna bounce back.
Like many Tier 2 squads, Zero Tenacity has been in the constant loop of officials after officials. The team has played a whopping 298 matches in 2024. While that keeps them in shape, it also affords them little time between matches to analyse and update their gameplay.
I mean we had a break during the summer. But before that we were literally doing 2-3 games a day. Pretty crazy. Obviously with that amount of games it's pretty hard to look at every game and fix mistakes. But we are trying our best. So far it's going good, even if we lost a couple of close games.
n0rb3r7 discusses communication issues in VP
Virtus.Pro has continued to struggle ever since their recent roster pickup. When David 'n0rb3r7' Danielyan was asked about the team's problems, the support player highlighted communication as the main issue.
I think the biggest problem is our communications. It's not going good while we are playing officials. Sometimes we are not talking in clutch situations, not supporting each other. So yeah the communication is the problem.
Right now we're trying to play slowly so that we don't make mistakes and give entry frags. In practice it's going much better than officials, after Cologne. We'll see how it goes today.
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Map Veto
- Zero Tenacity removed Ancient
- Virtus.pro removed Nuke
- Zero Tenacity picked Anubis
- Virtus.pro picked Dust2
- Zero Tenacity removed Mirage
- Virtus.pro removed Vertigo
- Inferno was left over
Anubis started off with ZT picking up a pistol conversion on their CT side. That, however, would make up the bulk of their half as VP's attack picked up eight T-side rounds. Despite their name, Zero Tenacity showed great grit. The Balkan side came into their T-side with a great plan and matched Virtus.Pro's success. A Adin 'brutmonster' Husić clutch was the cherry on top, as the Bosnian sniper brought down 4 with his AWP. Despite the incredible plays, Virtus.Pro still had a big firepower advantage, and fame led the way to close out the map 13-11.
Some of the Tier 1 teams could learn from Zero Tenacity's T Side on Anubis.
Dust2 is a Dzhami 'Jame' Ali signature map, even if it may not go their way regularly. That meant VP were comfortable from the very start. simke's eco-round heroics bought his team some rounds to play with. But when guns came back out, it was Xoma's troops stacking up rounds again. Andrej 'Cjoffo' Šarac and Saša 'simke' Simić were leading the charge for ZT on Dust2, and managed to tie the game up 7-7. But the second half settled down to the same story quickly, as VP picked up gun rounds to close out the map 12-8.
Zero Tenacity out in Round 1
After that 2-0 loss, Zero Tenacity is out of the running for the BLAST Premier Fall Finals berth. The individuals looked good, but the team was a step behind VP across Dust2. Now avn and co. will jump back into the RMR Closed Qualifier. For VP, the star trio fragging out is great news. electronic and fame especially showed great performances. And that output must continue if Virtus.Pro is to make the arduous journey to Copenhagen.
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