Coach Salah of Team Vitality gives his thoughts on the team going 0-10 in pistol rounds through their two series at VCT LOCK//IN.
Team Vitality showed what they are made of on the international stage at VCT LOCK//IN. What they didn't show was efficiency in their pistol rounds. Which is a large part of the reason they fell short against Leviatán.
From their first series with Global Esports through the loss versus Leviatán, they gave up every single pistol round. That equates to a total of zero rounds won out of 10 chances. Every VALORANT player will tell you that it's tough to win games when the start of each half doesn't go your way.
A combination of things saw Team Vitality win zero pistol rounds at VCT LOCK//IN
After Team Vitality's run at VCT LOCK//IN came to end, they took to a post-match press conference. Esports.gg questioned Salah "Salah" Barakat regarding the lack of pistol round victories. He was asked how the team even allowed this to happen and what can be done to tighten things up before the EMEA league kicks off.
The team's head coach chuckled at the question as his players followed suit. Some even buried their heads in slight embarrassment. They knew this question was coming and here's what coach Salah had to say about going 0-10:
"When we watched back the pistols from the Global [Esports] game, we kind of deemed different rounds down to different things. Some of them were missing shots, some of them were just misplays, and some of them were the enemy team having good pistols.
"I think today, we played four pistols, right? The case was, the Haven first one, should've won, unlucky. It's just one of those things. It could be maybe confidence, it could be maybe going into it, having that idea in your head.
"I don't think it's as bad as it seems, but I think it's a think that we need to fix. Maybe just more pistol in practice. Maybe having better pistol rounds than we already have. I think it's just a combination of different things. A bit of funny unluck, yeah?"
Pistol rounds are regarded with heavy importance, especially to gain momentum. It will be interesting to see how they perform in these rounds when league play starts.. You can watch the rest of the press conference to hear Team Vitality's thoughts on other aspects of the series and their time at VCT LOCK//IN.
Stay tuned to Esports.gg for more esports news and check out our VCT LOCK//IN event page for everything you need to know about the tournament.