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The ??? ????? ??????? ???? ????? ??????? ????????Spirit anchor feels that mental issues are the main thing for the team to work on.

Spirit entered IEM Dallas fresh off their runners-up finish at BetBoom Dacha Belgrade, where they returned to official play for the first time since the PGL Major and came on the receiving end of a MOUZ blowout in the grand final.

In Dallas, they have already secured a place in the playoffs after convincing matches against FlyQuest and Natus Vincere, and Boris "?magixx?" Vorobiev spoke to HLTV following their qualification.

The 20-year-old discussed the "disappointing" BetBoom Dacha campaign and Spirit's apparent issues against MOUZ, who have now racked up a 5-0 record against Spirit this year and are one of just two teams to beat their full roster along with FaZe.

It was by far the worst game of this year Boris "?magixx?" Vorobiev on MOUZ loss in Belgrade

magixx chalked the grand final loss up to a mental problem, just the same as the other two of their three losses in 2024. He also talked about Spirit making the NAVI matchup look easier in Dallas than in their previous encounters against them, the team's long break after the Major, and how they can overcome their mental issues.

First of all, congratulations on the win over NAVI. You're in playoffs now, how does it feel to be back on the stage once again?

It's great to play official matches again after the break. We had not the best tournament at BetBoom Dacha because of the huge break, but now we're getting into it and I hope we can continue playing this well and better on the stage and the next tournaments.

I wanted to ask about that BetBoom result because you had the huge gap in between playing that event. Do you think that delay and lack of officials set you back more than it helped you?

Obviously, you can't say making the final of a tournament is a disappointment, but the disappointment was in how we played that final. We were completely not the team that we had ever been, it was like the third series we lost on LAN this year and it was definitely the worst loss we've had. It was just different, there was no team in this game, no communication and no team play at all.

It was by far the worst game of this year. I hope we can just get better and say it happened because of the huge break and not being used to officials at all. If we can get used to officials, we can get better.

You've had a rough matchup into MOUZ so far, so as far as the BetBoom final goes, do you think that played a factor or was it just your team having problems?

That was definitely on our side. MOUZ are for sure the best team in the world at this time, but they didn't do something special. They just played completely the same, they were confident, comfortable, but we played super poor throughout this series, and this was a bad thing that we experienced that.

Us losing the games is not because of us being bad in terms of the game, preparation or style Boris "?magixx?" Vorobiev

How much have you had the opportunity to improve? There wasn't much time between BetBoom and here, do you think you were able to fix some of those issues?

I can say that us losing the games is not because of us being bad in terms of the game, preparation or style. We lost the series this year only because of some mental shit. You don't need to make conclusions about your ideas or rounds or how you play, or how much you practice. It was not the case. The case is how you are going into the final game, how you are mentally prepared and how ready you are. That day was an off day for us for sure.

Shifting back to this event, you just beat NAVI pretty handily. The last few times you played each other at the Major and in Katowice, it was a lot closer. Why do you think you had the edge on them this time around?

We are playing a better game, better Counter-Strike than NAVI at this moment. The two lost maps, Anubis in Katowice and Nuke at the Major, was just a fluke for them. They were lucky that time.

Both games, on Anubis we were heavily leading the game and we lost the momentum after a 1v4 clutch, and that's how it became rough. But we were dominating on Anubis. And also about Nuke at the Major, we were dominating them the whole map, but we threw a couple of clutches, two 1v3s and one super-intense moment when jL pushed lobby with the MP9... That was just a loss on us. We threw the game. We were leading it and the emotions took over us at some moment on those maps, so they won, but if we had stayed calm they weren't going to win a map.

magixx says NAVI's previous map wins against Spirit were "a fluke"

I'm sensing a theme. The MOUZ losses and the close games against NAVI, it's really all just a mental battle. How do you think you are going to get over those emotional issues?

I could say that the main thing to overcome this is for all the players to understand that, if you're not approaching the game in terms of psychology the same way as you're playing your A game, it won't help you.

If you let your emotions take over you in those matches, it doesn't matter who we're playing against and if it's a final or a group stage match or whatever, the main thing is how you stay calm. If we stayed calm and focused, we wouldn't lose these games or give double digits to enemies. Once we get emotionally tilted, some shit, it's just getting worse.

Next you're going to play the winner of VP-FaZe. You had a tough time against FaZe, but I'm gonna guess that it was probably also a mental issue the last time you guys played against them? Do you think that you'll be able to take either of them down so long as you keep your head clear?

If we can keep our heads clear and not bring destructive thoughts in the game, we can beat any team in the world. We know that. I think FaZe are gonna win over VP because VP have a new player and they didn't have enough time to get used to each other, I think, and FaZe are still an established top-three team in the world. They're pretty much the second team in the world with MOUZ as the first ones. I think FaZe is one of the best enemies to play against, and once we face them I hope we can play a great game.

Vertigo is a map people think of Spirit as being weaker on relative to the rest of your pool. Do you think the recent changes might help turn things around for you, or do you maybe even disagree with that assessment about your Vertigo?

We'll find out (smiles).

Now that you're in playoffs, would you consider yourselves the favorites to take this event, or do you think there are tougher teams in your path?

There's still MOUZ and there's still FaZe who have shown much better results and gameplay throughout this year, and we're yet to beat MOUZ on LAN, so to count ourselves as favorites, we need to beat MOUZ and we need to beat FaZe.