ozzy: Polaris is definitely the hardest regional league to compete in

EXCEL will be taking part in the VCT 2022 - EMEA Promotion Tournament this week after they won the VRL - Northern Europe: Polaris - Stage 1 - Main Event. In an interview for the THESPIKE.gg, EXCEL's IGL Oscar "ozzy" Scott spoke on the previous season, about team building and the upcoming Promotion Tournament and much more.

**Jakub “frs” Czapran: Hello ozzy! At the start I would like to congratulate you on winning the Valorant Regional League Northern Europe: Polaris. How do you feel about it? **

Oscar “ozzy” Scott: *Hello and thank you! I’m feeling very good. Honestly we knew we could win it (add. grand final). We had some worse results, we lost three matches but we just had to get through it to finally win three maps in a row in the final. It was really stressful but finally we got it. *

Before the season starts, have you defined yourselves as favorites to win this regional league?

*We did not describe ourselves as favorites. We were definitely among the TOP3 teams along with TENSTAR and Alliance but other teams are also very good. Of all the Polaris teams, we probably did best in the VCT 2022 - EMEA - Stage 1 - Challengers - Main Event qualifiers, so we were probably mentioned as the most serious candidate to win the league. *

Obviously you beat a lot of good teams like TENSTAR or Alliance. Which opponent was the most difficult for you?

*Honestly I think TENSTAR was the most difficult team to play against. Individually they always played very well, especially Domagoj "Doma" Fancev and Niko "polvi" Polvinen and it was really hard to beat them, they are great players. Team-wise though, it was the most difficult to play against Alliance. They played very methodically as well as effectively, they understand perfectly how to play the macro during the match. However, TENSTAR is really hard to play against, but I think Alliance is actually harder to play against due to their playstyle, so overall I would like to say Alliance. *

Which regional leagues do you think are the strongest? Is Polaris the best in your opinion?

*In my opinion, Polaris is definitely the hardest league to compete. None of the other regional leagues are even close to reaching a similar level. Without much thought, the second strongest league is VRL - Spain: Rising - Stage 1 - Main Event, and the others are very close to each other, but I would also like to single out VRL - France: Revolution - Stage 1 - Main Event here. *

In the grand final of VRL Polaris you started with 0-1 because you advanced there from the lower bracket. In the first map TENSTAR easily beat you 13-5, but guys you did a really great job, this comeback was actually insane. What did you feel during the match? Even at 0-2 you felt confident?

We knew very well that our Bind is not the best, and that TENSTAR is well prepared on this map, so we expected that we could lose there. On the other hand we felt very confident on Split, we knew that we can win it without any problems, because we have a 100% win ratio there (add. EXCEL played it 6 times). After that we expected that Breeze might be 50/50. We actually lost Breeze 8:13 vs. TENSTAR 3 days before the Grand Final, but during this map, we realized that we played very well today, so they couldn't stop us. We also knew they didn’t have a lot of time to prepare well on this map, so yes, we still felt confident.

**Your next step will be the VCT Promotion Tournament. Who do you think is the most serious candidate to advance to VCT Challengers? I guess for you guys of course you are one of them, but there are also teams like BIG, Papara SuperMassive and Rebels Gaming for example, so it couldn’t be easy to advance. **

Yeah I think that BIG and SMB are probably the main teams to look at, although I think that Rebels and honestly any of the teams can surprise - since they had to do a lot to get to this point they obviously proved they are somewhat decent. Especially with our group being considerably harder than the other one, anything can happen.

Are you guys planning bootcamp soon?

*Yes, we were trying to organize a bootcamp but due to the current situation in the World it’s not easy. Chiwawa is from Russia but he was looking to relocate. We were thinking about Serbia, which Russians can travel to, but unfortunately it's not likely to happen soon. We will see what we can do about it. *

I will not lie, you are one of my favorite teams, so I would like to know how this team was built. Were you part of the new EXCEL project from the beginning? What was it like?

*Building the team began with Jimmy "Jumpy" Berndtsson and Sam "Fields" Greenfield remaining on the coaching staff. EXCEL still had Muhammad "Moe" Hariff contracted, so XL decided to build a team around him. I previously played in NoPoaching with him, so he recommended me to coaches to invite me to trials. After that, they also invited Dragan "elllement" Milanović, who was my previous teammate in NoPoaching like Moe. Patryk "paTiTek" Fabrowski and Egor "chiwawa" Stepanyuk also joined the trials over time and we found that we felt the best energy with this line-up. The other players we tested were also very good, but in the end I think paTi and chiwawa fit us perfectly in character. *

Finally every one of your teammates (including you) can prove his worth. We all know what actually happened with your short episode with G2 Esports, chiwawa was really unlucky with Ninjas in Pyjamas who decided to drop the European roster and move to Brazil, paTiTek also was really unlucky with Team Heretics. Do you think your past makes you stronger today?

*In general, I think we esports players often make a lot of mistakes, we are not perfect. But through this, we gained a lot of experience and were able to draw the necessary conclusions. I think any player could honestly say that they have had a worse time in their career. It is situations like this that often build you as a player and you gain that experience. Moe is probably the youngest, but most of us have played professionally in other games, such as myself and paTiTek in CS:GO for example. I'm still working on myself, I'm not perfect but we have to figure it out. So yeah, definitely it makes us stronger today. *

So we are moving to the last one. I hope it could be kinda funny and difficult for you! Imagine you are captain of the National Team for Nations World Championships and you have to build this team only around players from the UK. Name your teammates!

Oh man, I have to take a look for players from the UK right now (laugh). If I'm included in this team I go with James "Mistic" Orfila, Travis "L1NK" Mendoza, Dom "soulcas" Sulcas and Muhammad "Moe" Hariff.

So we're done! Really thank you for your time ozzy and hope to see you soon! Best of luck guys for you in the upcoming VCT Promotion Tournament!

*Yeah thank you so much! *