"Last year's Champs run was more chaotic. This year's is more composed"- Miniboo on Team Heretics' Qualification to Champions Paris Playoffs

Team Heretics's clean 2-0 victory against T1 punched their ticket to the playoffs stage of VALORANT Champions Tour 2025 - Valorant Champions. Following this victory, Adrian from THESPIKE sat down with Heretics' star duelist Dominykas "MiniBoo" Lukasevicius to discuss growth in and out of game, team dynamics and struggles, and mentality for this year's Champions tournament

THESPIKE: Something that's been consistent from your games so far is the sheer amount of first bloods (0.28 FKPR during the group stage, the highest in the competition by far). What kind of aspect of your playstyle and your team's playstyle allows you to have such insane stats?

Miniboo: I've been an entry fragger for my whole career, and was also doing workshops in CS where you had to pre-fire bots. I was doing them so much, and it just got me into the habit of entry fragging which had become one of my strongest traits as a player.

THESPIKE: Would you say there's any player on your team that specifically enables you to get those many first kills or really helps set you up? Who would you want to shout out the most on your team?

Miniboo: I mean, I think it's everyone except maybe Ričardas "Boo" Lukaševičius because he's a smoker. Like for example, I got a lot of kills from the Deadlock grav-net and Raze grenade combo, thanks to Benjy "benjyfishy" David Fish, so he's setting me up in that way. Also Enes "RieNs" Ecirli always scanning, and also Mert "Wo0t" Alkan flashing, dashing, and all of that. Maybe if I had to choose one guy, I think it's him (Wo0t). He's always been my support and enabling me the most.

THESPIKE: What makes your team so special?

Miniboo: What's special about our team is that although we are young, we are quite mature and we know how to overcome problems. Most of the teams when faced with a problem, find it hard to deal with. Although we also have a lot of problems, but we stay together and fix it together. We solve the problem rather than avoiding it and making that roster change. Also, I think as a team despite being five individually good players, we also play structured, so I think that's unique.

THESPIKE: You mentioned some of the obstacles that you had to overcome this year but ending up staying together. It's been a really up and down road this year: what's been the mental reset coming into Champs and looking so hot right out of the gates?

Miniboo: After EWC, we thought that we were back, and coming into Stage 2 we were farming until the playoffs. I think the result doesn't define how good we were, since in playoffs we still were doing good. In practice we played the best that we ever have. I think it was just three unlucky days that we had: we understood that and just said to ourselves that they were off days. We just kept working and grinding, and thanks to Liquid now we are here.

THESPIKE: Last year's Champs compared to this year's Champs is looking quite similar with a really dominant group stage start. What would you say is different, mentality-wise about this Champs compared to last Champs?

Miniboo: I think last year was more chaotic: it was like survival, where you play one game by game, you're super emotionally excited, you're just sending it... we didn't have any expectations.

This year is more composed, like we're all more cool. We are controlling more things and I think the wins have been more dominant compared to the previous year because I remember against FunPlus Phoenix and Gen.G Esports, we barely won.

THESPIKE: You only finished high school last year, having to do exams during VCT 2024 - Masters Shanghai and so you've come into the scene really young. How has playing with Heretics and being in the VCT helped you develop as a person alongside as a player?

Miniboo: As a person, I've been working with older people, like my brother. I've got to see him way more because in 2023 with him in the VCT, I didn't see him for the whole year.

Then with Neil, Weber, Rob, Nicholas, we had more performing coaches, which helped me professionally. We acted like we were the best in the world and we trained as the best in the world. And the mentality of always fixing the mistake, solving it, understanding the mistake, and actually like trying to do it better has also been applicable in real life: in every scenario of my life I always try to be the best and to improve rather than by avoiding the problem and I have encouraged my friends and family to do the same.

THESPIKE: You've qualified to playoffs: what's the team that you want to face the most?

Miniboo: Honestly, I really hope that EDward Gaming makes it. I really want to play against them because of last year's champs and I think it would be iconic to play against them. Also, they're a really good team and they have a nice jacket. So yeah, I'm really excited to play against them. I think it would be a banger match.

THESPIKE: Thank you for your time and congratulations again on the win. Good luck in playoffs.

Team Heretics face off against MIBR on 26 September for their first playoffs match. To keep up with everything Champions, tune into THESPIKE.GG.