"Playing NRG in playoffs would be fun"- westside Gives His Thoughts on Qualifying for Champions Paris Playoffs

For the first time in the organization's history, GIANTX have qualified to the playoffs stage at VALORANT Champions Tour 2025 - Valorant Champions after beating Throwing Academy in 2-0 fashion. Following this major achievement, GX's Miłosz "westside" Duda spoke to Adrian from THESPIKE on the team's slow starts, his pivotal role on the team, and a potential Cypher hat debut on the playoffs stage.

THESPIKE: It was a pretty shaky map one being 8-4 down. In a previous interview, you mentioned how the team treats every round like a BO1. Is that a similar approach mentally that you took to close out map 1?

westside: When we are down on the rounds, I'm not going to lie, we are kind of used to it because our first maps are always kind of shaky since we need to get into the game first. And then round by round, we are just coming back and starting to play our game. But anyway, I would say the two maps we played today, it was not even close to what we can actually do. Because I think we should have done much better, but we still won.

THESPIKE: What percent of GX do you think you showed today?

westside: I think versus Paper Rex, I would say it was like 80%. And today, I would say it was like 60%. And PRX was a much bigger stomp as well from their side.

**THESPIKE: We saw you on Cypher on Ascent against a very aggressive duelist in Arthur "Rarga" Churyumov, who's literally dashing through everything in mid, and on-site. How do you keep adjusting your setups to try to counter him?

westside: I mean it's pretty rough because we expected something else since they played a different comp on Ascent last time.

Yet, for example when it was 11-8 and they had bad money, I thought they would do something aggressive to try to build the economy and try to win the round. So, the only thing they could do is probably try to force and rush something together. This is a time when I'm putting traps because I expect them to go fast and dash, so I'm trying to put the traps that are hard for them to break to counter updrafts to make it easier. And of course I put my cages at a distance, because when you have a better gun, it's better for you to use the distance when they have, for example, stingers.

THESPIKE: You're still repping the Wingman hat. What kind of buff has that given you now that you've qualified to playoffs?

westside: You know, I really like this hat because when I was playing before, I was wearing the default cap. Now, I want to just have fun and switch things around. Maybe next time it's going to be a Cypher one if they will allow me. I think it would be super fun. And for me it's comfortable to have headsets on something squishy. When I'm playing, it's not annoying me that much because the headsets are super hard on your ears.

THESPIKE: It's such a massive achievement for GX finally making it to the playoffs stage of Champions. You've been with a team for the past year or so, and the results at the beginning of the year weren't as good compared to now after bringing Eduard-George "ara" Hanceriuc and Karel "Flickless" Maeckelbergh in. Ara was going insane today, but what would you say, as his teammate, that Flickless brings most to the team?

westside: I mean he's super calm, showing almost no emotions when the round is ongoing. He's controlling most of the stuff that is happening. When there is chaos, he is always telling us to chill since he's in control of it. And I think this helps a lot in situations like against XLG because that's a super fast team on us.

VALORANT Champions Tour 2025 - Valorant Champions

GIANTX

2

X

0

XLG Esports

Group A - Decider Match, Best of 3 - September 21, 2025 - 4:00PM

14

Bind

12

13

Ascent

10

GIANTX

player

Rating

ACS

K/D/A

+/-

K/D

KAST

ADR

HS%

FBSR

FB

FD

ara

1.44

304

54/31/4

+23

1.74

67.7%

187.1

25%

68%

13

6

Cloud

0.95

205

33/36/15

-3

0.92

69.9%

144.0

35%

0%

0

4

Flickless

0.94

166

25/30/27

-5

0.83

74.3%

107.9

24%

33%

2

4

GRUBINHO

0.88

155

25/36/26

-11

0.69

69.4%

102.1

40%

55%

6

5

westside

0.87

173

32/34/10

-2

0.94

73.7%

109.4

39%

56%

5

4

XLG Esports

player

Rating

ACS

K/D/A

+/-

K/D

KAST

ADR

HS%

FBSR

FB

FD

NoMan

1.19

216

40/30/15

+10

1.33

75.7%

130.3

29%

45%

5

6

Viva

1.08

213

37/27/13

+10

1.37

76.8%

155.3

34%

60%

3

2

Rarga

1.07

230

37/40/13

-3

0.93

73.5%

138.9

31%

79%

11

3

happywei

0.88

200

34/37/10

-3

0.92

67.0%

133.0

45%

20%

3

12

coconut

0.58

117

19/35/15

-16

0.54

73.2%

78.1

20%

25%

1

3

THESPIKE: How about yourself? What's the biggest thing you do for the team?

westside: I think I bring a lot of joy: when we are having fun, I'm trying to hype out everyone and scream so they're gonna scream back as well, make them stand up too. I think I bring them more confidence in places too. I try to notice every place someone on my team is doing insane flashes or insane kills- it's super important to compliment my teammates on those.

THESPIKE: Who do you want to face the most in playoffs?

westside: I would say it's for sure not gonna be a team from EMEA since I think it would be boring. I would be looking to rematch against PRX, but NRG would be fun as well.

THESPIKE: Can you please send a message to the GX fans?

westside: Thank you everyone for supporting us. Sadly, I couldn't sign and do pictures with all of you guys. But if you come next time, I will try to do as much as I can for you. Much love.

THESPIKE: Thank you for your time westside, and good luck in playoffs.

Looks like westside got his wish as his team goes up against NRG on 26 September. Stay tuned to GX's run in the playoffs as well as all things Champions at THESPIKE.GG.