Danny “zonic” Sørensen’s Falcons now have the wonderchild in Ilya "m0NESY" Osipov, but in their way at IEM Melbourne stands a dynasty he helped create.
Or so at least, that is zonic’s prediction. Coming off Falcons’ dominant win against MOUZ at the IEM semi-finals, zonic, when speaking to DFRAG, was resigned to accepting it was likely his former team he would have to face in the grand finals.
That didn’t change how elated he was with his team’s performance, particularly considering their short preparation time with m0NESY after his blockbuster move from G2.
While he concedes that Vitality’s opponent, The MongolZ, are playing great Counter-Strike and there is no guarantee of a victor, he knows Vitality’s motivation to win a Grand Slam is high, and despite the fact they have plenty of chances to claim it, he knows they will want to win it sooner rather than later.
Zonic, firstly, thank you so much for joining us. I wanted to ask. This is a big dominant win over MOUZ and you're into another grand final, how's the feeling in the team?
“I mean, I feel great. I knew that we could do some damage here. You know, m0NESY is a phenomenal player, one of the best, if not the best right now. And for me… it's a joy to have him on board. I'm very impressed by him, also given that he's only 19 years old.
"We only had one practice day coming into the tournament, so it's been a little bit, you know, on the fly. We have been focusing a lot more on ourselves compared to our opponents, I would say.
"Taking it day by day, trying to talk about what maps we expect to play and then just try more, integrating him more and more into the team rather than focusing on our opponents, but super satisfied also in the fashion that we do. It's crazy to see how well the guys are doing together day by day.”
You spoke about m0NESY and how you've had very little time with him. How has it been like to have a player like that come in? Does it vastly change everything you guys have been working on?
“I mean, I think he's very versatile. He can adapt really quickly. And also I would say that him playing together with NiKo in G2 has also helped the calls or the way that we play is NiKo taking him under his wings, trying to help him mid-round.
"It's just the way he adapts. He has been a little bit confused with now having to play Train as well, so it's been a lot of new data that he had to get into, but I'm baffled to be honest with seeing how well he is adapting to us.
"As I said before, it just feels like we have been, we've been together for a while already.”
You've got Vitality or MongolZ tomorrow. Does anything different happen with having a new player bringing in a short preparation time or is it business as usual?
“I mean, it's a best-of-five and, without taking anything away from he MongolZ, I think we will face Vitality in that grand final.
"I actually think we did well last time. I think we could have gotten to a third map. It's going to be difficult in the best of five. They also really want the Grand Slam. I know them from working with them previously, and this is something that is high on their priority list; even though they have several chances, they would rather close it down now.
"It's going to be a tough game obviously, but I also think it's going to be a game where they might not like to play us. Now [that] we have gotten some extra games under our skin and you know, we have been playing more officials than practice now.
"Hopefully it's a good match. But yeah, having to prep five maps with a player that just joined is… it's not going to be the most beautiful Counter-Strike. But to be fair, I actually think we are playing decent, and we're going to go all in on trying to deny that Grand Slam.”
Falcons will return to the stage on Sunday to battle for the IEM Melbourne trophy, where they'll meet the winner of The MongolZ and Vitality: live right now!
